Steven F. Wille

Colorful Leadership: What to Do when Opinions Differ and Objectives Conflict Steven F. Wille

When people complain about poor communications the real problem is often lack of agreement. We need a strategy that assumes disagreement. We need to take off our glasses and look through glasses of a different color. Colorful leaders spin the filters to get a clear, rich, natural color image. How others feel, what they think, and where they want to go, matters a great deal. The colorful leadership discipline is to look for the zone of overlap, similar to the way your TV combines red, green and blue lights to make white light and color images. By viewing business and personal needs from thee perspectives you avoid getting stuck with your single point of view. To survive, a business needs people and how people feel is absolutely critical, but it is not the only thing. You also need a quality service or product that can compete in the market. The market is unfeeling. Your product must stand on its own. Quality and good feelings are essential, but not sufficient. To survive long term you must adapt to a changing world. The economy, politics, climate, and a host of unpredictable factors require that you constantly innovate and adapt. Looking from all three perspectives all the time is what the Colorful Leadership Discipline is all about. You will never achieve total agreement on these multiple factors, but where they overlap is the sweet spot were effective leaders focus their attention to maximize their long-term results.