To achieve progress in a world filled with unprecedented distraction today’s successful leader is either anticipating, designing or implementing change to achieve progress.
Companies rarely die from moving too fast, they die from moving too slow. Agile leaders are breathing new life into the initiatives they oversee by taking action and running experiments in order to be fit for an unknown future.
Here’s what you need to stay grounded in a fast changing world.
1 – Focus On What You Know To Be True.
Nicole Wischoff, is the Founder and sole general partner at Wischoff Ventures which according to her website, “Invests in relentless early-stage growth technology companies.” She shared recently on X, “A few things that were different in terms of LP sentiment raising this year vs two years ago” and included the reality that, “A very big focus on shedding old relationships and finding the “future” established managers early that want to build legacies.”
Veracious leadership will give you the momentum you seek.
2 – Reinvent As Part Of Your Process, Not Part Of A Project.
When speaking to the succession plan at JP Morgan at a conference of pension funds and institutional investors, Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon commented that “annual shareholder meetings are a waste of time, especially for companies that spend time addressing investor concerns and questions in regulatory filings” according to Reuters.
The Reuters piece further notes that, “Dimon also weighed in on how corporate boards are structured. Chair titles should be scrapped, because lead directors have comparable importance and play a similar role in terms of convening board meetings and setting agendas.”
The most impactful leaders are reinventing in the throes of disruption and quantifying success along the way.
3 – Experiment With The Existing System.
Jason Lennox is a revenue cycle and regulatory leader in healthcare and author of “A Perfect Tragedy, Finding Purpose in Pain, Loss and Addiction.” Lennox’s goal is to create real change in businesses and communities by building an ecosystem of partnerships to radically transform the healthcare space.
In a recent interview when asked how he’s accelerating progress to achieve success he said, “Tapping into the concept of community in recovery that saved my life, I’m helping clients understand that we need not fight for small pieces of the pie. About 250,000 people die each year from drug and alcohol related deaths, with less than 10% of those that need help getting it.”
To solve this problem Lennox said, “I’m creating systems that measure and positively impact financial outcomes, as well as clinical outcomes that can be leveraged to drive innovative interventions in client care. To get there, we need buy in, accountability, and collaboration from and with providers, insurers, and governmental agencies, and in the middle of that triangle is where I’m standing.”
Where leaders see opportunity for change there is no need to start from scratch. Start in the middle and attract key players with your speed to market.
4 – Provoke Generative Discussions.
Jack Raines is a 27-year-old Columbia Business School graduate I had the great fortune of being seated next to at a dinner party a few years ago. He is the former Editor in Chief of Exec Sum a financial newsletter and now the staff writer for Robinhood’s media venture, Sherwood News, covering from his LinkedIn profile, “… (in my opinion) the most interesting stories in business.”
When asked in a recent interview what he learns from igniting discussions, Raines said, “We get so caught up in “business talk” and formalities that we fail to discuss deeper, more interesting topics that could be more valuable for us and our conversation partners.
Imagine, for example, you’re at a cocktail party, and you spend an hour and a half chatting with someone about what they do for work. What did you learn from that conversation, really? Try something different and ask, ‘What alternative career path did you talk yourself out of pursuing when you embarked on your current path?’”
He summed it up by sharing that, “People trust those who are willing to explore deeper levels of vulnerability in their conversations, and I try my best to demonstrate my willingness to have those conversations.”
Great conversations lead to something new in all participants. Do your work and take your dialogue to the next level.
5 – Be An Optimist, like most Americans.
Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst, Tim Malloy found in an August 2024 Quinnipiac poll that “more than two-thirds of likely voters (69 percent) think America’s best days are ahead of us, while 17 percent think America’s best days are behind us and 14 percent did not offer an opinion.” He continued that “Despite their differences, nearly 7 in 10 voters see brighter days on the horizon. While Democrats are the most hopeful, followed by independents then Republicans; in the aggregate, Americans are choosing optimism.”
Armed with this data it’s a good time to ask ourselves what we’ll create when we lean into a brighter picture of what is to come.
6 – See Yourself As An Agent Of Global Change.
If you find yourself unable to embrace optimism, consider the outcome if you don’t do something about that. In an interview with McKinsey’s Janet Bush, Pedro Conceição Director of the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, shared the biggest international pain points. “According to our data from the World Values Survey that we use in our report, half of the global population today does not feel in control of their lives. So, there is a huge “agency gap,” he said. “We also find that the more insecure people feel, the larger this agency gap is. So, there’s a connection between this perception of insecurity and lack of empowerment, lack of agency.”
Conceicao further noted, “I’m paraphrasing Václav Havel, who said to this effect: being pessimistic or optimistic is an assessment that one makes about what’s probable. Hopefully it’s about fighting for something we want to happen. And so even if you are pessimistic, you should still be hopeful. Because you should still be fighting for that world that we all aspire to.”
The key is to know what you’re advocating for and be confident in your ability to get it done or at the very least, move the needle.
7 – Achieve Friendship With Silence.
Among the many encouraging outcomes to support the importance of meditation, a recent NIH study titled, ‘The mindful leader: a review of leadership qualities derived from mindfulness meditation,” found that a meditation practice helps to re-program our hardware and software.
“Having identified, analyzed, and synthesized the relevant conceptual models, empirical evidences, and theoretical explanations, we have built a theory about the qualities of the mindful leader that we believe expands our scientific knowledge of the novel phenomenon,”
The study concluded, “Based on the neuroscientific evidence of positive influence of mindfulness mediation on our brain’s default mode network (DMN) and our executive control network (ECF), and on our sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), and the interoceptive signals flowing from our body to the brain. We are now convinced that, in order to acquire the three main leader qualities, that we associate with the mindful leader, leaders must employ a formal mindfulness meditation practice.”
The data is clear. You are a trustee of your brain and body. If you’re taking care of those things with the stillness and reflection necessary, you can accelerate your success.
Nothing will ever be the same. If you’re failing to capitalize on the abundance of ideas and opportunities, you’ll be left behind.
Get uncomfortable. Take action. Listen for a deeper level of authority and watch your position change.
This post was originally published on here
