Organization's don't execute unless the right people, individually & collectively, focus on the right details at the right time. For any leader, moving from the concept to the critical details is a long journey. You have to review a wide array of facts and ideas, permutations and combinations of which can approach infinity. You have to discuss what risks to take and where. You have to thread through these details, selecting those that count. You have to assign them to the people who matter, and make sure which key ones must synchronize their work.
Such decision making requires knowledge of the business and the external environment. It requires the ability to make fine judgements about people --- their capabilities, their reliability, their strengths and their weaknesses. It requires intense focus and incisive thinking. It requires superb skills in conducting candid, realistic dialogue.
Every great leader has had an instinct for execution. he or she has said, in effect, "Unless I can make this plan happen, it's not going to matter." But the selection, training and development of leaders doesn't focus on this reality. A high proportion of those who actually rise to the top of a business organization have made their mark --- their personal "brand" ---- as high-level thinkers. They are the kind of people who get caught up in the intellectual excitement of each new big idea that comes out and adopt it with enthusiasm. They are articulate conceptualizers, very good at grasping strategies and explaining them. This, they know, is what it takes to get ahead. They aren't interested in the "how" of getting things done; that's for somebody else to think about.
Judging a person's intelligence is easy for people who hire and promote others: it's harder to research a person's track record and gauge their know-how about getting things done, particularly when the performance is the result of many people working together. But the intelligent, articulate conceptualizers don't necessarily understand how to execute. Many don't realize what needs to be done to convert a vision into specific tasks, because their high level thinking is too broad. They don't follow through and get things done; the details bore them. They don't crystalize thought or anticipate roadblocks. They don't know how to pick people for their organizations who can execute. Their lack of engagement deprives them of the sound judgement about people that comes only through practice.
Leadership without the discipline of execution is incomplete and ineffective. Without the ability to execute, all other attributes of leadership become hollow.
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