Success is a destination that you define for your company. It represents the vision of a new vista; a new horizon; a new set of possibilities for your business – a change. That means you will need new skills and competencies. You will need to change to deal with success.
CHANGE: A key element in your journey
Many leaders don’t see this key aspect in defining a vision for success. They become a “ball & chain” in the journey. People resist change, and leaders are people too. But when a leader resists change it slows progress toward the new horizon even more because it is up to them to lead the way.
The journey toward this new horizon brings new challenges and opportunities. How you handle these new challenges and opportunities will directly impact the speed at which reach your destination, or if you ever reach your destination at all! Therefore, as the leader of your business you must be willing to change and learn so that you can quickly and easily deal with these new challenges and opportunities your business will face along the way.
An alternate solution is finding someone to lead your business to success for you. This approach is even more difficult. Here the leader must let go of control! Most entrepreneurs are emotionally attached to their business. Many would rather kill the business themselves than let another person take control. Often business owners don’t even know they are hurting their business, their employees’ livelihood, and their financial future in the process.
A Challenge to Becoming a Great Leader
So, here lies the problem. Leaders that don’t think they need help because they “know-it-all”, or won’t let go of control to allow someone else to help them navigate through uncharted territory are doomed to failure. Which category do you fit into? If your business is not on the fast track to success, or you cannot handle the fast track that you are currently on there is a good chance that you’re the reason why! But, realizing that fact is your first step toward celebrating success!
Mac Anderson, founder of Successories®, has a profound statement in his book “The Essence of Leadership”. In the chapter entitled “Integrity” he writes, “The person with whom you compete the most is the person you see when you look in the mirror.” A truer statement could not be written to fit this situation. Until you are honest with yourself and humble enough to realize that you don’t know everything or are too controlling for your own good, you will not be willing to change. Without change growth is not possible. Without growth new levels of success are out of your reach and you will never experience the new vistas that you seek.
So, do you have the courage it will take to honestly face the truth? Are you humble enough to put yourself into a category of “know-it-all” or “controller”? Do you have the integrity it will take to make the hard decisions needed to change yourself and succeed? These are the characteristics of great leadership.
Your business is waiting to be led to that new horizon. Step up, be that leader!
[…] are not addressed and the owner is at the helm, the business suffers as a result. Our article Leading to New Horizons of Success has a great message along this topic. Personal change is the first phrase of the DE, Inc. tag […]
I’ve often heard it said that people learn from their mistakes, making the assumption that every failure automatically registers as a learning experience. Recently I read what I believe is a truer statement on that issue. It said “failure doesn’t guarantee learning, just an opportunity to learn”. The truth is, we don’t always learn from our mistakes. Some of us make the same mistakes over and over again because we aren’t making that shift in our minds to try to figure out why we failed, and what we can do to be more successful the next time. You can take your mistakes, no matter how bad, and use them as an opportunity to learn, thereby increasing your effectiveness in business and in life.
[…] is the only constant in the business. Things never go as planned, so you have to be flexible. But, in order to know when to change you have to monitor with frequency to notice deviation and […]
[…] is the only constant in the business. Things never go as planned, so you have to be flexible. But, in order to know when to change you have to monitor with frequency to notice deviation and […]