Business Leaders Solve Problems

A good business leader leads by example. That much is for sure. You have to reflect all the good qualities like timeliness, fairness, hard-work etc. that you’d like to see in your employees, colleagues and partners.

But that’s only the minimum necessary condition of leadership.

Another important condition is the ability to solve problems, if temporarily.

“There are no absolute solutions, just temporary ones” is a good mantra for any business leader.

What does it take to come up with solutions in every situation?

“Resourcefulness” is a top trait that all leaders should have. You should find new resources or marshal old ones that were not implemented before.

That brings us to “creativity” as a must condition for superior leadership.

Remember the way Picasso created an ox head from a bicycle seat and steering handles? You can similarly put together “existing parts” (ideas, practices, modules, etc.) to create something totally new and appropriate to solve the issue at hand.

For example, let’s say you are losing productivity because most of your staffers are single parents who have to rush back home when their children are sick.

Can you commission the work to their homes? Can you open a kindergarden on premises? Can you stagger the work so that those with little children can take any shift they want? Perhaps some of the staffers might agree to taking care of each other’s children in return for longer solo shifts in the office?

Here is a story I’ve heard years ago…

Once upon a time a significant portion of the individually-packaged cube sugar that airlines used were going stale inside their air-tight wrappings. The airlines were upset because of all the packaged cube-sugar that had to be thrown out for waiting too long in the warehouse.

After trying hundreds of different wrappers with no result, someone came up with the idea that perhaps they needed to OPEN the packaging somehow and allow air to get in, instead of maintaining an air-tight design.

One executive came up with the idea of actually piercing each package with a pin and the problem was solved instantly!

Thanks to that simple “ventilation hole,” individually packaged cube-sugar gained a lot longer shelf-life, saving airlines money in the long run.

A leader must have the courage to “open up” things when everybody else is recommending “closing down,” or vice versa.

That’s why “courage” is yet another trait that a good leader must have to buck the common trends and take risks in order to arrive at satisfactory solutions.

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