The 21 Indispensible Qualities of a Leader | Problem Solving

14.       Problem solving: You can’t let your problems be a problem

The Wal-Mart chain, a little child compared to the bigger boys of Kmart, Target and Woolco when it started, expanded to more than 1,700 stores in USA and Mexico by Sam Walton’s death in 1992.  Along the way, Walton improved his store’s panning and distribution by creating central distribution centers and adopting computerization to track their stocks.  Maxwell emphasized that “effective leaders always rise to a challenge….that’s one of the things that separates winners from whiners…” and observed that leaders who are good problem-solvers demonstrate five abilities: they anticipate problems, they accept the truth, they see the big picture, they handle one thing at a time and they don’t give up a major goal when they’re down.

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My thoughts

I once overheard a vice president bellow at his staff “I hired you to solve the problem, not tell me the problem”.  Does that contradict Maxwell’s choice of problem solving as one of the 21 indispensible qualities of a leader?  Perhaps the vice president was training his staff to be a leader, perhaps he himself was bellowed at by his superior with the exact same words.  Who knows?  In today’s dynamic business world, Maxwell’s closing statement of Wal-Mart’s story of “its leadership still solving problems as they arise…” does not make me assured about Wal-Mart’s leadership.  Shouldn’t they be anticipating problems and mitigating them BEFORE the problem occurs, instead of solving them as they arise?