Want to learn more about NSU or are you ready to apply? Becoming a VIP is the first step! Click below and complete the form to create a personalized VIP website. We'll send you updates and provide a checklist with next steps in the admissions process. Already a VIP? Login here.
Whether you’re looking to advance in your field or start a new career a degree from NSU will help you get there. Click below if you would like to receive more information on a specific graduate degree program. If you are ready to start the application process click on Apply Now.
Twice in the last few days I had a leadership aha! Though it was the same aha it occurred in two different places, two different venues. This made me think that there was something more than a random thought operating here. In both instances I wove my aha into my activity of the moment. One was during my presentation at the Leadership Broward Symposium while the other was during a videotaping of a leadership presentation for a company that is local and hopes to go global, WHPN.
It occurred to me that leadership actions were taken yesterday and some will be taken tomorrow. The most important ones, though, are the ones taken NOW!
Leadership is about actions taken NOW!
This is what moves people and organizations best. I can think about taking the action. I can sleep on it. I can confer about it with one or more people. Whoops the competition closed the deal! Whoops my highly valued employee went to work somewhere else! I should have taken some action.
There can always be many different reasons why a leader doesn't act now. Some might be lack of readiness, poor preparation, need to learn more about leadership, or feeling inadequate. Needing to learn more about taking leadership actions is the most glaring.
We send people to a day, week or month of leadership training/development and expect them to return fully mature leaders. Too bad that it doesn't work that way. Learning and executing the right, correct, best or appropriate action is a forever proposition. The day, week or month in training/development was about supporting models and frameworks with action(s) that were pretty prescriptive. Sometimes they worked; sometimes they didn't.
A better approach may be to learn something new every day and try it. Watch a video or read a blog or read an article or book chapter. Catalogue what you've learned and translate it into an action for use at some point NOW! This was certainly a main point made by Gary Hamel in his book What Matters Now. Hamel, once named the #1 business thinker by the Wall Street Journal, wrote about five areas for now; values, innovation, adaptability, passion and ideology. Which one are you learning about today?
Peter Drucker was the first to say that we should:
1. Try the behavior,
2. Observe the impact of the action,
3. Ask the person for feedback on the behavior,
4. Modify the action for future use,
5. Catalogue it and
6. Execute it when appropriate.
Because you will be learning new leadership actions continually that will improve your results, know that it will be okay to experience a minor miss. When that happens seek out a coach.
Remember that leadership is NOW and you NOW have an approach for learning and doing that you can always use!
Robert C. Preziosi, D.P.A., is Professor of Management in the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University, and can be reached at preziosi@nova.edu.