Leaders determine if time is an enemy or a friend

It's been 6 months since I joined the gym and no progress. I'm going there in person tomorrow to see what's really going on.

I joke, but many times in business we make this exact mistake. We think that things are magically going to improve without us putting in any effort.

Even great companies or teams will eventually drift towards insignificance without strategic intervention from its leaders. How much more an area that is currently struggling?

The only thing this non-gymmer got right was waiting 6 months before judging. That’s something we can actually learn from.

Sometimes we do one or two small things and when we don’t see instant results we get frustrated. Meaningful improvements often take effort AND time.

When I took over my current department we didn’t have the best reputation for good communication, managing work in progress and discipline. With effort, we starting improving. But our reputation didn’t get better overnight.

I told my team leads that just like a bad reputation doesn’t happen from one failure, a good reputation follows a string of good work.

About 6 months later some of them started getting good feedback, high-fives and nominations for excellence awards.

How we lead determines if time is our friend or our enemy.