Harvard Business School Professor Bill George, whose previous books include True North and Authentic Leadership, has a new book on the market called “7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis.”
His view is that we should see a crisis as a chance to develop and enhance leadership skills.
The Professor of Management Practice at HBS and the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, believes that no one can be an effective leader in a crisis by attempting to go it alone. Leaders must be the first to recognize this reality and plan accordingly, he says.
His seven leadership recommendations are to:
- Face reality, starting with yourself.
- Don’t be Atlas; get the world off your shoulders.
- Dig deep for the root cause.
- Get ready for the long haul.
- Never waste a good crisis.
- You’re in the spotlight: follow your True North.
- Go on offense: focus on winning now.
It makes sense to me!
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report for the US has recently been published and some interesting facts have emerged from it.
- The first key point is that total entrepreneurial activity actually increased in the U.S. in 2008 from the year before. This increase has to a significant extent been driven by the downturn in the US economy.
- The vast majority of these new entrepreneurs, 87%, however are opportunity focused , with only 7% becoming entrepreneurs just to make ends meet. However the fear of failure too has increased over the past year, hardly surprising in the current economic climate.
- The typical entrepreneur is getting older, and the results indicate a marked reduction of around 9 % in entrepreneurial activity for individuals 18 to 44, while those 45 and over had an increase in entrepreneurial activity of almost 10 % this past year. Essentially the younger generation seem to be more inclined to make ends meet through traditional employment.
- The size of the ventures entrepreneurs are thinking about is changing with the number of jobs entrepreneurs expected to create from their startups decreasing – not a good sign for long-term employment growth.
- The results also indicate a continuation of the trend away from manufacturing, with the services sector becoming of ever increasing importance, with fewer new businesses in innovative, transformational industries, another bad sign for the long-term economic outlook in the U.S.
- In terms of financing, people are looking more and more to friends, family and other private funding to fund their new ventures. It is family, friends and private investors – not Government – that are funding the new entrepreneurs
Business, Economics, Productivity, Recession, Strategy | ffullard | 
January 25, 2010 11:00 pm | 
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