Effective management requires leadership, change management, communication and accountability. When thrown into unexpected circumstances, organizations who stick to their methods, assess their resources and quickly formulate new strategies can meet unexpected risks and obstacles. 

Leadership and Change Management

Some leaders are much more effective than their colleagues. How, exactly, do they unite the members of their organizations and guide them decisively through challenges and obstacles? Why does one organization rise to excellence while another, with comparable resources, languishes on a plateau of mediocrity? The answers are rooted in how leaders interpret the word, ‘standard.’ For many, it means “anything authorized as the measure for quantity or quality,” but a gifted few are reshaping the concept into a new doctrine of “recognized excellence.” Consider the difference; the first is simply a yardstick while the second is a way of life, a culture.

The leader of an organization might simply be concerned with changing policies and procedures. Before forward thinking leaders make changes, however, they think about how those changes will affect those who carry them out and those whom they will affect. Stakeholders must be persuaded to transfer their emotional equity from “the way things are” and invest it in the new plan or strategy. The ways in which information is presented can profoundly affect that process. The best leaders are convincing, appealing, knowledgeable and appreciate the value of earning stakeholders’ emotional equity. They know that the first and one of the most crucial, manifestations of the agency’s new community and corporate culture is its style of communication.

Communication

Some communicators are skilled at finding words that will elicit cooperation, offer opportunity and instill motivation throughout their community, but the soul of leadership is about finding the right words and the right method as there are many ways to convey information. Executive directors who want to create a quality culture must display understanding on all levels. Quite simply, leaders cannot influence those whom they don’t understand or successfully promote a mission without sharing their understanding of it. They demonstrate familiarity with the path to be followed; they show concern for those they are leading and empower them by sharing information about how the elements of change will interact with each other.

Before acting, the best leaders ask themselves what form of communication is the most appropriate; a casual email, an in-person chat, a hand-written note, a departmental memo or meeting, a detailed letter or a company meeting. They are adept at matching content with the appropriate venue.

It doesn’t take more effort to actively produce a positive chain-reaction than to passively allow a negative one, it just takes more planning. In fact, it’s usually easier to identify, prioritize and respond to potentials than it is to cope with the aftermath of neglect, but it cannot be done “freehand.” Leaders must draw on all available resources and make long and short-term plans, and communicate them clearly.

Accountability 

Accountability can move a person or organization towards quality and achievement, or down towards inferiority and possibly disaster. Like everything related to success, accountability in any organization begins with its leader. Without establishing accountability, the fabric of assessment, strategic planning, implementation and reviewing results unravels, taking safety, quality and successful outcomes with it. 

It’s about empowering qualified, dependable individuals who make sure that things are more likely to go right, and who will seek preventive solutions if something unexpected does occur. Accountability is a tool for team-building, quality assurance and risk management and a vital link between safety and quality.

Adapted from Pinnacle: A Leader’s Quest for Quality. ®2003 Irwin Siegel Agency, Inc.