The Leaders

The Leader of A Firm

Great leaders use their personal strengths to focus an organization.

At right is a classic leadership model used to describe the interaction of three critical skills for the leader of a firm.

This leader

• works with people and understand the customer,
• aligns the team, get folks to perform and
• formulates a strategy to position the firm and explain that vision

Most successful leaders of an organization are strong in at least two of these three skills.

The Stragtegic Planning Team
The Leaders in the Firm - Their Roles

The model I use as a facilitator to help strategic planning team members, who are leaders in the firm, understand their role in the strategy formulation process evolves from the leadership model.

Positioners formulate strategy, adapters work well with customers and understand the customer's needs, and aligners focus on the efficiency and focus of the business — they get the work done.

The triangle is inverted because the aligners constrain positioners and adapters options. There is a continous balancing act to keep the firm focused.

Aligners comprise most of the key players in a firm. They are responsible to get work done. They enforce the culture. Most folks are aligners and they seek a balance from the positioners and adapters on a practical approach they can carry out.

There are necessary tensions between the three perspectives: profitable growth, cost containment and innovation that I will discuss next.

The website focuses on blending the three perspectives to benefit the customer, make a sustainable profit and efficiently sharing assets.

The Process chapters - positioners and adapters

The Process chapters are going to help you with strategy formulation and show you how to quickly grasp the situation.

The How To chapters - the aligners

The "how to" chapters offer practical advice that hundreds of my seminar participants have agreed will help you work with people.