The concept of “business leadership” in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous VUCA world means a lot of different things to a lot different people and can be measured many different ways. Large global organizations think their key metric of success is the creation of shareholder value; small start-up think their key metric of success is survival. While both approaches are technically right, I believe that ultimately business leadership is how well you execute your business strategy through the people who work for your organization and deliver your value proposition to the right customers.
Strong leaders will understand personality styles, set the right objectives and key results, coach people, have hard conversations, develop teams, create an environment of innovation, and can lead through change to achieve success. But that’s not all…
In the VUCA world, it’s simply not that easy. The VUCA world is more unpredictable than ever in every phase of business and leaders are struggling with getting their arms around what to do and how to measure success.
Introducing the VUCA Leadership Scoreboard!
The VUCA leadership scoreboard can help leaders figure out how to be successful in this VUCA world. Essentially, the ultimate goal of a leader in the VUCA world is to turn:
- Volatility into Vision
- Uncertainty into Understanding
- Complexity into Clarity
- Ambiguity into Alignment
Volatility into Vision
The leadership scoreboard elements here include the following:
- Have you assessed the entire business ecosystem, acknowledged the challenges and the opportunities and turned your insights into a strategy?
- Do your people know the big picture and understand the strategy and value proposition being offered to customers?
- Can every employee deliver an “elevator pitch” that describes the vision of your company in 45 seconds or less?
All of these elements are easily measured…
Uncertainty into Understanding
The leadership scoreboard elements here include the following:
- Do your people understand the business ecosystem that they compete in?
- Do your people understand who your customers are? Your competitors? Your key suppliers?
- Do your people really understand the business that you are in? Do they understand your products and services? Are they passionate about them? Do they understand how your products and services help your customers achieve success?
All of these elements are easily measured…
Complexity into Clarity
The leadership scoreboard elements here include the following:
- Have your people provided a clear strategy and value proposition to your customers?
- Do your customers have a clarity of the value you are providing them?
- Do your managers cascade the strategy and value proposition down in the organization and is everyone clear about their roles and responsibilities?
All of these elements are easily measured…
Ambiguity into Alignment
The leadership scoreboard elements here include the following:
- Are your businesses, divisions, functions, structures, and systems aligned for both operational excellence and to deliver the right value proposition to the right customers?
- Are your people communicating internally and externally in a way that supports this alignment?
- Are your middle-level managers aligning the work in a way that is optimized and rewarding for the people who are actually doing the work?
In summary, it’s only a negative VUCA world if you let it be. In the positive VUCA world, leaders are doing everything possible to do the things needed to have vision, understanding, clarity, and alignment.