Last week I had the privilege of working with an amazing group of emerging leaders getting their first real taste of professional leadership development. The focus of the week long workshop was an integration of Business Acumen and Business Leadership skills all centered around a customized business simulation.  In the business simulation, teams of emerging leaders took control of their own company and were responsible to setting and executing the strategy of their business over three simulated years.  As important as the business drivers, outcomes and financial metrics were as part of the learning experience, so were the business leadership and interpersonal skill lessons and opportunities for development gained through team dynamics, creating alignment in their simulated teams, and making decisions that impacted the “employees” working in their simulated companies.

One of the most important aspects of developing your Business Acumen skills is to know what to do with data that comes into your world from the outside business ecosystem.  For example, Jobs Data.  Last week, the US Department of Labor released new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed the US economy only added 20,000 new jobs after several months of averaging over 150,000 per month for the past several months on top of 101 months of consecutive growth.

Most leaders feel they are defined by the structure and boundaries of their own organization.  Even in complex, global, matrixed organizations leaders see themselves as part of the inner structure constantly looking for new ways to make old perspectives and situations work.  During the past six months, I have been on the road literally every week delivering leadership development programs for leaders who are thirsting for new skills and new perspectives on how to be more effective in their leadership roles.  During this time, it has become increasingly clear that too many leaders have a dangerous internal view and either has lost the ability (or never had the ability) to see and have an outward perspective.  An “Inward-Out” leadership point of view requires leaders to see and understand the big picture of their industry and the economic and strategic drivers of their business that help achieve success.  It requires understanding the trends that are shaping markets and customer demand and seeing things that customers, competitors, and others haven’t seen yet instead of just reacting to everything which is usually too late.

Is it laziness? Stupidity? Lack of Business Acumen?  Lack of Selling and/or Sales Prospecting Skills?   What is it that prompts businesses and “sales people” to go to a prospective customer’s website and fill in the “Contact Me” page with a commercial about THEIR products and services.

Not a week goes by where potential vendors to our small business clogs up our pipeline by going to our contact me page and fills it up with pre-fabricated junk about mailing lists, trades hows, travel programs, marketing materials, and of course cheap computer programming services in India.

You are an experienced leader and have been successfully leading and coaching direct reports for many years.  As you’ve advanced in your career and moved up in the organization, your role has evolved from managing individual contributors to managing the managers of individual contributors.  As we all know, that can be a difficult transition as you are now another level away from the “real work” of physically making products or delivering services.

This week, I had the opportunity of working with a group of leaders of leaders and we were exploring some of their current leadership challenges. One of the more interesting topics we focused on was the changing needs of first-time coaches.  The consensus of my group of experienced leaders was that today’s first-time coaches need foundational coaching skills.  There are many reasons for this most of which are related to the changing work environment, matrixed organizations, less structure, and a more conflict averse coaching layer of managers.  To the experienced leader managing new leaders, this can be very frustrating.