LEADERSHIP: ARE YOU CONVENIENCE OR QUALITY?

Kevin Maney has created a strategic-choice continuum. At one end, businesses position themselves to offer quality (or what he calls fidelity). High-priced stuff, which customers buy for its market-standing and their personal-image enhancement. A Louis Vuitton bag says I’ve got taste – and money. At the other end is convenience. Discount flights and meals cost little but do nothing for your self-belief or mystique. If you applied this thinking to your leadership, where on the Maney Continuum would you fall? Nearer to quality or convenience? Let’s check that out.

Let’s create our own continua. On each, which alternative best describes your situation:

• Colleagues seek me out to discuss their division’s goals and strategies. Or, they come to me for advice on how to extract a bit more efficiency?
• My boss has asked me to take charge of the major new division she’s creating. Or, she hopes I’ll help out a division head, who’s gotten into a spot of trouble.
• The board invited me to join their review of a complex commercial problem. Or, they invited me to join them on the site visit.
• My previous employer asked me to return and run the company’s biggest division. Or, they’ve asked me to spend half a day briefing the guy, who took over my role.

The four choices are not about good or bad. Each role needs doing. But the first half of each pair is more strategic and higher leverage. In Maney-speak, it’s more about fidelity: Vuitton, rather than Virgin. The second half positions you as a convenience supplier – more Walmart than world-beater.

So, what do you need to do to migrate to the right part of the continuum?

• Recognise that not all leadership roles are equal – and a promotion may not be worth taking unless it has leverage. Don’t let them “into-convenience” you.
• Seek roles that give you the chance to value-add on the top-end issues and thus make yourself a leader others want to work with and be seen around.

In any game, why not play where the big bets are placed?

Categories for this Potshot:

Develop plans and actions lists, Define goals and outcomes, Demonstrate efficiency, Take charge and support others, Fix key commercial problems, Show self-leadership,

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