Blog about Leadership

What people perceive is what people believe. That is why perception is a necessary consideration. Ask any sales person and they will tell you how true this statement is. When making a decision about a new server line for a data center, the decision is sometimes contemplated with facts, cost/benefit comparisons, and other substantiated factors. Too often, the decision is based on “this is what we’ve gone with, so this is what we’ll consider” or “we had a bad experience with this, so we’ll consider anything but this.”

Effective managers/leaders are consistent, but at the same time they are adaptive to conditions and often drive change. Some of the greatest leaders take the time to reflect and ponder if, where they are going and how they are going there, still line up with where they should be at and where they should be going.

A company that I have worked with changes (reorganizes) the core competencies every two to four years. To some, this change is perceived as just shaking things up and borders on erratic, jerky maneuvers. The problem is not the change itself, but rather the execution and communication of the change – not what was done, but how it was done.

Leaders need to be acutely aware of perception. What people perceive is what people believe regardless of what is actually the case.

This is what I call the ‘Perception Dynamic.’

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