• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Great Leadership by Dan
  • Blog
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • About
menu icon
go to homepage
  • Blog
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • About
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • search icon
    Homepage link
    • Blog
    • Popular
    • Recent
    • About
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Twitter
  • ×

    You are here Home » leaders

    Leadership Can Sometimes Come from Where You Least Expect It

    Last updated on Mar 22, 2018 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest
    post from Scot Hunsaker:
    Back in
    2000, my company, Counsilman
    ‐Hunsaker was in need of a receptionist. After
    our interview process, we found Macy to be the best fit for the position. It
    would be an understatement to say that when she interviewed with us and was
    hired, she was inexperienced in the industry. From day one, however, she
    displayed a natural curiosity for how the business worked and, most
    importantly, how it could be improved and what role she could play in that
    improvement.
    Very
    quickly, Macy’s role within the company began to change. Within a couple of
    years of joining us, she was helping us manage events and customer experiences.
    She had a real talent for spotting ways that the customer experiences could be
    improved and then working to implement ways to make those improvements happen.
    She did this with little need for instruction or oversight despite her lack of
    experience.
    As we began
    to have authentic conversations at Counsilman
    ‐Hunsaker, we saw the need to
    formalize the process of finding emerging leaders in the organization. There
    were people who excelled at thinking about the future of the company, so we
    needed a place for them to have influence – not because of their title or
    tenure, but because they demonstrated the will and ability to lead. My partners
    and I decided that the strategic planning process was the best experiential way
    that emerging leaders could shape the future of the organization.
    In one of
    the first conversations about our new strategic planning process I had with my partners,
    we identified Macy as one of those emerging leaders. She had a sense for
    finding the ways to continuously improve processes and she cared enough to
    follow through on that as best as her current role would allow. And we felt she
    was ready for a seat at the table. Just five years after she was hired to be
    our receptionist, Macy became part of our strategic planning team. Through her
    research and dedication to helping us grow, she helped to formalize our
    strategic improvement and management processes. Perhaps less obvious on paper,
    but unavoidable in experience, Macy had a tendency to be optimistic – to expect
    the best of herself and others. In short, she was inspiring. This kind of
    artful leadership ability was not a theory. We could see it on full display. She
    leaned into leadership situations that likely caused her some discomfort. But
    she did them with a kind of passion that made every interaction with her meaningful
    and engaging.
    Little did
    we know at the time that was just the beginning of the leadership role at Counsilman
    ‐Hunsaker for Macy.

    Allow for
    Leaders to Emerge

    It is not
    lost on me that we were lucky to have a person like Macy in our company. A
    ‐players like that are hard to find. And that is just the point.
    How often do we overlook people who have the leadership ingredients but nowhere
    to go with them? This does not happen because we don’t care, but because there
    is no set structure or path to a leadership role outside of pure instinct.
    This
    matters in the context of building a legacy for your organization. No matter
    what you may decide you would like to do with your business, there is a need
    for knowledgeable leaders who know how to make decisions. Pay close attention
    to your people. You most likely have more potential leader than you think.
    To find and
    encourage the potential leaders like Macy within Counsilman
    ‐Hunsaker, we built upon the structures we already had in place
    when we had authentic conversations. We used a combination of the corporate
    dashboard, SWOT analysis, employee surveys and customer surveys and created a strategic
    planning group. By using the activities associated with strategic planning, we
    found a way to engage people in ways that were challenging, but did not set
    them up for failure.
    We found,
    through trial and error, that strategic planning is best done with no more than
    ten people present total to promote some intimacy and not a public speaking
    forum. I also made sure, as the CEO, that I listened more than I talked. This
    was not easy for me. We wanted to create our
    collective plan and not mine
    . And I wanted to observe
    how they dealt with adversity, being challenged and how they thought through
    their portion of the plan.

    As a
    concept, strategic planning has been around since before the Great Depression. Using
    the concepts involved in plotting the growth of a business is at least a 100
    ‐year‐old idea. At this point, there
    are as many ways to strategically plan as there are privately held companies.
    It is nothing new. The nuance I want you to grab hold of is using strategic
    planning as a tool for creating a legacy. It is the why behind the
    strategic planning. This is the best tool that we found for allowing the cream
    to rise to the top – for leaders to emerge. At Counsilman
    ‐Hunsaker, we decided that strategic planning was the most
    fitting leadership training ground for legacy creation. We did not want to make
    people feel like leaders. We wanted them to have a chance to really be
    leaders. We wanted them to put their ideas to the test. Being able to
    strategically plan for the future is a prerequisite for ownership. So why not
    use that critical skill as a way to identify your next crop of leaders?
     

    Scot Hunsaker is the
    author of the book Heroic
    Ownership
    , and leads The
    Ardent Group
    , an organization that provides owners with the necessary
    roadmap to build a team of co-owners and create a legacy.

    « 3 Reasons Why Your Company’s “Superhero” Leadership Strategy Isn’t Working
    Why Being an Ethical Leader Can Help Your Organization »
    AFTER ENTRY

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Primary Sidebar

    dan-mccarthy-great-leadership-by-dan

    About Dan

    Dan is an expert in leadership and management development. For over 20 years Dan has helped thousands of leaders and aspiring leaders improve their leadership capabilities. Read More

    ebook-dan-mccarthy

    Trending:

    • Top 12 Development Goals for Leaders
    • How to Write a Great Individual Development Plan (IDP)
    • 25 Great Leadership Development Quotes
    • The Performance and Potential Matrix (9 Box Model) – an Update

    Footer

    ↑ back to top

    • Home
    • About
    • Contact

    As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

    Copyright © 2022

    • Disclosure
    • Privacy Policy