I have a short story to share with you about an important
skill many leaders need to develop, use and perfect.
Life is a journey. The signposts along the path pointing out
the way are many and are sometimes hard to understand.
We hear news stories telling us it is the dawning of a
knowledge-based society. As a leader, you may wonder about
the amount of knowledge that is reported to be so
plentiful.
You recognize the many difficulties challenging you,
weakening your leadership power and reducing your control
over Fate.
Where can people like you and your associates carry the
burdens hidden in the vast amounts of data flooding your
mind everyday?
Would you like to know what your leadership responses should
be when facing your universe of fragmented situations,
advantages and information?
How could you shape your confusing array of facts, figures
and incomplete thoughts into creatively elegant solutions,
new products or transformational strategies?
This article describes how you can use your understanding
of basic evolutionary forces to:
=> Sort through and identify root causes
=> Discover new opportunities and sources for innovation
=> Create a strategic focus on mission-critical priorities
=> Evolve solutions to challenges or complex problems
=> Use synergy, syntropy and synergetics to grow or prosper
Niche Strategy-1: Use historical developments to sort
through and identify root causes
When describing the force of evolution, biologists invest
their efforts into studying, analyzing and evaluating the
history of development concerning the group of interest to
them.
To better understand the improvements, problems solved and
progressions accomplished by a biological species, you must
determine what caused, threatened or influenced those
changes.
Leaders should search for what, how, why and when the
emergence of new characteristics, qualities or traits began
to affect the organism [in this case your team, venture or
organization].
In biology, sorting through and understanding root causes
leads to the discovery of more effective medicines,
diagnosis and therapies.
In leadership, this process of discovery should lead to
greater operational efficiencies, quality of execution and
production, more robust growth opportunities and stronger
alliances or wider networks of influence.
Niche Strategy-2: Recognize how elan vital propels discovery
of new opportunities and sources for innovation
What are the vital forces of life? How do they contribute to
creativity, revitalizing, renewing of living organisms?
The qualities scientists believe form the foundation for
emergent or creative evolution and elan vital are based on
both observed and imagined principles of our spiritual,
emotional and related incorporeal natures.
To be effective, you need to understand and harness those
eclectic, motivating forces. You must dig under the facades
presented by people to reveal their intangible natures and
qualities.
Great leaders constantly learn how to
=> Encourage and magnify positive mental attitudes,
=> Apply liberal treatments of positive reinforcement
=> Provide sincere, candid expressions of recognition or
rewards
=> Strengthen and focus the faith, hope and charity of
people
=> Use spiritual, emotional and theological truths to
step-up, transform and energize human achievement,
creativity and resourcefulness.
Niche Strategy-3: Adapt to the environment by creating a
strategic focus on mission-critical priorities
The survival of a species is dependent upon its ability to
adapt to changes, shifts or conflicts in its environment.
Biologic or living entities are intensely sensitive to the
myriad interactions, exchanges and transactions occurring
within their ecological niches.
You and your group are subject to never-ending series or
waves of differences, compromises and attacks from your
associates, suppliers, competitors, partners and rulers.
Leadership excellence demands your unwavering focus,
unbending stance and unrelenting grasp on the details of
your strategy, mission and key priorities - can you say
these guiding elements are:
=> Well-defined or being clarified on a regular basis?
=> Based on the realities of your current situation and its
realistic possibilities?
=> Important enough to satisfy the needs of your people or
stakeholders for recognition, purpose and growth?
There are destructive and evolutionary forces at work in
your environment - your primary task is to hold forth the
light of nobility, righteousness and goodness for others to
see or be guided by.
Niche Strategy-4: Explore further out to evolve elegant
solutions to challenges or complex problems
There are combinations, immersions and swappings involving
organisms or their organic surroundings happening all the
time and all around an ecological niche.
Organisms tend to exhibit signs of evolutionary formations,
process or development through these movement types:
=> Approaching or moving towards each other
=> Establishing a correspondence with other parts, organisms
or locations which were picked-up, found-out, formed-by or
absorbed-through a natural convergence or parallel
evolution
=> Proceeding through successive changes that involve or
affect the interactions between ecologically interdependent
organisms
=> Emerging out-of and -from an enveloping field or obscure
position
=> Gradually progressing through time or space to a desired
endpoint due to stated policy or some process of
accumulating smaller amounts of new organic materials or
resources
=> Regressing backwards to earlier stages of development,
which may be defined as a simplification of form or even
going from a better to a worse state
=> Existing in a relatively stable state for long periods of
time and then experiencing brief periods of rapid change
during which new forms of the organism appear - these are
usually caused by radical fluctuations and alterations in
the organism's local environment
Niche Strategy-5: Incorporate the dynamics of synergy,
syntropy and synergetics to grow or prosper
Evolution is thought of as being somewhat random in its
occurrence or as lacking some ordered purpose.
However, recent developments in our understanding have been
influenced by the sciences and studies of numerous
non-traditional newer avenues of inquiry.
Since synergy and syntropy describe the effects of energy
being exported, radiated-out from or involving the
intentional combinations of two or more organisms, we now
know that evolution can also result from a cooperative,
purposeful venture.
You can think of the energies being output by allied
organisms affecting an environment in such a way as to
influence adaptations, progressions and changes in other
organisms who operate or live within the same environment.
Leaders can learn more about how these synergetic
associations can contribute to evolutionary change by
understanding the core principles of sociobiology,
teleonomy, microevolution, cladistics, vicariance
biogeography, the phenomena of punctuated equilibrium, the
concept of noosphere and coevolution.
------------------------------------------------------------
By nature, leaders are facilitators of evolutionary
progress. Leadership sits at the wheel of an organism's
control center, it is the organic instigator or catalyst -
leaders are 'agents of Change'.
These 5 niche strategies will empower your ability think
critically, improve your effectiveness and to excel at:
=> Solving problems,
=> Make informed decisions
=> Supervise work performances
=> Increase employee resourcefulness
=> Discover opportunities to innovate or create new things
A recent survey of executive recruiters revealed that the
top mistakes made by newly appointed senior executives is
their failure to establish strategic priorities and waiting
too long to implement a program of change [as reported by
Korn/Ferry International].
With the information contained in this article, you have the
support you need to defeat feelings of uncertainty while you
avoid making these same career-ending errors.
You will find confidence and hope building inside you when
apply these niche strategy concepts to the issues and
challenges of your real-life situations.
What have we learned today? Evolution exerts a complex of
forces which operate on the time and space where organisms
strive, survive and are sustained.
Evolutionary leadership activities involve the creative
shaping of ecological niches in such ways as to effect
beneficial adaptations of their enterprise's mission and
priorities to any changes, challenges or threats in its
environment.
Leaders need to understand how they should strategically,
creatively and aggressively direct those evolutionary
impulses towards making a positive impact upon their
organizations.
As you apply these truths to your daily tasks of providing
oversight and stewardship, you will quickly see the tangible
payoffs and proof that your knowledge of these critical
concepts is sound.
Learn more about this subject by reading our 'blog': Leadership skills training & development for creating energy!
Leadership skills training & development for creating energy!
I know your sensitivity to the operation and manifestations
of evolution will enable you to sustain the health and
prosperity of your organization as you successfully achieve
all your objectives.
Copyright ? 2004, Mustard Seed Investments Inc.,
All rights reserved.
Bill Thomas publishes "The Leadership-Toolkit Collection!" - Affordable, Performance Improvement Programs for Employees, Executives & Entrepreneurs: featuring web-based Training, Books & Manuals, coaching & mentoring, & follow-up support GUARANTEED to energize, empower, enhance your leadership results.
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