Modern Business Magazine April 2016 | Page 31

MODERN LEADERSHIP Or do you manufacture a sense of certainty? Or worse: What happens if you wake up after a long ‘winning streak’ only to discover that your enterprise it is no longer relevant? they’ll persist with reasonable decisions—seeking incremental wins at the expense of breakthrough opportunities. It’s a safe and sound course along a well-traversed path. This is the major challenge enterprise leaders face, and the fundamental flaw with leadership focused only on clear goals and operational wins. Naturally, this is quite a predicament. We cannot afford to simply wait for clarity. But at the same time, we cannot set forth a single, clear vision for the future while knowing that the future is infinitely complex and uncertain. What to do? And it’s also the most efficient way to achieve irrelevance. Ahoy Pioneering Leadership Pioneering leadership means leaning into the challenge of progressing through new and unchartered territory. This form of leadership enables the exploration, development, learning and progress through the complexity and paradox of an uncertain future. It’s thanks to pioneering leadership that businesses stay relevant and grow. However, for businesses in growth and enjoying the fruits of success—or for those experiencing the shrinking margins and decline through maturity—it’s easy to default to operationally-driven leadership and maximise efficiencies where possible. Toward Enduring Relevance Think about your business model right now. If things are humming along, it could be said that all of the elements of your enterprise—the value proposition, the channels you use to reach your customers, the resources and partnerships you have and the key activities you undertake—are optimised for our “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost.”—Jorma Jaakko Ollila, CEO of Nokia The number one objective of a pioneering leader is relevance. And to find relevance, they seek out the possibilities inherent within incoherence. current contex и