Leadership Secrets for Execution – Execution Is the Main Job

Are you working in an organization which values execution by leaders at all levels? Are the leaders in your organization relentlessly focused on achieving sustainable results?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself in the present moment is “Are we honestly focusing on surfacing the realities of the business?” Extraordinary leaders execute and hold people accountable for results.

Are you focused on reality and getting things done? How effective are you at meshing your strategy with reality and aligning people with goals? Are you passionate about achieving goals at work that emotionally engage your people?

Execution Is the Main Job

The heart of execution lies in three core processes: the people process, the strategy process and the operations process. 

Leaders often bristle when they are told they have to run the three core processes themselves. “You’re telling me to micromanage my people, and I don’t do that.” Micromanaging is a big mistake because it diminishes people’s self-confidence, saps their initiative and stifles their ability to think for themselves.

But there’s an enormous difference between leading an organization and presiding over it. The leader who boasts of a hands-off style or puts faith in empowerment is not dealing with the issues of the day. He or she is not confronting the people responsible for poor performance, or searching for problems to solve and then making sure they get solved.

Leaders – at all levels – must become passionately engaged in the organization, recognizing that execution is their main job. Putting the right people in the right jobs and ensuring that rewards and recognition reinforce performance are essential.

According to Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution (2002), leaders must build and sustain a “social operating system,” involving continuous review meetings that make up the day-to-day execution management and that link performance and rewards. Review meetings provide the framework needed to create common ways of thinking, behaving and doing.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a leader who focuses on relentless execution. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.