The 21st Century Leadership Challenge

The 21st Century Business Challenge

Organizations—and their leaders—are powerful agents of change. Yet, many leaders—president/CEOs , vice presidents, board members or senior managers—struggle in creating the optimal results they desire.

It’s not that as a leader, you are not intelligent, committed, or successful—you are simply experiencing less success and struggle for the results and growth you desire. These struggles might look like staff burnout or turnover, non-peak performance, market indifference, or failure to meet organizational metrics.

These results are frequently attributed as personal (employee) or market failures. Less frequently, these factors are identified as what they are—leadership failures.

Failure is Not the Problem; Failure to Evolve is the Problem

Many corporate leaders decide to tinker with their executive or staff mix, their product offerings or their mission or vision, trying to make all the tumblers click in order to make the world pay attention to, and support, them in reaching their goals. As a result, they invest much of their time and resources in areas with little return for their efforts.

However, failure to reach goals is rarely the problem. Failure to evolve HOW you lead is the problem.

The 21st Century Leadership Challenge

The 20th Century leader was forged by two seminal eras: assembly-line manufacturing era of the early 1900s, and the mid-century war era of World War Two.

In the 1900s, leaders directed and followers executed.

And, for the time, this leadership style worked—on a Ford or U.S. Steel assembly line, a worker knew his role and did it repetitively without question. It worked for the intended purpose—manufacturing production and economic prosperity.

In war, the military/hero leader arose. Generals Patton, Eisenhower, and MacArthur directed and soldiers executed. It worked for the intended purpose—military defense and offense for the sake of the free world.

The current challenge is that many of today’s companies still model leadership after these leader archetypes, even though the circumstances are radically different.

How to Succeed in the 21st Century

Unlike the manufacturing economy of the 20th century, the 21st Century is marked by the service economy. Characterized by continuous technological innovation, 24/7 access to services, frequently-instantaneous delivery, and a near-infinite number of options for the consumer, meeting the market’s demand requires continuous leadership innovation.

Add to these factors the stratification of market consumers—demographic, geographic, age, economic—and many leaders long for the simplicity of early 20th century management.

But, there is no going back. What worked before does not work today, and many leaders are struggling to find their way to meet the market’s needs, and the needs of their teams.

21st Century leadership is collaborative—it relies on the combined genius of many types of leaders in matrixed integration to achieve 21st century results. Failure to recognize and address this collaboration is the source of many companies’—and their leaders’—struggles.

Your Role as a 21st Century Leader

You are a leader who enjoys a challenge, so you take on added responsibility for the performance of others that is the lifeblood of your organization’s success.

But, today’s leader is expected to seamlessly navigate both professional leadership dynamics and challenges, as well as personal leadership dynamics and challenges. As a result, many leaders struggle because they see professional leadership and personal leadership as separate and unrelated.

This mistaken viewpoint often leads to leaders overworking to meet professional expectations while sacrificing their personal health, relationships and fulfillment. Many see only that the two must exist in zero-sum opposites.

Over time, these leaders feel frequently pulled in 100 different directions, all of which are critical to the organization’s success. And, perhaps they struggle with how to get the very best of themselves and their team’s efforts to show up consistently. As a result, they and their staff find themselves frustrated doing less and less to create results, and more and more putting out fires.

As a leader, you may often find yourself stuck between two bad choices—sacrifice potential results, or demand, cajole or bargain to try to create the results that you want.

But, what if there was a third option? One where you could experience greater effectiveness in your roles as a leader. And, simultaneously, achieve this effectiveness without sacrificing your health and personal relationships.

One whereby you and your organization are free to create the greater impact that it seeks to have on the world, while operating with efficiency that creates sustainability.

That’s where Leadership Coaching comes in.

The Leadership Solution

Leadership coaching is a proven, effective way to strengthen essential skills, enhance efficiency and increase responsiveness to the constantly-evolving environment in which executives lead themselves and others.

Effective leadership coaching will address both the professional and personal leadership development needs, engendering a fluid rhythm that meets needs of each.

In order to evolve into a better leader, the essential qualities, challenges, and needs of each type of leadership must be addressed on the coaching journey.

I’m Brian Evans. As a leadership coach—one armed with more than 25 years in the corporate and nonprofit sectors—I work individually with leaders to identify and eliminate obstacles to their success.

Together, we integrate 21st Century essential skills, develop and implement new strategies to see greater possibilities, think strategically, act boldly, lead effectively, embrace change, create efficiency and sustainability, and increase impact, and results, with ease.

The Leadership Opportunity

I don’t know for certain that I can help you face the leadership challenge—I won’t know that until you contact me to set up a complimentary conversation to discuss where you are, where you want to go, and what’s in the way.

What I am certain of, based on many years of seeing it (and living it) across dozens of industries across three continents, is that you can increase impact and organizational sustainability via leadership coaching.

I welcome the opportunity to show you how.

Brian Evans Coaching

Guiding Executives, Board Members and Leaders

to solve essential problems and create dynamic growth.