Tensions of Leadership, Part 1

Balancing the Incremental (and Immediate) with the Transformational (and Strategic)

This one is no small challenge.  Our day-to-day revenue, and therefore our continued employment, likely stems from doing things right and making comparatively minor adjustments to accommodate customer needs in the short term.  "Don't upset the apple cart," might well describe the job of leading at an existing, successful organization.  To be sure, customer (or students, families, or patients) expect a well-oiled machine, especially when it comes to their child's education or a family member's surgery.

Yet survival down the road means making transformational leaps at times--or at least supporting the R & D necessary to know what leaps to make.  And transformational leaps almost always cost time, money and energy in the short run, thereby temporarily, but significantly, suppressing earnings (or whatever metric you use to gauge performance), in favor of assumed future rewards.

It sounds trite to say it, but leaders simply must focus on both things at once.  You can get away with one and not the other for a while, depending on the status of the organization, but under-attending to one will almost invariably hurt you at some point.  The problem is that many of us are, perhaps as a matter of cognitive style, predisposed to favor either incremental adjustments or massive reinvention.  Do you know yourself well enough to know which you favor?