Who Will Lead The Way?

The leaders of the future in business will not be able to hide in corner offices or sit on proverbial "fences".

Big corporations have not produced many great leaders lately. With corporate scandals and golden parachutes dominating the big business media coverage its hard to find leaders who will stand up and make the changes necessary at the risk of losing his seven figure bonus.

But effective small businesses will produce leaders by being accountable to customers  instead of placating department heads who have spent their careers building empires and are way out of touch with customers.

When moving to a customer focused strategy changes are rapid and often radical. When a process is redesigned to better serve customers jobs evolve from narrow task oriented to more multidimensional.

People must be empowered to make decisions.

Functional departments must become process teams with responsibility for the whole process and not just the task. Customer needs will become the driving force and training will emphasize not the "how" but the “why” of a process.

Compensation and accountability should revolve around customer satisfaction and customer value.

Leaders have to create a new corporate culture dedicated to customers.

For workers to change their mindset from working for bosses to working for customers strong focused leadership is mandatory.

A customer centered strategy forces key executives out of the office and closer to customers and employees.

This is a place many CEO’s do not want to be. Executives must be leaders who can influence and reinforce employee attitudes and beliefs by words and actions.

Keeping people motivated and “on board” is critical.

What skills are necessary for leaders who need to transition their organizations to a customer focused entity?

These new set of skills must be present not only in the chief executive but also in the managers who are responsible for implementing the plan.

Leaders Must :
• Have the respect of upper management and employees alike.
• Can not be driven by personal agendas and politics.
• Be resistant to pressure from areas and departments that don’t want change.
• Have a clear vision of how the future organization should look.
• Understand technology and its role.

This is quite a list of qualifications but there is no alternative.

Management must have the clout to remove all obstacles regardless of where they come from.

A less than convincing management attitude or weak leaders with no real authority are two of the major reasons CRM projects fail more than half the time.

The customer driven corporation will have to have it's leaders get closer to customers by having easy access to customer concerns and needs.

Copyright © 2003, thecustomerconcern.com.  |  Last updated Oct. 2003
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