If you are a founder-entrepreneur, then you are, in all likelihood, part of your venture’s senior leadership as well. You are, for all intents and purposes, the head of the organization. What throws your position into sharp relief is that the designation is a nod to how the enterprise has undergone the process of conception, gesticulation, and eventual birth – all inside your head. However, a significant factor which takes the reality of running a business well beyond the scope of this analogy is that the actual process of labor that is initiated after the birth of the enterprise, and continues throughout its active life.  

Strategic implementation of new company policies or programs requires dedicated management to drive the maximum impact. Naturally, the involvement of good leadership plays a crucial role in causing the process to follow through to its successful culmination. How to go about this crucial process is explained as follows.  

Communicating mission and vision

The first task that you need to achieve to kick-start the process of enabling an organization-wide transformation is to invite and initiate the participation of all the departments in the organization, across all verticals. This requires the higher management to effectively communicate the business vision to HR while persuading and motivating the workforce into action by conveying a sense of urgency and stoking the interest of employees.

In order to organically inspire the workforce into action, your job becomes helping the workforce to understand the benefits that will follow the proposed transformation as well as the setbacks that the organization stands to face in its absence. Having a global vision and overarching mission in place can go a long way in uplifting the morale of employees and building trust in the leadership. 

Facilitating transparency

As the success of a strategic implementation depends on the motivated participation of all departments—especially those that will be affected by it the most—the leadership also needs to establish and enable a strong value system within the organization. Such a system not only encourages employees to participate in the business process and, thus, makes them feel valued but also instills confidence towards the management. For this to happen, the first initiative to be taken by the senior leadership is to enable transparency regarding its decision-making. Transparent execution of business policies helps the workforce in gaining deeper insights into the thought process behind the strategy and makes them feel like an important contributor to the organization’s growth.

Enabling long-term progress

In the face of a rapidly-evolving business landscape, leaders tend to make decisions based on anticipated short-term returns as opposed to long-term goals. This is because they are of the view—and rightly so—that what may work for the company in the present context may become obsolete within a span of five years. Therefore, business leaders need to inculcate the quality of prudence to develop strategies for the long haul. Against such a backdrop, stagnation can translate to self-sabotage. While experience is a must-have, agility of thought is the greatest requirement for the leadership to drive the company towards success. The capacity to anticipate potential setbacks requires new-age leaders to be well-versed with current industry trends. Only then can they drive innovation and rational execution of business strategies in the company.

Creating value for all stakeholders involved

A fundamental quality of any successful business is its ability to create value for all stakeholders; be it customers, investors, employees, or the leaders themselves. The motive of every business strategy is to scale-up dividends. The goal of good leadership, then, is to develop robust strategies and convince the stakeholders that the proposed approach will add value to their involvement with the company and then deliver upon the vision. 

In this manner, the involvement of good leadership can be a critical factor in determining the success of an organization. It would not be far-fetched to say that an able management team is the adhesive that keeps an organization together. Agile leaders not only play a key role in strategic implementation but also enable the company to achieve greater scale and growth.

In today’s dynamic business landscape, it is all the more necessary for leaders to develop themselves as agile thinkers to make the most of their labor. Agile leaders who are well-equipped to understand the nitty-gritty of evolving business processes and practices can put their organization leagues ahead of competitors. In other words, competent leadership can drive a company towards creating differentiation ahead of its time, rather than having to catch up with other organizations.