Are you a creative or reactive leader?

This month we are delighted to have a guest blog from our friends at Action Coach West Hertfordshire. You can count on them to ask you great questions about what you are doing and more importantly WHY you are doing it? In this article they have included lots of food for thought and questions to consider! 

Are you a creative or reactive leader?

Some experts believe that good leaders are creative rather than reactive. In other words, they foresee future demands and patterns and develop new products or adjust existing ones to meet those needs.

Things are evolving at a frenetic pace nowadays for a variety of reasons. That\’s why it\’s more vital than ever to know how those changes will affect your company… and devise strategies for maximising the benefits of those improvements.

Are you a proactive or reactive leader?

Here\’s how you can put your abilities to the test. Do you lead in a creative or reactive manner?

You must become better at starting things and making things new…or making new things if you want to grow quickly in the company you work for or accelerate the progress of the company you run.

Jim Collins (author of \”Good to Great\”) noted in Fast Company magazine (\”The Secret Life of the CEO\”) that the top CEOs don\’t focus as much on gaining market share as they do on developing their products and services.

The following are some of the questions that creative business leaders frequently ask themselves:

What exactly do potential customers require right now?

What is it that concerns them?

What is the source of their suffering?

What would they be excited to purchase?\”

What can I do to make our existing customers happier?

What can we do to improve the things we sell?

Is it more practical?

Is there anything more valuable?\”

Do you think about these things? Regularly? And if you do, do you come up with not just decent, but exceptional answers…answers that can help your company advance? Check out the following checklist from a recent issue of Executive Leadership to see how innovative you are.

Ask yourself…are you?

• Internally driven
• Focused on the work, not politics
• Goal-oriented around, rather than crisis-centred
• Good relationship builder

Ask yourself…do you?

• make full use of your strongest talents
• set aggressive long-term goals

The above are all characteristics of creative leaders.

Here are the traits of \”reactive\” leaders.  They generally:

• are motivated by external factors like money and power
• are focused on corporate politics, not the work
• allow their time to be dictated by what\’s in their inbox
• sometimes ignore their strongest talents in favour of \”good management.\”
• plan in one- to five-year increments
• they believe nothing is sacred and relationships are expendable

How many of those reactive characteristics apply to you?

How would you grade yourself?

The best leaders are indeed long-term oriented, people-friendly, loyal, eager to provide better products & services, and unconcerned about where they stand in just about any pecking order…either in their industry or within their business.

And that\’s something to think about…

Want to learn some leadership skills? Call ActionCOACH West Hertfordshire at 01442 773310 or email westherts@actioncoach.co.uk and our expert coaches will be happy to help you with your business.