 Are you an effective leader? If you answered ‘Yes’, how did you come to that conclusion? Did you base your answer off your company financial performance, goal achievement track record or your wonderful employee morale? What if Peter Drucker himself had an opportunity to review your leadership work, do you think he would come to the same conclusion? If by chance you are new to the philosophies and teachings of Peter Drucker I highly suggest taking some time to familiarize yourself with his works. Short and sweet – Drucker is considered the godfather of business leadership and is responsible for much of what we know today on how effective leaders work and operate. His works redefined leadership through the 60s, 70s and 80s and we still refer to his teaching on the daily today. What makes for an effective leader? Let’s ask Drucker himself. ‘The Effective Executive’, a leadership book for the times and originally published in 1967, provides eye opening insight on exceptional leadership in ways which broke the mold back then and continue to do so today. ‘The Effective Executive’ provides a straight forward, simplistic guide to “getting the right things done” for people in a leadership capacity. What I found amazing about this book is how relevant and simplistic Drucker’s advice is, even for today’s purposes 52 years later in a business world that is far different from when these thoughts were put to paper. So, what is it then that makes for an effective leader? All too often I find people enjoy making the topic of leadership how-to’s overly complicated. Maybe they do that to sell more books or to justify their new and insightful leadership methodology. For me, I’ve found the more simplistic something is the better chance I have in understanding it, implementing it and continuing to act on it as a new habit. Drucker’s approach to leadership success and effectiveness is simplicity at its best. He identifies the following five core competencies successful leaders should have as a part of the fabric that guides them through their daily work:
Humbly, I’d like to offer up a 6th leadership core competency to add to Drucker’s list:
While this list may seem incredibly simple, I can tell you from personal experience it’s anything but that. Often times the most simplistic things in life can be the most difficult to master. Why? Because it takes discipline. Though these concepts may be easy to understand, the difficultly comes in the form of holding oneself accountable to doing it above all other things. That’s the tough part! “Intelligence, imagination and knowledge are essential resources [for a leader], but only effectiveness converts them into results.” – Peter Drucker Being disciplined to doing the right thing at the right time is certainly easier said than done. So much so that Drucker identifies that the number one reason for leadership failure is the inability or willingness to change with the demands of and expectations of the new job. Key Take Away: The leaders’ who are willing to change and adapt while being disciplined to doing the right things at the right time are the ones that will be the most effective. Action Item: Read Drucker’s book ‘The Effective Executive’. Regardless of your job title the insight you’ll gain from his timeless approaches to leadership is worth every minute you spend reading it. 
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 We’ve all experienced it – too much work, not enough time or resources to complete it. Day after day passes, the work doesn’t slow down but your time frames become shorter and shorter furthering the stress of the looming workload. All companies, start up to conglomerate, experience this same situation. They’ve got work they can’t get to given the circumstances of their business. Usually it’s…
We can all agree we’ve seen this first hand and very well may be living it now within our current companies. The key question then becomes, “How do we address the ‘too much work, not enough [blank]’ commonality we all share?” First, we need to assess the work in question and is it mandatory to keep close to the chest? Meaning, are we the only ones who can do the work? If your answer is: NO – “the work can be done by someone else”; we should begin looking for alternative means for getting the work done via our supply base or strategic partners. First, review your existing base of suppliers and their capabilities to see where work can be sent out. Second, identify consulting firms which provide outsource services. Many times the word ‘outsourcing’ is used as an all encompassing description for service providers that offer project or work package support, often which can be done onsite with the client just as easily as offsite – which would be the traditional method of outsourcing. YES – “the work can only be done by our organization”; we should review the matrix of resources versus project loads. Undoubtedly there are resources within the organization that aren’t working at full capacity and or are assigned to projects which aren’t immediate. The trick with this approach is it may not satisfy the situation long term, often times when we try to keep things in house all we do is push off the situation to a later date. If that doesn’t work, test your bias on ‘the work can only be done by us’. If you are in fact going to consider using an outsourcing or consulting firm to support you in your work projects be sure to follow this simple three step process to ensure you’re picking the right partners:
Key Take Away: Sometimes the best business decision we can make is deciding what work we want to do [internally] to increase our capacity and efficiencies while outsourcing work to suppliers or service providers which specialize in project work. In turn, this means we can focus on the mission critical work, that we enjoy and are great at doing while giving someone else the work and or projects we can’t handle or don’t want to deal with. Action Item: Utilize the below decision tree diagram (yes, it’s overly simplified) to help you determine if the work you have in question should stay internally versus would benefit from being handled by an outside source.  Are you looking for an outside services firm to help you with your projects? If so, our company Square-1 Engineering, would be happy to speak with you about your needs. Check us out at and let us know how we can help.  About the AuthorTravis Smith is the founder and managing director of Square-1 Engineering, a medical device consulting firm, providing end to end engineering and compliance services. He successfully served the life sciences marketplace in SoCal for over 15 years and has been recognized as a ‘40 Under 40’ honoree by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a top leader in Orange County, CA. Categories
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