“He who fails to plan is planning to fail.”

Winston Churchill

A lot of discussions of leadership focus on the qualities that define success, and such discussions certainly have their place. We must keep in mind however, that qualities such as “vision,” “determination,” or “empathy” are not actual behaviors, but abstractions. And while abstractions are useful for theorizing, it is what leaders actually do that really matters.

There is no question about it that leadership is invariably the single most influential factor that determines success and failure in business, but such statements alone tell us only part of what we really need to know. What we really need to ask ourselves are more behaviorally oriented questions regarding what kinds of things successful leaders actually do that accounts for the results that they produce. So let’s focus for the moment on a few things that effective leaders do.

Effective leaders insist on sound strategic planning

If you look at businesses that flourish while their competitors struggle, among the observable differences is that their leaders place an emphasis on strategy. They make sure that (1) an appropriate strategic plan is in place, (2) that it is the basis for their day-to-day activities, and (3) that it is regularly reviewed and adjusted. While this sounds simple and obvious, many business owners do not adhere to this set of standards and suffer as a result.

Some don’t even have a written plan — these are invariably outperformed by their competitors who do. Others go to the trouble to assemble a plan as a matter of course, but then don’t regularly review and revise it. The result is that it gathers dust in some obscure place and has very little to do with day-to-day operations. Both of the above are variations on what might be called “non-strategic” approaches to doing business, and their consequences can be quite severe.

When you see organizations that are consistently dealing with unanticipated problems and expending energy “putting out fires,” it’s usually because they manage their affairs in one of the two above fashions. At the very least, adhering to a good strategic plan will reduce errors, oversights, and other setbacks that waste time and resources. At most, it can be a means of achieving incredible growth and prosperity.

Strategic planning as an ongoing, organic process

Really great companies (e.g., Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson) that have demonstrated success over the long haul owe their success to diligent and ongoing attention to their emphasis on developing strong plans, and then carefully follow through with their execution. Strategizing, implementation, evaluation, and revision are woven into their corporate cultures and day-to-day practices. Granted, the two examples cited above are corporate giants, but the truth is that all businesses benefit from planning, regardless of size.

Beginning with the end in mind

Whether your desire is to improve your position in the market, expand into new ones, reduce costs, or meet external challenges, you’ll only be as successful as your strategy for doing so is appropriate. Being proactive is an absolute must, especially in the tumultuous and challenging times in which we live. Oddly enough however, we continue to see complacency and reactivity characterize the management of many businesses, much to their detriment. 

One result is that they end up reacting to unanticipated problems, constantly beset by issues that could have been avoided. Meanwhile, their more proactive competitors claim and profit from business that could have been theirs. As has so often been paraphrased, people don’t plan to fail — they fail to plan.

What should a functional strategic plan look like? Below is a list of “must includes,” but this should be only regarded as a schematic. It takes genuine dedication, creativity, and hard work to turn it into a road map to success. It should however, include at least the following:

• Vision: An Idealized future of your business in terms of what you intend to accomplish several years down the road.

• Core values: Ethical principles that will not be compromised under any circumstances. Any principle that can be bent, twisted, or ignored under any circumstance should not be included. 

• External analysis: Everything outside your organization that needs to be considered.  This means that you’ll be seriously involved in a lot of research.

• Internal analysis: Your resources, capabilities, strengths, and limitations.

• Mission/objectives: What you intend to get done within a specific limited time frame (12-18 months is common). Limit the number of objectives to those that are essential, so as to be realistic. Many successful planning processes will specify four to seven objectives at a time.

• Critical goal categories: Areas of activity for which you’ll be setting specific business goals (e.g., increasing sales, cutting costs, hiring & training of personnel, expanding/reducing range of products offered, etc.)

• Specific goals: These must be measurable, attainable, and realistic. It’s important to quantify these in terms of tangible outcomes.

• Action steps: Exactly what you’ll be doing to realize these proposed outcomes.

All of these phases are interrelated, united by your vision and values. Vision and values together (along with a lot serious and thorough reflection) should provide the guiding light for the rest of the development process.

Managing the planning process: The devil is in the details

Insisting on having a functional plan is the easy part. Leading a business through the process of getting one in place is another matter. Since this is almost always a group effort, anticipate problems stemming from the fact that human beings have egos and are by nature imperfect beings. Anyone who has ever participated in a planning process knows that the experience can be as exasperating as it is exhilarating. As a student of group dynamics, I’ve always been intrigued and amazed at what such endeavors reveal about human nature.

Funny things happen when people convene to address problems, even with the best of intentions. History shows us that such activity often brings out the good, the bad, and the ugly in people, so get ready for a ride. This is where wise and noble leadership becomes an essential if the process is to yield a plan that will serve the organization well, because variations on the following group processes have been known to derail planning efforts:

• Intra-group conflict: Inability to reach consensus due to animosity among those involved. Many organizations and communities suffer because egos and personal agendas take precedence over solving critical problems.

• Diffusion of purpose: Even groups that are not hampered by conflict often fail to produce, due to meandering and directionless meetings that go nowhere and yield little in terms of results. This usually means that the group lacks imagination, information, or both.

• Groupthink: Bad decisions due to a breakdown in critical thinking because the group lacks diversity of thought. Irving Janis, the psychologist that coined the term, studied the disastrous results wrought by planning done in groups in which agreement took precedence over exploring alternative possibilities to a sufficient degree.

Errant and unproductive meetings are common, and many observers suggest that they are the rule rather than the exception. This is where strong leadership makes all the difference in the world.

Effective leaders anticipate and minimize destructive group processes

Although many definitions of effective leadership exist, my favorite ones are those that emphasize actions leading to desirable results. Good leaders are those that have a good sense of Murphy’s Law applied to human activity. They are driven by goals themselves, and manage to keep individual group members focused on outcomes rather than the petty things that so often distract people. 

They tend to be strong in their technical knowledge, but are also wonderful applied psychologists.  Most of all, they tend to be patient and in command of themselves. The research literature on effective leadership consistently shows that they tend to be passionate, but rarely are they impulsive or temperamental. They are almost invariably of good moral character. 

Warren Bennis, the well known expert on leadership spent years interviewing people who were well known for their ability to consistently lead their organizations to success. He identified four areas of strength that characterized the leaders that he studied, which he described in terms of what they were good at managing. These were:  Management of attention (an unwavering focus on those things that mattered most to their organizations); management of meaning (the ability to communicate effectively); management of trust; and management of self.

Perhaps what accounts for their success is their ability to engage in a constant process of self-improvement, always in a state of “becoming.” Interestingly enough, experts on leadership insist that leadership is something that can be developed in most people, to the extent to which they are genuinely concerned with personal growth.

Some problems with contemporary popular culture 

What is disturbing is that our culture is so focused on issues associated with immediate gratification, despite what we know about the value of planning and staying focused on the future. From all accounts, our schools have become places in which bullying and other antisocial behaviors are common, and our politicians display behaviors that are often anything but those that we would associate with effective leadership.  

Many Americans agree that our country is headed in the wrong direction, but have few suggestions for ways to put us on the right track. Given such a consensus, it is peculiar that we fail to act on what we know. It may very well be that our popular culture, with its focus on immediate gratification has become our problem. There seems to have been a resurgence of interest in the values expressed by those that founded our country and warned us of some of the things we are now seeing. Perhaps by focusing on history and understanding our past, can we plan for a better future.