Key Result Areas Every Leader Must Focus On

Effective leadership at every level of the company is the core competency for 21st Century success in business. There is a new leadership book being published about every 15 minutes. If you’re already a leader you aren’t going to be reading one of them. What’s the point, you can only get distracted from what you are already doing right and second guess yourself.

On the other hand if you’d like to know the things that leaders focus on, the key result areas that routinely make the most difference in their organization’s success I have collected them for you here.

Leaders are people who relentlessly focus on productivity. They always ask themselves and their colleagues, “what can we do to be more productive”, to get the jobs done more effectively. Family businesses also have the task of considering the productivity characteristics of the members of the successor generation and how they work together with the managers and supervisors who represent the senior generation of owners.

Leaders focus on customer satisfaction. They are always asking themselves and their team, “what do our customers want that they aren’t getting from us now? They know that the customer’s wants and desires must be met 24/7/365 if they are to remain the vendor of choice, the sole source supplier – rather than the last resort. Leaders never cut corners when it comes to their customers – the ones they have right now and the ones they want to do business with in the future.

Leaders always have their eye on the money! The economic side of the company is key because without the resources they know their great plans will not happen. Leaders look for ways to control expenses realizing that a dollar saved is a dollar added directly to the bottom line. And a dollar saved, one that is being wasted, can be invested in what will return the greatest results. In difficult times especially leaders look for ways to eliminate manufacturing or distributing inefficiencies for example and use those dollars to invest in sales and marketing. Leaders always want to know what can be done that will effect sales, increase profitability, and control expenses. Leaders know that everything they do takes the organization closer to or farther away from their objectives.

Leaders focus on quality. They know that their customers value quality above all else. If their products and services don’t meet the quality expectations of their customers every day, they won’t be customers for long. Customers remember the times your product broke down in the middle of a critical job forever – long after the price they paid, so when your competitors come knocking they may just take their business down the street. Leaders know the customers and are always looking for ways to offer them more of what they want, more competitively priced, and with greater dependability than their competitors.

Leaders build people. They are always looking for ways to help their people grow as much as they are willing to grow. Leaders use delegation to demonstrate their trust in their subordinates. Leaders continually stretch their employees by giving them the power to make more important decisions on their own or in collaboration with their peers, they offer them opportunities to use their authority as they grow, and they hold them accountable for the decisions they make – just like they are held accountable, so their people learn the upside and the downside of growing as a leader-in-becoming themselves.

And leaders understand the vital importance of innovation. It has been said that there are only two things a leader can do to insure the growth and profitability of their organization and innovation is one of them. In the 21st. Century innovation is critical to stay in the game at all. Focusing on innovation is required to remain competitive. Innovation is the key to maintaining your customer’s vendor of choice or sole source supplier position. Strategic marketing (the second thing a leader must do) will keep those innovations at the top of your customers and your competitors minds.

When leaders focus on these key result areas they will impact their organization, their employees and their families, and their customers in the most positive ways possible. Leaders understand that executing around these key result activities will make a critical difference in the organization.

Leaders also understand that knowing is not doing and that systematic, continuous, excellent, execution is required for the sustained results that are the hallmark of a 21st. Century leader.

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