The Link between Leadership and Company Health/Wealth – By Reinette Farajallah

In all my years of management consulting, I have consistently found without simplifying the issue, that the root cause of nearly all problems experienced in any organization can be attributed to one single aspect – the lack of suitable and/or presence of poor leadership and senior management competence on strategic level.  People perish where there is a lack of vision, but they also flourish in its presence.  As a healthy mind leads to a healthy body, so does good leadership lead to a healthy organization.

Another trend that I also found consistently, is that in an organization where there is poor leadership and management competence, every level in an organization (whether it be operational, operational/systemic, systemic, systemic/strategic or strategic) works at least one level lower than what they are supposed to.  The knock-on effect is that the strategic level is usually left “unattended”, which of course is a recipe for disaster, as a “headless chicken” can only survive so long.  Now that sounds a little bit harsh, but truth is most of the time a bitter pill to swallow.

One of the reasons why I have ventured into executive search, apart from the fact that my management consulting background equipped me with valuable insight and understanding with regards to what organizations need, I am passionate about finding and placing the right candidate in the right strategic role, as I know very well the impact on the rest of the organization.  It is extremely important for companies to partner with the right Executive Search Consultancy as a mistake in placing a wrong candidate on this level will cost them dearly – directly and indirectly.  It can be the difference between a healthy company of people and a sick company of people.

The relationship with an Executive Search Partner is an intimate one and like any intimate relationship, it should be built on trust.  Companies should, apart from ensuring that the Executive Search Partner will comply with international executive search practices in terms of market mapping and developing the search strategy, also ask themselves the following questions to determine whether this is the right fit for them:

• Do these people take the time to build a proper relationship or will we just be another Client?
• Do they take the time to understand our strategic objectives and do they have the right competence to act as an effective “filter” for us in the market?
• Can we trust them to always protect our interests and that they will not divulge confidential information?

Posted by ENW Editor on Jul 3 2012. Filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry