Great leadership is the single most important determinant of business success.  Without it few businesses can prosper and while it’s not a guarantee that you’ll overcome all the external factors pushing against your business, it is the surest way to give you the best chance.  The best thing about it is that it is one of the easiest things to affect, because it’s down to you.

The ten things that mark out a great leader are:

• Consistency

Having a direction and being clear about it is actually much more important than fussing over getting precisely the right direction or to keep changing your mind as you try to find the perfect solution.

• Communications

It’s sometimes surprising how many people in leadership positions aren’t natural communicators, but whether it comes to you naturally or it’s something you have to work at, you MUST do it – frequently; ideally in small groups in regular short bursts.  If you don’t tell people things the gap will be filled with rumour and speculation.  Use clear, simple messages, frequently.

• Customers, customers, customers

No matter how bad it gets, never forget the customer.  You can control and cut costs all you like (and that is important) but you need to sell stuff.  Delighting customers takes very little incremental additional effort so do it. Never let your standards of customer service slip.

• Fairness

Every small child learns that life isn’t fair and the situation you find yourself in may also feel like it’s not fair.  This doesn’t mean your shouldn’t be.  In troubled times people need to know that they’ll be treated fairly, that decisions you make are based on logic and analysis.  This doesn’t imply weakness.  Be tough, as tough as you need to be, just be fair with it.

• Plan, Do, Check, Act

Deming’s ‘Plan Do Check Act’ cycle was never more appropriate than when times are tough.  Think things through, do them, check that they’ve worked and take corrective actions if it hasn’t worked as planned or cement it in place if it has.  Find out more about PDCA in the Operations Resources section.

• Concern for Impact

It’s not about what you think, what you say and what you do – it’s about what people hear, see and understand.  It’s essential that you know if the message is getting across to the audiences that need to hear it.  If they don’t understand then you have to do something different.

• Flexibility

Just as the Plan Do Check Act cycle implies, not everything works out the way you intended and anyway the external world is continually changing.  The most important thing is to remain focussed on the objective – if the plan’s not getting you there, change the plan.

• Learning not blaming

While it’s true in any environment, that every situation provides an opportunity to learn something, this is especially true in difficult times.  It’s likely to be a set of circumstances that most if not all of your managers are unfamiliar with.  Don’t be tempted to blame people if they get things wrong; learn, move on and focus on acting as a team.

• Delegation

You can’t do it all yourself.  No really, you can’t.  Break tasks in to manageable pieces and then allocate them fairly amongst the team.  When times are tough this will almost certainly require asking people to step out of their comfort zone and to complete tasks outside their functional area.  This mains you need to check on action regularly and communicate often.

• Listening

Even if you’ve been through this cycle many times before you don’t have a monopoly on all the good ideas.  Listen.  Listen to your management team, your employees and your customers and don’t be afraid to take external advice.  You still have to make the decisions; by listening to others and adopting new ideas where appropriate you increase the chances that your decisions will be good ones.