“How Saying No to the Status Quo Will Propel You From
Ordinary to Extraordinary”- John Michel
To many leaders challenges are not roadblocks –They are opportunities. Your leadership is measured by those who follow you. How you inspire and engage them makes a big difference. Consider an alternative point of view whenever you think. Most people think of the same things when they lead their employees. All great inventions challenged the status quo.
You create a powerful impact and influence clients and teams with an enthusiastic positive “can do” attitude. Organizations live and die by results. Yet most organizations get a fraction of the results they are capable of. There are many reasons for this: poor strategy, poor leadership, insufficient resources, etc. But one main reason is overlooked by most leaders. Many organizations stumble because they are permeated with a robust status quo.
For some organizational leaders, the status quo isn’t that it gets poor results; it gets mediocre results and represents them as good results. Results are a measure of leadership. The real problem is that things are never a constant, things change.
Status Quo Leadership
“We have always done it this way” is the mantra of status quo leadership. Status quo leadership is more driven by the need to keep an intact ego than for the good of the organization. If you are not driving change you are not leading but managing. There is nothing wrong with managing per se.
Challenging the status quo defines your leadership
Challenging the status quo involves many skills. The ability to see trends that are developing inside and outside the organization and forecasting their impact is exceptionally important. Forecasting like this involves some degree of imaginative thinking and intuition.
“The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it” -Warren Bennis
Sometimes leaders need to step out of their comfort zone in order to do something they are not use to doing. Leaders who challenge the status quo and work collaboratively and creatively transform both themselves and the organization.
In order to create a high performance culture it means you need to break the molds and begin to Challenge the Status Quo.
Here’s how you can challenge the status quo.
Ask yourself:
• Do you strive to maintain the status quo?
• Or do you Do you challenge the status quo?
• Am I constantly looking for what is changing and why?
Do I accept change as not only necessary but also positive?
Challenging the status quo has a lot to do with asking the right questions about yourself and the organization.
Challenging the Way Things Are
Leaders are challenging and seek out opportunities to challenge and change the status quo. They seek innovation and improvement in the organization, are prepared to experiment, to take risks and to accept the inevitable failures as part of the learning experience.
“Being willing to challenge your own status quo is an essential part of getting on the path to creating change.” – Ali Davies
Organizations develop a status quo for many reasons. Those reasons range from leaders feeling pressured for time and the need to prioritize, all the way to a culture that has a “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality.
Traits shared by leaders who challenge the status quo
• Willingness to stand out; differentiate yourself, risk rejection by being different, a dose of rebelliousness.
• Determination and perseverance to push through your own ideas.
• Improvement drive – desire to find better ways of doing things, curiosity.
• Questioning mind – not accepting authority, willingness to challenge the status quo.
• Self belief – believing that you can think for yourself and devise a better way.
• Thick skin – being able to withstand criticism and recover from setbacks.
• Learning from mistakes – being prepared to try things to find what works.
• You might call this combination of traits a spirit of adventure. It is more commonly, but not exclusively, found in younger people.
These are the only (or main) traits you need to lead by example. Leaders who use more explicit, direct influence skills will have these traits as well.
Brigadier General John Michel’s* insight of Status Quo is as follows:
Every challenge involves confronting the status quo.
To move from mediocrity to greatness, we must venture out.
To build something substantial, we must take a strong stand.
To create something meaningful, we must create significance.
Nothing great is ever achieved by doing things the way they have always been done.
To challenge the status quo we must take one fearless choice at a time, one brave decision at a time, one courageous action at a time.
These choices, decisions, and actions transform challenges into exploration, risk into reward, and fear into determination.
*(Brigadier General John Michel, experienced leader, humanitarian, visionary, and renown status quo buster, is the author of the ground breaking book, Mediocre Me: How Saying No to the Status Quo will Propel you from Ordinary to Extraordinary.)
Consider an alternative point of view whenever you think. Most people think of the same things when they lead their employees. All great inventions challenged the status quo. Dare to question the status quo-“What if you did?…”
Define what “status quo” means to your leadership, and then decide to keep things the same and have everyone pass you by, or breakthrough your existing leadership and gradually move things forward in a slightly different way than you would otherwise. Remember, we are in the age of the “new normal”.