Are you inadvertently cultivating sabotage or mutiny?

Even good leaders can invite strategic calamity.

THINK ON IT: Are you inadvertently cultivating sabotage or mutiny? 

Sabotage. Mutiny.

Those are strong words that no leader wants to experience in their business. Or worse, contribute to its rise.

But that’s exactly what happens if you don’t have a clear goal AND a firm, frank view of reality. Lacking either and you’ve invited sabotage or mutiny of your desired future.

Unclear direction leads to mutiny—the organizational pursuit of alternative futures.

Unclear situation leads to sabotage—a weakened pursuit of the desired future.

Remember, strategic tension is formed by the drive to change your present reality into your desired future. Like the tension of a stretched rubber band, the one drives the other. 

When you sugarcoat reality, you relax the tension and lessen the urgency and energy to change. That’s a form of sabotage, and it’s easy to inadvertently cultivate it. Understandably, you want to inspire, create hope, or avoid hurting someone’s feelings. And so you shy away from the one thing that is needed: a clear view of reality. 

Guess what? You’ve just sabotaged your strategic objective.

Conversely, if you don’t have a clear strategic objective—your desired future—then that future is left open to interpretation by your team. And they go off in an alternate direction. That’s a form of mutiny.

Mutiny can occur in your organization in a couple of different ways. First, in the absence of directional clarity, team members will do what they think is best, expending effort toward their own version of the future. And it doesn’t take too many of them, each with their own version of the future, to create a form of Brownian motion and slow your momentum.

Second, when strategic goals are unclear, mutiny can also occur just from the sheer force of fatigue. 

Every objective that stretches the organization will have its challenges. In the midst of them, it’s human nature—all nature, really—to take the path of least resistance. It's easier to look for other, less costly options than to remain on a path, especially when that path was unclear to begin with. Here again, as I discussed above, what’s considered a more attractive path will vary among leaders, eroding the alignment that’s so necessary to achieve a big vision.

The trouble is, even if you settle on a new path it, too, will have its challenges, inviting even more mutinous options in the future.

Clarity is the best defense against sabotage or mutiny. So, while you may have a strong view of where your business is headed and where it’s at today, check in with your team to see that they do, too. 

Before they inadvertently steer the ship in another direction.

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