subject: The Leadership Action Martial Arts Business [print this page] The Leadership Action Martial Arts Business
Once a leader has a vision, they need to be able to put this into action. A vision without action is empty, and leaders who have a vision are judged by their ability to enact the vision, to take steps that will actually achieve the vision in or around the time frame described in the strategic objective. It could be said that a vision without action is no vision at all.
So what action needs to happen? Does the leader have to get on and do the day to day jobs needed to get the vision done. Well, in smaller organisations this is mostly true at the beginning. However for an organisation to grow and realise its objective the leader must trust people and systems to be able to get the job done.
A systems thinking or mentality is what is required here. The leader needs people to run the systems, and the systems to run the business. The martial arts organisation will not grow in a natural way unless there are systems that drive the day to day actions need to take the organisation to where it is going. Simply put, a martial arts business without systems is a dead or dying business.
The leaders role is to make sure the systems are in place, implement the systems and then measure them to make sure they are performing well. If things are not working, good leaders then respond by thinking about how the systems can be improved. Their first port of call is not to think about how the staff can be improved. In systems thinking, the leader does not blame people when things don't work, they focus rather on the systems by considering how the systems can be improved in order to solve the problem or frustration at hand.
In this way a culture emerges in the organisation that is not a blame culture. The culture is therefore one that is positive, encourages the development of great relationships, and facilitates measured risk taking and personal development. Blame focussed martial arts organisations are "top down" workplaces that do not encourage people to innovate.
