Allstate Insuarance has a series of commercials out about protecting yourself from Mayhem. Some of them are kind of funny and they all make a pretty good point. The ad campaign has obviously been successful due to the number of commercials they’ve produced with this theme. They’re talking about car and home insurance and protecting against unforeseen events in the future. Check out one of the ads below.
This got me thinking. What are you doing to protect yourself from Mayhem as a leader? As a leader, one of the main things you have to do is provide Clarity. The #1 fear of most people is the fear of the future. Don’t believe it? Just try Googling “money spent on psychics”. People want to know what the future holds. As a leader, you may not be clairvoyant but you better provide some type of clarity of what the future holds or you will lose the support and confidence of your people and Mayhem will erupt.
What does a leader who doesn’t provide clarity look like? He may see some good times, even the proverbial broken watch we talk about has two good times a day, but he’s going to see a greater occurrence of difficult times as he continues on without clarity. This type of leader is a Level 1 leader, as defined in John Maxwell’s latest book “5 Levels of Leadership“, meaning he is only a leader because of the position he was appointed to. He always blames others for non-performance and problems. He surrounds himself with “C” and “D” quality people and the “A” quality people will leave him (see our blog post from 11/29/11). He thinks he has arrived and no further personal growth is needed. He jumps from the latest greatest idea of the day looking for that magic formula to success. He begins many initiatives but rarely sticks to anything. When you ask this leader to provide clarity he will often take that as an attack to his leadership. Go figure! When Mayhem strikes this leader, and it certainly will, watch the excuses fly and get out of the way because anybody and everybody will be the cause of it but him.
Now the question remains… How do you protect yourself from Mayhem? The answer… Provide Clarity. Here are a few ways to do this.
- Set a clear vision of what your organization will look like at the end of 2012 as well as what it will look like in the next 3 to 5 years.
- Be clear on who your organization serves. Identify your primary customers and let your people help in finding better ways to serve them. This will create innovation.
- Clearly understand what your organization does best. What makes the organization different or better? What is its edge? This must be clearly communicated to your people.
- Have a clearly defined score. If you want your people to follow, you must let them know how they score. How do they measure success? They must be able to affect this score which should be results-based and not activity-based.
- Make a clear statement that action begins today. You can lead by example here as well. Don’t fall into the trap of “analysis paralysis” where nothing gets done out of a fear of failure. Leadership requires action.
Protect yourself from Mayhem and set a clear vision and course for a remarkable 2012.
