Avoiding Difficult Situations Doesn't Make Them Go Away

The career development literature on wisdom for leaders is so abundant and applicable, it has many works on procrastination: most of which contain at least one sentence about leaders taking early action, saying things like, "You cannot always wait for things to improve." What's the best way to avoid the trap of sitting on decisions and dead ends? Focusing on trends can help you avoid the early fatality of failure.

While one person may respond to an emergency by postponing some other important task, another may do the opposite: action the appropriate task, which may result in delays or a deterioration of the situation. But if you wait for someone else to act, your hand gets stuck and you are left without the option of postponing a necessary action.

Many approaches to organizing and motivating the people of a corporation are as wrong as are many of the leadership methods they attempt to substitute. I do not mean that individuals should believe they are powerless to achieve their aims. On the contrary, I believe that we are all powerless to achieve the aims of other people, but that will not stop us from pursuing our own. Those seeking power usually believe that they have power when they can force others to use an activity in which they have their interest.

There is one excellent way to prevent procrastination, and it's not a secret. It's simply the thing that every new leader must learn to do well from the very beginning. If you've been managing a project for some time, you probably have a fairly good idea of what kinds of problems you want to solve, so the first step should be find the problem to solve. Of course, action comes from fear, too. Fear leads people to settle for less and for a lower standard of living. When you are afraid, you seek out the safety of inaction. Which leads to boredom and boredom leads to procrastination

There are two ways of changing our behavior and affecting our own future. First, we can learn from the examples of our superiors in the past who have used their leadership abilities to dramatically affect the course of history. This is the form of leadership most useful for building peace and prosperity, as it teaches you to deal with problems swiftly and effectively. The Key to Success for a demonstration of the two-fold nature of leadership. The other way of changing our behavior and influencing our own future is very important.

The most obvious cause of our present global ills is the collective tendency to crave the embrace of the great or charismatic leader. This craving is naturally heightened among those concerned about their future, who seek the protection and guidance of those who are feared, respected, admired and successful.However, most "leaders" would rather encourage others, offer advice, and say "you should do this" rather than doing the right thing themselves. They would rather criticize or put others down for a mistake than admit and correct it. This is like the leadership instructor that encourages the students to be passive instead of building confidence and independence.