Idea 76: Making it happen
Between the ideaAnd the realityBetween the motionAnd the actFalls the Shadow
T S Eliot (1888–1965), The Hollow Men (1925)
These days many strategic leaders, in both private and public sectors of organizational life, are called chief executive – a shortened form of the American title chief executive officer (CEO). To execute means to put into effect, to perform, to carry out what exists in plan or intent – in short, to make it happen.
‘A log of wood may lie in the river for years but it never becomes a crocodile,’ says a trenchant African proverb. Many managers are promoted to the role of strategic leader but lack leadership ability: they are logs, not crocodiles. This functional area of strategic leadership is one of ...
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