Healthy Balance

I was sitting across the table with a well-seasoned leader contending with a season of struggle. During our conversation he blurted out, “How can you win with so many variables involved?” “Better balance,” I responded, and we went on discussing how to realize that balance. My heart goes out to all who serve in a leadership capacity at any level. Your world is a dynamic world that requires a balance of certain factors that are always at odds with each other, much like that of an airplane where lift and thrust are at opposites with weight and drag. 

Leaders are not only required to cast a vision, clarify the mission, perform their professional skills at a more than competent level, and depending on the situation answer to a board or some other authority, but they have the additional responsibility of keeping the factors mentioned above in balance. This is why I call leaders, PILOTs, and as such they are either Positive Influential Leaders On Target, or Painful Ineffectual Leaders Off Target. The difference between the two is their ability to balance all the variables.

Those who serve as leaders know that in any team or organization there are elements that will lift it up and thrust it forward or weigh it down and drag it backwards. These elements are most often found in processes or people, and sometimes both. Like a pilot, a leader must maintain a keen awareness of how people (to include themselves) and processes bolster or burden an organization’s trajectory and adjust as necessary to keep the journey as smooth as possible while heading for success.

A positive influential leader on target will always consider, analyze, refine, and employ those measures that lift their team up and thrusts them forward. They will also do those actions required to mitigate or remove what weighs the team down or drags them backwards. What they will not do is complicate the balance with poor leadership practices that hinder success.

I guess the question is, “How’s your balance?”