Recently my friends at Advanced Solutions together with Griffiths School of Management at Emanuel University have completed and published a very compelling survey which was carried out in the Romanian leadership environment.
Meant to “take the pulse” of the Romanian leaders, it uncovered some interesting trends which I would like to look at in a series of posts, consequent comments and discussions.
The study is currently available only in Romanian on Advanced Solution’s website here.
The first Key Finding is related to the fact that leaders in Romania are facing today unprecedented challenges due to the increasing complexity within the business world, determined at its turn by the extent of the inter-connectedness and the extreme pace of phenomenons. All of which affect our “business as usual” conventional approach, and push us to not only to accept these new realities but also to prepare in a pro-active manner so as to create them.
Most of the successful leaders I know have had success because they had an excellent acumen for adaptation to the business environment changes, but the study finding conveys that this is no longer enough. On the contrary, now comes the time when one needs to focus on preparing strategically for change and develop a visionary sense. Both of these require in the end a change of our thought process and attitude.
My recent experience has shown that some of the well-meaning leaders are not yet ready to start behaving pro-actively towards their customers (i.e. service providers). They’re ready to give you best in class services but only if you ask for it and explain how to deliver it! Thus, while we enter this relationship as clients with expectations for pro-activeness, we are in a position in which we must fight to explain what we mean by great services. Again, these are leaders that built their background on sound technical knowledge, quality and even good performance in delivering services.
Now my first 2 questions to you are: 1. How do we go about changing this? 2. What does one leader need to do to be able to make the switch?
And then:
What has your experience been?
Have you seen or experienced this kind of shift?
Was it obvious or did it “bump you in the head”?
one green leaf at a time 
Pingback: Romanian Leadership Barometer – Key Finding #2 « one green leaf at a time
Well, i believe this is a natural tendency of leaders considering circumstances…when your house is ‘on fire’ you don’t really pay close attention to intangible details (as satisfaction for example), but you focus on solving the immediate emergencies. I think the key to building up a sustainable business environment considering these conditions is to learn to manage the crises and build more on customer relationship. Because eventually what will help companies overcome the financial crisis IS the customer’s money!