Operations is Sexy

Well, not really. But it's also not boring.

Perhaps I can understand how "the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization" could not excite everyone. And maybe “leveraging the day to day activities of utilizing location, resources, personnel and process to produce products and provide services efficiently and cost-effectively” does not automatically ignite passion.  But at its core, business operations is the function of ensuring that all business groups, units, departments -- whatever you call them -- are integrated into the guiding business plan.

Here's a description that, for me, puts it into perspective, and when you put it into perspective, that's when it gets good.

Operational leaders bridge the gap between high level strategic planning and tactical implementation. With one foot rooted firmly in planning and the other in process, they skillfully anticipate how the next great strategy can impact real day-to-day issues. On the floor they are facilitators, but in the boardroom they are translators.   

Defining Business Operations Within the Organization

It's about taking a bird’s eye view and noticing interconnections among all things -- marketing, HR, accounting, business units, the available resources, the CEO, the vision.  It’s about effective collaboration. It marries the poetry of strategy and peasantry of the day-to-day. It's conducting a classically trained orchestra, or bringing together a jazz ensemble without allowing improvisation and artful discordant notes to become chaos. And it’s doing all of this while never allowing the melody of the strategic goal to get lost.

Now that's attractive. Right?  

Executive Prescience

“I know it when I see it.”

Justice Potter Stewart 
Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184  (1964)

The notion of executive presence gives me pause.  First, it has no generally accepted definition and it is ripe for the infusion of unhelpful bias. Too often this nebulous trait is inextricably linked to "6 foot 2 inch tall males who look like they were sent from central casting." Moreover, I cannot find clear research that demonstrates a relationship between executive presence and effective leadership.

To the extent the notion refers to someone who can read a person, room and circumstance – perhaps even before words are spoken, anticipate what is required to advance productivity in a given situation, and then comfortably act on what is required, those traits are no doubt valuable.  Collectively I shall call it Executive Prescience. 

While I like my new term, the concepts are not new and there is plenty of good work being done to ensure that we have a continued pipeline of leaders with these traits. The ability to tune-in is emotional intelligence, and the characteristic that allows decisive and comfortable action is authenticity. 

These traits can be learned. And happily they are being taught to people at younger and younger ages. The sooner children learn to behave in socially intelligent ways, the better equipped they will be as they become the adult leaders of the 21st Century.  Indeed, I recently learned of a program that has as its sole focus teaching social-emotional intelligence to kids.   

Here’s one final link.  It’s about coffee and emotional intelligence.  Say it ain’t so!

Leading In Style

My fitness trainer used to say, "be the animal you are born to be."  A lion with its loud roar, large body and powerful presence gathers food and avoids harm in a different way than a rabbit with its acute sight and hearing, quiet movement, quickness and small body.  So it is with leadership.

Certain personality styles may better suit specific employee groups and boards; for example, introverts may be more effective at leading proactive teams, while extroverts may be more effective at leading passive teams, but there is no one right personality type to motivate group action.  Effective leaders may be unassuming or dynamic, operational geniuses or talent management superstars. But the most important characteristic in leadership effectiveness may be knowing your natural style and using it to its best advantage.  

In addition to effectiveness, there are other advantages to leading in your natural style:

• It's less exhausting for the leader.  Acting like somebody else is exhausting.  Behaving as different characters at home, work and in the virtual world is exhausting. 
• It's less exhausting for colleagues.
• It's time saving.  An authentic leader takes into consideration input from others, but does not have to revisit a decision wondering what several someone-elses would have done.  As one of my training partners said to me, "it's hard enough to make a difficult decision once.  Do not torture yourself by making the same decision over and over again."

To unearth your authentic leadership style, consider the questions on page four of Discovering Your Authentic Leadership.

And here are some additional resources to ponder:
Emotional intelligence quiz
Personality test
Personal engagement profile