LEADERSHIP AT THE POINTS OF CONTACT
The topic is leadership, and if you’re reading this, it’s obviously a topic that’s important to you and/or to others in your sphere of influence. And you’re not alone; leadership is the single most popular topic I’m asked to address in keynote presentations, workshops and retreats.
The title of this post reflects a specific set of situations in which leadership is especially important. The phrase I’ve used to describe those situations is “at the Points of Contact”.
Some of my most valuable leadership training was provided by the United States Marine Corps. I served as an infantry officer in that organization, including a tour of duty as a rifle platoon and rifle company commander in Vietnam (1968 – 1969). For Marines, “points of contact” refer to encounters with the enemy; we called them firefights.
I use that same phrase now to describe crucial encounters by people in organizational settings. These organizational points of contact do not include the same risks to life and limb as firefights, but they most certainly do provide opportunities for—and challenges to—organizational success. Here is one example of what I mean by “points of contact”.
Theory to Practice
Most organizations develop strategies and initiatives for addressing issues that are important to their success. Those strategies and initiatives will not produce the value that prompted their creation unless they are implemented. They must be converted from theory (strategic expectations and broad categories of activities) to practice (the specific things that specific people will do at specific times). If that conversion doesn’t take place, what happens to the strategies and initiatives? Too often the answer is very little. “Initiative du jour” is a very common organizational phenomenon.
Here’s why leadership at those “points of contact” is so important: Converting theory to practice won’t just happen; conversion is a process that must be facilitated. In the absence of effective facilitation (leadership at this “point of contact”), conversion is not likely, and implementation will be a temporary, superficial phenomenon, at best.
Example
In the past few months I’ve done leadership presentations and workshops for state school board associations. School board members provide strategic-level leadership for their districts. In that capacity, they are responsible for creating strategies that, when implemented, will support their districts’ mission of providing quality education for their students.
The people board members must rely on to convert the strategies they’ve developed into timely, appropriate actions are the leaders on each of the district’s campuses. Principles, assistant principles and department heads are the people board members rely on to provide Leadership at the Points of Contact in their districts.
Here are two more examples of situations requiring effective Leadership at the Points of Contact:
- Situations in which members of different departments or divisions must partner to achieve shared objectives. The word most commonly used to describe these situations is “Teamwork”, and they are very important “points of contact”. In the absence of effective leadership, teamwork will seldom be more than a situational phenomenon.
- Those situations in which staff members interact with external constituents, e.g., prospects, customers, strategic partners, parents, teachers, vendors and even competitors. Whether the specific activities are selling, customer service, negotiation or enhancing the industry or profession, they provide opportunities and challenges. They are “points of contact”, and they are situations in which effective leadership is essential.
Strategic-level leaders develop and introduce their strategic expectations for the organizations they lead. Those expectations often take the form of initiatives that the strategic-level leaders believe will produce sufficient value to justify their implementation.
Tactical-level leaders, the ones I refer to as leaders “at the points of contact” must ensure that those strategic expectations are converted into actionable plans and the actionable plans into action.
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