Acceptance is the key for leaders. As I was finishing writing my second book recently, I was reflecting on the realistic parameters within which a leader can be effective in any given organisation. In previous senior management roles there were occasions when I used to suffer a certain amount of anguish/ frustration when I couldn’t influence the speed of headway/ forward movement that I had set for myself (e.g. having a proposal adopted by shareholders as quickly as I would have liked, having the majority of shareholders run with a newly introduced initiative ASAP, etc). It has taken me to this stage of my life to understand and accept a key truism about leadership…

The essential prerequisite for an organization to experience good leadership is:
i. The leader must have the necessary competencies and willingness to be able (and want) to lead, AND
ii. The constituents (e.g. shareholders) must be supportive of the notion of being led.

What this means is you can be (or have) the most outstanding leader, but unless the people who you/ the leader is expected to lead are fundamentally “open” (willing) to be led, then the likelihood of the organisation moving uniformly in an approved strategic direction as per what is guided by the leader is slim. Put in another way, unless all 8 of the rowers in a state-of-the-art rowing boat are rowing in synch, it is unlikely that the boat will advance down the rowing course being either the fastest boat or following a straightline direction.

So, for those organisations looking at appointing leaders (e.g. CEO/ GM, etc) to lead stakeholders, my suggestion is that you test the appetite of those who you intend the appointed leader to lead before commencing searching for the right person to lead. And use stakeholder reaction to set a realistic role scope for any leader that you may choose to appoint.

And for high-performing leaders, don’t beat yourself-up if you’re not achieving the buy-in from stakeholders that you had hoped for within the timeframe that you had set for yourself. Do your best…that’s all that anyone can ask of you…and expect from you.