However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. ~ Winston Churchill

I think that in this quote, Churchill captures the essence of our human tendency to want to hold onto the ideas, services, and products that we generate with what can become an almost blind faith in their inherent value.  It as if we tie our own value to the success of the idea that we gave life to, and we can be tempted to protect its survival as if we are protecting our young.

Churchill understood that to be an effective leader, one needs to promote outcomes rather than ideas.  This take a certain degree of humility to let go of the ideas that we create when they are not working and embrace the ideas of another if it is more effective!  But at the end of the day, confident and effect leaders understand that the best idea always has to win, even when that idea is not their own.

Let’s challenge ourselves this week to test the results of our strategies and compare them to the desired objectives of the organization we lead.   Perhaps our strategy was beautifully conceived, but is it working?  Could someone else’s strategy work better?  If so, let’s demonstrate our confidence and effectiveness by embracing the idea that produces the results our organizations need.  A leader’s value to an organization is based on the results that they produce in collaboration with their team, not the number of our own ideas which we can implement.

Phillip Stoller