Leading Forward

By Alex Granger

LEADING FORWARD - 20 Leadership Drivers To Navigate Ebb & Flow

Leadership principles continue to be the bedrock of growth even in watershed moments. The universal elements of leading forward in this book will help you define your strategy, inspire your people, and enhance your customer relationships in the long term.

More than that, this book is also designed to help leaders, both experienced and aspiring, to develop self-leadership, personal mastery, integrity, an adaptive mindset, resilience, and a forward thinking consciousness.

With each chapter comes a call to action that endeavours to reinforce learning and provide you with methods to stand out against economic decline, pandemics, and various other challenges. I have always been a proponent of the importance of the "WHY", the purpose, but this book focusses on the "HOW", the strategy, of achieving exceptional leadership qualities.

May this book inspire you to lean in, and lead forward!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Granger
• Release date: Apr 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393472902

Book preview

About the Author

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to you who are about to embark on this learning journey.

Gratitude

I would like to thank all those who contributed immensely to my leadership journey, all my past managers and staff, sports mates, clients, business partners and associates, business coaches, mentors, church friends, and family. Above all I thank God for allowing me to do this again, and share my thoughts that I pray will inspire, motivate, educate, give insight, and compel you into action.

INTRODUCTION

My first leadership role in business was Branch Manager for a car rental firm in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (no surprise, my favourite place in the world). Until that time, I had worked as a driver and cleaner, rental agent, past teacher, failed accountant, and unsuccessful salesperson (I should use this in my motivational talks). The odds for a successful career in leadership were stacked against me. Fortunately, I have never let my past failures – let me rephrase that – the necessary obstacles of the past, determine the potential success of my future.

The branch in Victoria Falls was very small. It was me and a driver, and six cars to rent. We did exceedingly (always wanted to use this word in a book) well in the two years I ran the branch. This led to my promotion to National Sales & Marketing Manager and a move to the capital city, Harare. The city was huge, fast paced, bustling with energy. I loved it!

Over the next several years, I was privileged to work as Sales Manager, General Manager, Regional Operations Director, and Sales Director of various blue chip companies in Southern Africa. Besides being an International Speaker, I am also co-founder and Chief Purpose Officer of a human capital development company called Twice Blue, based in Sandton, Johannesburg.

The transition from sales representative to Sales Manager of an international car rental organisation, and managing six sales representatives, taught me so much about leadership. My first biggest challenge was my mindset, and how I would manage a group of individuals who were previously my peers but who now reported to me. I realized immediately that I had to quickly develop my ability to be a servant and coach, to develop, train, help, demonstrate, show compassion and understanding, reprimand, discipline, and even dismiss where necessary. That is just one part of leadership taught me. The second part was managing the division I was responsible for. This came with strategies on outperforming the competition, managing the financials prudently, dealing with an upbeat or slow economy, learning how to constantly redevelop our unique selling proposition, and showing astute business acumen in my work. I needed to be a step ahead of a recession, a calamity, change, and disasters (both business and personal). This meant learning the importance of LEADING FORWARD.

For me, leading forward is about understanding that life is never in balance, and that attempting to find equilibrium is in and of itself an activity. Leading forward therefore, is about action, firstly leaning inwards to the amazing abilities you  inherently have, and then activating various leadership principles, dare I say, defining new ones in the process, for the improvement of your business, community,  family, country, and the world.

In its simplicity, this book will remind you about the leadership principles you may have learned or experienced before, but also provide some calls to action. I trust you will delve deep and activate what you will learn as you lead forward.

The year 2020 brought with it a tumultuous series of events that threw the world into panic, chaos and uncertainty. With the onset of COVID-19 and the social, economic, political and psychological effects that it brought with it, our people needed learn new ways to fight and recover from this disease and adapt to massive changes that it brought upon our lives which will no doubt have a lasting effect on our futures. Similarly, in the business world, organisations were placed in a position where they needed to remain strategic, creative and resilient to fight the adverse effects that this new environment had on the world.

Businesses and investors feared that as time moved on, the Coronavirus would halt economic growth, and there would not be enough resources to recover from that quickly. You see the effect of what the virus did in the slashing of interest rates, removal of taxes and enforced countrywide lockdowns to contain the spread. But a lack of activity means a lack of productivity. As a result,  2020 became the year of the slowest growth for the global economy since 2009, according to projections.

Among all this, leaders were burdened with the almost impossible task of keeping employees, investors and clients hopeful that this would not be the end. But even our leaders can falter in difficult times. It is here that strong and innovative leaders’ buts take up the mantel to drive their businesses through times of uncertainty and navigate unprecedented challenges to come out successful on the other side.

This book must be a handbook of reminders of how leaders should lead forward during the good and the bad.

The book is divided into four parts, focusing on four core areas in which good 21st Century Leaders should focus on: Business, Self, People, Customers. Each section will look