ONE of the many challenges a leader faces is knowing when it is time to move on or step aside. Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement that he would step down at the end of the month is spectacular but not surprising for a man with experience running a vital sector of the Vatican hierarchy. He has prevented the Catholic Church from going through the ordeal of seeing the organization’s chief decision-maker slowly but publicly wither away. He is the first Pope to resign since 1415.

Pope Benedict XVI, who announced his resignation yesterday. His successor is expected to be elected before the end of March. photograph: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

For the balance of the past millennium, anyway, the man and the office have been considered separable only by death. So Pope Benedict’s decision to step down is a major change in tradition, and a welcome one. Knowing when to resign, and how, isn’t easy. Such insights seemed virtually impossible for the absolute ruler of an organization bound by tradition.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of the pope, “Benedict XVI is and will remain one of the most important religious thinkers of our time.”

Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation is a positive sign in that it shows the pope is, after all, a man, and not the office, whose personal needs are distinct from those of the Church. It is a distinctly pragmatic and modern statement, and leaders the world over would do well to take a lesson from it.

Even if his mind remains sharp, the office brings with it a schedule that would exhaust men a quarter of the pope's age. Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation holds a message for all leaders, especially those pragmatic leaders who realize that leadership is defined by action and a capacity to get things done. The lesson is simple. As a leader, your responsibility to your organization, to your cause, and to your vision is realistic self-monitoring. “Unto thine own self be true,” we’re advised.  In this case, the truth was clear to him, and he acted decisively, with clarity of purpose and clarity of mind and heart.  When clarity is present so strongly, no outside deliberations are necessary to provide “cover” or comfort, clarity is the comfort.

Harvard Business School professor and leadership historian Nancy F. Koehn weighed in with her thoughts on leadership and what the pope’s resignation means:

“At one level this resignation feels really distant, and at other, when you really peel it down, it's not. It's about how much is on leaders' plates and how much that's not going to change. Quite the opposite: he's stepping down because it's not like it's going to get better tomorrow.

So what's the answer for leaders who are older, who are sick, who are tired? Is it to step down when you feel like you can no longer do it anymore? Or is there an increased pressure to keep working as long as you can?

I don't think this is primarily about age. I think it's really about energy and enthusiasm and a kind of physical, moral, intellectual, and emotional verve — an appetite. It's something that every leader is responsible for maintaining and feeding.

Pope Benedict XVI is someone who has probably looked himself in the mirror and looked at his predecessors — no one else has done this — and said, "For me, I need to do this. Because I'm taking an honest look at my physical and mental and spiritual balance sheet, and I don't have enough assets right now. In some ways, it's an act of great responsibility. Of really responding to his spiritual duty.”

Pope Benedict XVI waves during a mass conducted by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for the 900th anniversary of the Order of the Knights of Malta at the St. Peter Basilica in Vatican Feb. 9. Reuters

Pope Benedict has always put the Church first and views himself as its servant (so too should leaders of every institution). His resignation demonstrates that he is first and foremost humble and realizes that the Church in times of difficulty needs strong leadership. He is too infirm to lead. Leaders of every institution should pay heed. 

“With typical humility, courage and love for the church he has clearly come to the view that the Lord now wants him to use his remaining physical and spiritual energies by serving the church in prayer. I think this is a profound act of humility, a conscientious and responsible decision to hand over the ministry of the successor of Saint Peter in a time of great challenge for the church and for faith in the modern world.” - Cardinal Seán Brady (Ireland)

In resigning, he put the good of his organization of over a billion people that requires active, day-to-day leadership, especially during these complex modern times – ahead of himself. The primary lesson that leaders can learn from Pope Benedict XVI is honest self-reflection. Leaders need to make an honest examination of what they can and are willing to do. In a statement, the pope said in order to govern “…both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.” 

Focus on what, why and how. That clarity of purpose often translates into an organization’s shared values – an approach that may be easier for a religion than a business – but a valuable one, all the same. If we know our own hearts, and look to the needs of others, we will lead through service, for the greatest good. This noble gent has done the right thing. Something that so many leaders have failed to do.

I sincerely wish Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) every good blessing!   

    

- Ashley Mwanza

MAKING hard-hitting decisions is not always easy. Which makes life an enormous challenge. The right path that we should take is not always clearly laid out before us, and the unknown can easily paralyze us. You may be thinking, “I don’t know how I could ever get through this.” Or you may be battling powerful feelings of despair, suffering, confusion, fear, worry, and even anger. These are all normal responses to tragedy or uncertainty. Facing tragedy, or life storms of any kind, can be extremely knotty. But in the midst of heartache and pain, you can find the hope and courage to go on. 

Sometimes we need to take a moment to stop, pause, and reflect on something before we can move forward, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is an end in sight, and if you understand that you are not alone with this decision, that millions of people have been faced with difficult decisions throughout their lives, you may realize that you have the support you need to move forward. Patience is probably the most difficult part of this process, but it is the key to making a good decision that is healthy and well thought out. Don't give up, and you will find the strength within yourself to make a decision that you will be happy with for the rest of your life.

 “However you do it, you’ve just got to fight in this life . . . If there’s one thing you’ve got to hold on to, it’s the courage to fight!” - Bessie Delaney

As long as we are alive we cannot be free of difficulties nor spared from problems. The question is how to overcome and resolve them. And there is only one answer: to confront and challenge life’s trials head on and with an aura of sagacity (level-headedness). In doing so, we can actually change them into sources of joy. Hardship builds character. I firmly believe that one can never become a person of extraordinary character just by leading an ordinary and peaceful life and avoiding difficulties. 

Challenges help to shape us to be the best that we can be and to force us to look at aspects of our life in a new way. They help us to grow on a personal level. They teach us lessons that enable us to progress forward in life and cause us to take necessary action to move us to where we need to be. Challenges importantly help us to learn a great deal about ourselves. Life involves scaling one mountain, then the next, then the one after that. The person who keeps on going, one step at a time, and finally conquers the highest mountain, will have a real sense of victory in life. But someone who avoids challenges and takes the easy route instead, will gradually descend into the valleys and feel no such sense of satisfaction. 

Just about every important figure in history has in fact lived a life marked by one mishap after another. But these individuals rose up again after every setback, prodded on by a spirit that refuses to concede defeat and relishes challenge, to eventually crown their lives with victory. The key thing to understand here is that tremendous learning, personal growth and opportunity can accompany challenges if you are open to looking at your challenges in a frame of mind that seeks learning and awareness. 

Dr. T.R. Khanna said we should make our motto: "Think in positives, act in positives, and live in positives." With this kind of attitude we will always say to ourselves, "Nothing is a problem. I will see every problem which comes as a challenge. So let the challenges come!"

As we progress in this life, let us not give up!

- Ashley Mwanza

I must have heard the words "we need to create a strategic plan" at least an order of magnitude more times than I have heard "we need to create a strategy." This is because most people see strategy as an exercise in producing a planning document. In this conception, strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources assigned.

Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselves often called "strategies." That is, each different initiative is a strategy and the plan is an organized list of the strategies.

But how does a strategic plan of this sort differ from a budget? Many people with whom I work find it hard to distinguish between the two and wonder why a company needs to have both. And I think they are right to wonder. The vast majority of strategic plans that I have seen over 30 years of working in the strategy realm are simply budgets with lots of explanatory words attached. This may be the case because the finance function is deeply involved in the strategy process in most organizations. But it is also the cause of the deep antipathy I see, especially amongst line executives, toward strategic planning. I know very few who look forward with joy to the commencement of the next strategic planning cycle.

To make strategy more interesting — and different from a budget — we need to break free of this obsession with planning. Strategy is not planning — it is the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns. I find that once this is made clear to line managers they recognize that strategy is not just fancily-worded budgeting and they get much more interested in it.

Obviously you can't execute a strategy without initiatives, investments, and budgeting. But what you need to get managers focused on before you start on those things is the strategy that will make these initiatives coherent. 

That strategy is a singular thing; there is one strategy for a given business — not a set of strategies. It is one integrated set of choices: what is our winning aspiration; where will we play; how will we win; what capabilities need to be in place; and what management systems must be instituted?

That strategy tells you what initiatives actually make sense and are likely to produce the result you actually want. Such a strategy actually makes planning easy. There are fewer fights about which initiatives should and should not make the list, because the strategy enables discernment of what is critical and what is not.

This conception of strategy also helps define the length of your strategic plan. The five questions can easily be answered on one page and if they take more than five pages (i.e. one page per question) then your strategy is probably morphing unhelpfully into a more classical strategic plan.

This definition of strategy can be disconcerting to those who have spent a lifetime generating traditional strategic plans. Not long ago I facilitated a day long strategy session with the senior team of a very successful $10 billion company with an outstanding CEO. By the end of the day (in part thanks to a goodly amount of pre-work by the head of strategy), we got to a nice set of integrated choices. I congratulated the group on its great thinking and working and affirmed what I judged to be an excellent strategy.

My enthusiasm notwithstanding, the CEO was troubled. I asked him why. "Is that all we have to do," he asked, as if he thought he had cheated on an exam. I am sure he expected that he had to full binders and long lists of initiatives to feel that he had been thorough in this year's strategic planning process. I reassured him that he had given strategy anything but short shrift. And that day strategy prevailed over planning. I suspect that CEO will never go back. 

So if you pass the five-page mark is time to ask: Are we answering the five key questions or are we doing something else and calling it strategy? If it is the latter: eject, eject!

bY ROGER MARTIN

Roger Martin (www.rogerlmartin.com) is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto in Canada. He is the author of Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works. For more information, including events with Roger, click here.