Once you've organized the tasks and roles, you need to check if people are placed correctly, right?
Putting the right people in the right positions is essential for team success. This includes appointing leaders, transfers, and hiring. The key is matching roles with people's characteristics. Just like how positioning players in soccer affects the game's outcome, placing suitable talent in each role is the most important management activity.
The most crucial placement is the leader.
Just as a coach's tactics and leadership greatly influence a team's success, leaders determine a company's success too. You can check if a leader is performing well by looking at these 3 things:
- Ability to understand reality
Check if they know their team's level and characteristics well, and if they understand their mission and competitive environment in detail.
- Expertise
Look at whether they have expertise in what the team needs to do. Verify if they have experience, knowledge, and judgment in that field. If they lack something, there should be team members who can complement the leader. Expertise is needed to set the team's direction through analyzing reality.
- Drive Once the direction is set, they need the ability to move the team forward. Check if the leader can motivate the team. Everyone has different ways of moving people - some use strong charisma, others use gentle emotion. Focus on how the team moves, not the leader's style.
These are the three essential leadership elements. Though they seem obvious, not many people have all three. Some people understand reality well and set good directions but can't get team members to follow - these people should be strategists, not leaders. Others have great drive but can't set direction well - they should be action team members. A leader must be someone who understands situations well, uses expertise to set direction, and leads the team with strong drive.
When promoting someone to a leadership position, check if they have these three elements. Age, gender, school ties, or regional connections shouldn't be considered. Leaders are too important - they affect both the team and its surroundings. Look at Hitler and Eichmann of Nazi Germany as examples. CEOs should constantly check and reassign middle leaders to prevent having leaders who might become black marks in team history.
