The Importance of Empowerment
A great system, organization, leader, mentor or coach is one that empowers people to do great things, and to be their best. I sometimes find myself with a leadership dilemma, where I think I may have the right answer, or I think my call to action would be better than the one someone in my organization is about to take. Note I said I think....I also believe the group in nearly any room is always smarter than I am on my own. It is critical that I recognize that great leaders and organizations empower people to make decisions and take action, and unless I plan on being in all places at all times to direct all actions to my liking I better get good at casting vision, and creating systems that provide my people with the right information at the right time, and the right resources to do their jobs well.
My job as CEO of Absco Solutions is no different than that of a great Chief Security Officer. Creating a vision for how we interact with people, what our mission is - keeping people, property, and the intellectual assets of the organization safe and secure and utilizing our resources to empower other departments of the organization to have greater success in their area of operations; then providing the right information quickly, accurately and efficiently to my team, with the corresponding tools and systems to respond to situations as they encounter them.
If I have the wrong vision or the wrong mission I will miss the mark. If my systems don't provide the needed information, or conversely provide an overwhelming volume of information that isn't actionable, I miss the mark (e.g. I have a video surveillance system that has blind spots to critical events or I have a video surveillance system with 400 cameras and no automated alarm events to let me know when to actually pay attention). And if I don't provide the tools and systems for response - like automated lock down or automated dispatch - then I will likely fail to achieve even the best mission. At the end of the day few people get paid for their intent. Most of us earn our living through the outcomes we produce for those around us.
Which brings me to the last point in all of this: it is critical to have great people and build great leaders in our organizations. I am thankful that we have great team members and leaders at Absco Solutions, and that we get to work with so many amazing organizations that do too, from whom we are able to learn and grow with.
Make it a great day!
-Erick
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