Right Leader, Wrong Position?: The Innovators

"I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time. I'd of said the right thing, but I must have used the wrong line. I been in the right trip, but I must have used the wrong car. My head was in a bad place, and I'm wondering what it's good for."

-- Dr. John

Do you ever think you're the right leader but in the wrong position or times?

It's a recurring fear I'm hearing more and more from both new and longstanding clients, as well as prospective clients at owner and executive gatherings. Very talented people are feeling unsure about themselves and their number one fear is that someone's going to figure out that they're as confused as the people they're supposed to be leading.

The truth is anyone under the age of 70 has never experienced the kind of individual and global economic upheaval we're experiencing today.

Let's face it: Today requires selling, not taking orders; it requires planning, not constantly reacting; it requires innovation, not complacency; it requires higher standards, not mediocrity or inconsistency; it requires encouragement, not dictatorship; and it requires resilience, flexibility, and agility, not status quo.

Most of us, despite the tech boom-and-bust and the savings and loan crisis, really haven't experienced this kind of double-digit unemployment, declines in the newspaper/print industry, and the impact of the Internet's growing hyper-competitiveness with everything. We haven't experienced multi-trillion dollar deficit spending, government expansion and intervention and global connectivity with economies, politics, and communications -- often with archenemies or at least cautious countries.

I have always been fascinated by how some leaders seem to have the magic touch with one company and fail miserably at another, or are successful from one to another. There are the celebrity leaders, the imperial icons of business folklore: Chrysler's Lee Iacocca; General Electric's (GE Quote) Jack Welch; Oracle's(ORCL Quote) Larry Ellison, Microsoft's(MSFT Quote) Bill Gates; Intel's(INTC Quote) Andy Grove; McDonald's(MCD Quote) Ray Kroc; CNN's Ted Turner; Wal-Mart's (WMT Quote) Sam Walton; News Corp.'s (NWS Quote) Rupert Murdoch, and others. And so many times I wonder would they have been so successful in a different time and under different circumstances?