Leading to the conditions is essential to being an effective leader in every situation. When we lead to the conditions, we adjust our leadership style and tactics to meet the demands of the current reality. This means we lead new teams differently than established teams. We lead top performers differently than we lead low performers. We lead differently in profitable times than we do in difficult times.
We all have our niche where we’re most comfortable leading from, but effective leaders learn to ebb and flow to accommodate what and who they’re leading. If you don’t learn to lead to the conditions, especially in challenging times, then the conditions will end up leading you.
We lead to the conditions when:
• We don’t let the environment determine our mood or attitude. We establish the mood and attitude we want our team to mirror, regardless of how people behave around us.
• We don’t duck our heads and just ride challenging times out. We gather our team and put together a plan of how we’ll push through the hard times.
• We don’t avoid difficult conversations and hard decisions. We address issues when they arise and make hard decisions based on what’s best for the organization.
• We don’t just cast our vision. We help carry that vision forward by working alongside our team to help make that vision a reality.
• We don’t hoard information. We communicate as openly as possible so our people aren’t left guessing what’s going on and what we’re going to do next.
When we let the conditions lead us, we go whichever way the wind blows. Lead to the conditions by being aware enough to know what the conditions are and care enough to step out of your comfort zone and be the leader your team and your organization needs you to be.
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