Adventure type
A truly adventurous leader is an innovator. They can explore and lead new enterprises or institutions through the stages of birth, start-up and early development, and often create unprecedented products or services. Bill Gates of Microsoft, Ted Turner of Turner Broadcaster and Frederick Smith of FedEx are all adventurers. They still lead their own companies.
The first part of the innovation plan of an adventurous leader is the creativity of a product or service. This product or service is either brand new or has not been fully developed. Innovators with strategic vision must see the potential demand before customers. Many adventurous innovators are too immersed in the enthusiasm for innovation, often ignoring or underestimating that their innovations should be protected by legal means in as many countries as possible. They must protect innovation from plagiarism.
The next item in the adventure plan is to promote the value of the new product to customers. Leaders must first determine whether customers can easily understand the utility of new products. If so, the sales process will be simple and clear. But if the value of the new product is not obvious, then the promotion process will be much more complicated and protracted.
Innovators may stimulate too much demand, but companies are not yet able to meet these needs. Adventure leaders must be able to estimate the cost of new products. It is also necessary to determine how large the production capacity is, and at the same time meet the quality and reliability standards necessary for customers to accept this product.
The key part of the adventure plan is to obtain sufficient material and financial resources, ensure that the market offensive is launched as soon as possible, maintain the enterprising momentum, occupy market share, and curb competitors' effective response.
An adventurous leader must keep the demand momentum of consumers. Salespeople must understand the advantages and disadvantages of new products, that is, don't dump them cheaply and don't brag too much. The best way to promote new products is direct selling. However, if the salespeople can't directly contact all customers, the adventurous leaders can't use the power of fully trained agents, sales representatives, wholesalers or special agents to quickly enter the market.
If the product is very important to users and users have taken risks to buy from you, then the product must be able to show the expected performance, even better than expected. But don't make excessive commitments, lest cause unsatisfied expectations. Product performance should be carefully tested. Innovators must maintain quality standards at all costs.
If the product does have characteristics and can provide users with real value, then pricing should be based on value rather than cost. Adventure leaders should reflect the unique value of products through pricing, but they should not be greedy.
The final step of the adventure plan is to prepare the next innovation, even if it will eliminate the immediate product. Successful adventurers are always developing the next generation of products and are ready to launch them at the right time. When competitors copy the first generation products and put them on the market, innovative companies are taking this opportunity to launch new improved series, and the price is equivalent or only slightly higher.
god of longevity
Being a rigid leader is completely different from being a bureaucrat or a conformist. They are methodical cultivators, leading the company from entrepreneurship to adulthood. Its leadership style is characterized by stability and a clear understanding of the development direction of the enterprise.
Many companies can survive and prosper because conservative leaders have taken over the class of adventurers. Donald Petersen introduced a series of new high-performance family cars, Taurus and Sable, which enabled Ford Motor Company to regain the image and position it lost during the reign of Henry Ford II.
Reginald Jones served as the strategic leader of General Electric Company (GE) almost throughout the 1970s. During his tenure, GM continued to make profits, which the company could not do in the previous decade. Jones asked GE to invest in plastics, aircraft engines and financial services for a long time, and also cut businesses that were not in the company's long-term best interests.
Winners are more interested in improving existing products than innovating new products. They are good at adding performance features, improving quality, making products more useful and even expanding the use of products.
In order to achieve these goals, leaders should be able to objectively analyze the strengths and weaknesses of existing product lines. And inject funds purposefully. Leaders are interested in increasing the income and profits of enterprises by expanding the sales of existing products and extending the market life of products.
Sticky leaders are more likely to publicize the value of products than adventurous leaders, because customers are already familiar with the functions of products. But customers may not fully understand the potential performance of the product. Therefore, leaders still need to carry out strong advertising and promotion activities to stimulate demand.
In order to meet the needs of customers at any time, the leader of the model should bear certain risks. Because he must trust his prediction and act accordingly. However, leaders who keep shape attach great importance to profits, so they tend to minimize the inventory of finished products and semi-finished products. The result may be that the market is out of stock and missed opportunities.
Those who insist on innovation should foresee that the new functions of products will be imitated by others and supplied to shopping malls at lower prices. We must always be ready to adopt competitive pricing strategies to maintain our market position.
Leaders must establish a complete system to evaluate and monitor the total cost of enterprises, be brave in accepting the reality they know, and take measures to make the production cost of enterprises competitive. Maintain a strong relative total cost position to ensure a sustained long-term cost advantage.
Sticky leaders must also understand what enterprises rely on and how to make profits. This requires a decision: whether it is most profitable to go all out to manufacture and sell the main products, or whether it is more profitable to focus on related consumables, spare parts or services.
Leaders should constantly meet users' expectations, especially users' requirements for product quality and reliability. From the beginning, the oral propaganda about quality must be proved by meeting the product performance expected by customers.
Reform type
This kind of leadership can often save enterprises from the brink of collapse. Reformative leaders should be able to choose and pay attention to what to give up and what to add. One careless step will make a big mistake. Every decision they make is very important to the enterprise, and its influence far exceeds that of other types of leaders.
Many companies need this type of leadership. When roger smith took over General Motors, the company's position was far from competitive. Smith reorganized and diversified its business by acquiring Hughes Aerospace and Defense Systems, and entered the information system service and management industry. He closed some factories, joined other companies and changed the way GM made cars.
James Curtin also reorganized the International Harvester Company. He not only listed the initial core business of the company (construction and agricultural equipment), but even sold the company's trademark. 1986, the company changed its name to Navistar and became a truck transmission and smokeless diesel engine. Curtin proved that the combination of innovation and "proper pruning" is a good way of life.
Reformative leaders must be able to grasp the main symptoms of enterprises and make a diagnosis quickly. He constantly explores the answers to the following questions: Are the products and services provided by enterprises and the market conditions sound? Is the competitive position deteriorating? If so? Is the industry losing money, or is it just our company losing money? How competitive is our product? How to make products survive for a long time?
Then, they summed up the reasons for success or failure in the past. Some products may encounter problems due to improper management, insufficient funds or poor marketing, and should be able to continue production. Innovative leaders will communicate with customers and employees of enterprises to understand their views on such products.
Reformative leaders must evaluate the competitive environment. In addition to the value analysis of products, leaders should also evaluate competitors' innovative actions and strategies and ask themselves: What are their competitors going to do? How much effort have competitors put into this industry and a product line? What will the other party do if our company quits?
They must build the confidence of customers, employees and suppliers. Customers should be convinced that they can get the products and services they need. Employees must have enough confidence in their leaders to try their best to achieve the set goals. Suppliers must be partners like employees; Any antagonistic relationship will be fatal.
At a critical juncture, the only magic weapon for survival is simple administration. But when the enterprise recovers its vitality, it must use important professionals. Internal and external personnel arrangements must be balanced.
While facing and winning the competition, reformist leaders must get enough funds to survive. In order to do this, he must adopt a flexible pricing strategy to balance short-term and long-term demand.
While taking some short-term measures to survive, reform-oriented leaders should also invest in developing new products and expanding production capacity to improve the marketing and sales capabilities of enterprises. With the improvement of enterprises' ability to pay and realize expected profits, this long-term investment should be carried out step by step.
Types of aftercare
Sometimes the company runs out of luck and is unable to return to heaven. If the parties can't keep a clear head, then the aftermath leader is an important decision maker. They admit failure and carry out the closure, merger or liquidation of enterprises. They have the ability to consider the interests of all affected parties.
Take William A.Anders, Chief Executive Officer of General Dynamics as an example. 1992 due to the decline in military orders, the company announced its intention to sell the company. 199 1 year, Anders had transferred the company's departments unrelated to defense products.
Anders once thought that General Dynamics should only engage in defense-related business to form a centralized scale advantage. He is also considering transferring the core business department of the enterprise so that shareholders can share the benefits.
Craig Parr, as the general manager of general motors Sitiak assembly plant, was ordered to close the plant. He summed up the following leadership principles:
Repeated in-depth communication. Workers can understand all the problems at once, which is unfair.
Transparent and open. Take the personal responsibility of the leader and lead the employees through the turning point.
Honesty. Talk frankly about it.
Take a positive attitude. Reward employees with good performance and implement the improvement suggestions put forward by workers.
High standard requirements. Remind workers that improving skills will not only help the factory at present, but also have a better way out in the future.
Keep the factory in good condition. Morale has been shaken, so pay special attention not to let the equipment suffer.
Craig Parr showed real leadership qualities. He is very active and shows a positive attitude.
In addition, the role of the team leader includes: appeasing the left-behind personnel, protecting the best employees and making arrangements for them.
It flows to factories or industries. The leaders of the aftermath must be able to clean up the mess without causing panic and damage to other valuable assets.