Do you have enough leaders?

During this economic downturn, what would happen if organisations lacked strong leaders? The term "leadership" is not new. Numerous people have talked about it. Today, every organisation acknowledges that it could successfully grow and progress toward the future if they have good leaders.

For today, I would like all of you who hold chief-executive positions, to spare some time to reflect on the present. Please ask yourselves if employees in your organisation are equipped with strong leadership competencies and are they enough to drive the organisation forward?

I would like you to ask yourself the following questions:

How many people help your organisation by putting extra effort in finding opportunities for corporate growth; help think and plan ahead; and also envision what needs to be actually developed in the organisation?

How many people in your organisation influence growth and help push the organisation to beat competition resulting in business stability and sustainability and improved bottom-line results?

How many people in your organisation can make employees visualise and understand the corporate direction, and have the ability to create employee excitement in reaching for the corporate direction together, even though they are fully aware that the work will be much more difficult?

How many people in your organisation can lead by aligning with the corporate direction? Some leaders think that they have the ability to lead in small groups but in reality their leadership may not be aligned with the corporate direction at all.

How many people in your organisation have the ability to inspire and motivate employees so they could feel encouraged to work with more enthusiasm?

How many people in your organisation can embrace changes that have occurred and feel that change  is normal in the today's business world? In the past, change could probably take up to two to three years but realistically, today, organisations have to adapt themselves all the time to concur with the world situation. Therefore, leaders have to understand that change happens all the time, every single day. So, what could we do to make leaders lead the change without letting their subordinates feel and question "Is change happening again?". Now, the challenge for leaders is to make subordinates understand - if you cannot change, you cannot survive. An effective leader has to transform their subordinates and gradually create change. For example, change should happen in sequence from A to B,  C and D, not a jump from A to F, as this will indeed make employees feel stressed because of the extremity of the change.

How many people in your organisation possess "Entrepreneurship"; love the organisation; want to see the organisation progress; and are committed to work because they want to become part of the corporate success?

How many people in your organisation have self awareness of their weaknesses and strengths; want self improvement and are able to visualise what their potential for improvement is?

These are the questions that every executive needs to answer in order to effectively evaluate if your organisation possesses enough leaders or not? If you could answer every point and conclude that your organisation sufficiently possesses all of the above mentioned qualifications, I would like to congratulate you on your organisation being fully equipped with leaders to help drive the organisation towards the desired target. But if you already considered the points and assessed that there are not enough leaders in your organisation, is it not time that you need to build strong leadership? Is it not time to build people to lead your company toward future success?

The method one organisation implements successfully does not mean that another organisation will be able to use because each organisation has differentiating factors.

You could compare this to curing diseases. Not all patients will get the same type of treatment. Doctors have to precisely diagnose what ails each patient and what is the cause.

Doctors collating test results to find ways to cure each patient is comparable to organisations developing strong leadership. An assessment should be conducted to find out what problems are encountered and one must try to find out different ways to solve each problem.

Arinya Talerngsri is the managing director of APM Group, Thailand's leading consulting company which provides strategic solutions in people development, human-capital management, organisational development and assessment consultancy.