You are the executive, the leader of your organization. Executives make decisions all day, every day. The decisions you make affect everyone and everything in your organization. Whether consciously or not, you base your decisions on something; it could be intuition, gut feeling, experience, hopes, dreams, or goals. My belief is that your decision must be based on something more substantive, like a plan.
A plan needs to be the backbone of executive decision-making. Planning is not done once per year with the hope that it will all work out. Excellent leaders know that planning is an ongoing, ever changing behavior. Your plan works best when the vision and mission of your organization is tied to your personal vision. Your plan should account for the ever-changing environment within which we all do business. To accomplish the vision of your organization, an excellent plan will focus on three to five key priorities at a time, realizing that priorities can change overnight based on what happens in the world. Perpetual planning will keep key priorities current and in line with accomplishing the vision.Once you, as the executive, have a plan, action is required. An executive executes the plan. This means the leader must base decisions on whether their choice will lead to the successful completion of a priority which leads to achieving the organization’s vision, or not. Achieving the organization’s vision will always be about establishing expectations of what needs to be accomplished for each key priority, when it needs to be accomplished, and who is responsible to ensure it gets done. The executive who stays focused on the key priorities is putting into effect the plan, or course of action. And this is the definition of the word execute. Executive decisions will derive from the course of action needed to complete the identified key priorities which lead to accomplishing the vision. Learn more about how you can achieve the right vision for your team with this podcast.
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