Success comes from executing the right strategy well – this requires the right leadership capability, team and culture.

“To be successful businesses must have the right strategy with the culture to execute it well. This requires the right leadership capability and an engaged and talented team performing at their best”.

The competitive landscape of businesses keeps changing at an ever-increasing pace, fueled by the rapid advances in communication, connectivity and other technological innovations that provide business leaders and customers more information to factor into their decision making processes.

But, as technology advances, providing more information, it’s people that ultimately make the decisions on what to do and what not to do, how to execute the strategy and how to lead and get the best out of their people.

In today’s increasingly competitive and discerning markets customers expectations are higher and there’s greater choice. Businesses need the right leadership capability to determine the right strategy to deliver the value and service customers demand and they need a talented and engaged workforce to execute the strategy well.

To achieve this success businesses need leaders at all levels who are:

• Commercially agile and technology savvy, strong critical thinkers and decision makers, customer centric, more collaborative and emotionally intelligent.
• More out-centric (as opposed to ego-centric unilateral decision makers), with a deeper curiosity to engage and ask the right questions of their team, encouraging the best from them and capitalising on the ideas and talents they contribute.
• Courageous and ambiguity tolerant, willing to adapt quickly to dynamic market conditions and with the credibility and influence to bring others along with the change.
• Relationship builders who develop trust and credibility through their integrity to deliver, and their ability to engage and communicate effectively across all levels of the business.
• Disciplined and accountable to ensure that the business operates efficiently and productively, delivering the best levels of internal service and process excellence.

When you strip it all back, what delivers great performance and success in a business is doing the right things well at the right time.

As Peter F Drucker is often quoted “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things”.

So, how do you sustain success or transform into a business that performs better than the competitors? How do you deliver increased shareholder returns, improved business results, more customer value and better reward and engagement for your business leaders and your employees. It’s doing the right things right, i.e. leading and managing well.

Hiring the right leaders, developing internal leadership capability and retaining your best talent is the key to having a high performance engaged culture executing the right strategy well.

To achieve business success and improved performance leaders also need to connect the business’s purpose with the strategy plan for successful execution. In addition to having the right capabilities leaders need to have the right values, motivators, attitudes and behaviours to create the right culture to inspire and bring the best performance out of their employees. Employees who also identify with and are passionate about the business’s purpose and who will thrive in a culture where they can give the best contribution.

Game changing companies have the same things in common: “They are purpose-driven, performance-oriented, and principles-led.” Linda Hill, Professor, Havard Business School, Winner of the 2015 Thinkers 50 Innovation Award.

Business leaders and their employees need to be purpose driven, performance orientated and principles led as individuals. Without the right leadership and culture to inspire the team the business strategy won’t be executed successfully and the optimum performance won’t be achieved.

The business world is today more competitive, with increasing customer expectations and more volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). But the same competitive world is faced by all business leaders. So again it comes down to having the right leadership capability with the right strategy and a talented and engaged team to execute it well.

As Sun Tzu the great Chinese philosopher of War in the 5th Century BC said “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity”. 

The ‘chaos’ of the VUCA world is here to stay, so leaders need to embrace it and ignite the passion in their teams to execute strategy well. By doing so business leaders can exploit the opportunities that a dynamic market creates and achieve greater business success.

In summary:

• To be successful in today’s VUCA world businesses must have the right strategy with the culture to execute it well. This requires talented leaders with the right capabilities who are purpose-driven, performance-orientated and principles-led.
• The key is to have a clear leadership and succession strategy in place and invest in hiring in and developing the right high performing high potential leaders.
• With the right leadership and culture inspiring a talented engaged team, then in the paraphrased words of Sun Tzu, you’ll have the greatest opportunity to achieve success in today’s dynamic business environment.