Influential Leadership: The Best and the Worst of Times!
During the course of the past few weeks, two South African business-related news items caught my Leadership attention.
The one headline states that South Africa’s largest mobile network operator is going to retrench staff to reduce costs… This is a business that made an operating profit of R29,252 billion (US$1,541 billion) in 2023.
The other headline is about a major supermarket retailer in South Africa, that made ‘strategic mistakes’, which have resulted in substantive risks to the business… and its people.
These headlines brought to mind the opening paragraphs of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.[i]
(Refer to the endnote)
While the primary theme of Dickens’ two cities tale (London and Paris, I believe, but not the cities as much as what was going on in them) is about light and dark, the productive and the unproductive—my take-out is that we always have the two living together, the best of times with the worst of times.
The implication for Influential Leadership is that we must exercise Leadership always, because the time is always right, in the best and worst of times.
They exist in parallel, even if it does not feel so.
Although there are different pressures, demands and opportunities depending on prevailing events, circumstances and conditions, Leadership is always required, not just when it is the worst of times.
So, for a CEO considering retrenchments to appease the markets and investors, there are better Leadership solutions:
- Invest in your people, they will produce the right return.
And, for a new CEO who has inherited strategic blunders:
- There are Leadership lessons to learn and a new better direction to set.
At the heart of every business (and any other enterprise), it is people who make it work optimally, no matter what other resources are in play.
After all, Leadership is about people—influencing and shaping people’s lived lives for the better.
It is always the best of times and the worst of time—exercise Leadership no matter what the times.
Regards,
Colin @ Karoo
We Activate Apex Skills!
Leadership Weekly Note: 1324.250324
e: colind@karoo.world
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[i] I have taken the enormous liberty to edit the two opening paragraphs of Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities, to fit the context of my Note. The original version is set out below.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
