The challenge of leadership is to sustain momentum in organisations.
One of the greatest challenges facing any manager or leader in organisations is to establish and maintain a focus amongst workers, employees or team members on of the needs to continually moving forward and improving the organisation.
How a leader establishes and maintains this desire to continuously improve is the source of much debate amongst academics and practitioners.
There are many leadership theories and models and much debate as to the best model or leadership style. However, The key ingredients for a successful leader are a vision, ability to motivate followers, desire to continuously improve or change to achieve greater personal and team performance and empowering their team to achieve results.
There is a saying often heard in today's dynamic business climate, "if you"re standing still you"re going backwards. The basic message is that unless you and your organisation are focused on continual improvement, more than likely your competitors are passing you by.
A number of questions then arise. How does a leader motivate his team to initially agree on a clear goal or vision, get his teams or followers to move towards that vision, and maintain their momentum once they have started the journey?.
In order to maintain momentum in an organisation a leader must first gain the support of his or her team and establish some movement or change. Only once movement or change has begun can the leader then face the challenge of maintaining the momentum in the organisation.
The methodology, approach or tools employed by the leader to establish and maintain momentum may vary considerably, and are determined by a range of factors including the size, nature, type and state of the organisation, the staff and culture, and the personnel characteristics and traits of the leader themselves.
A leader however cannot simply start his team or organisation on a journey, he must first understand four fundamental issues - who am I, who is on my team, where are we and where do we want to go?.
