We have all seen it at some point: an elected leader enters office with bold new promises but then quickly gets dragged down by time-sensitive crises and distractions. It tends to happen most of the time, even to the most promising leaders. Sometimes it can seem that a politician will promise anything to get elected; selling hope is, after all, attractive. But that is not always the case because there is often an honest disconnect between the optimism of what an aspiring leader believes can be done during an election campaign and what actually turns out to be possible afterwards. Some call it the realities of being in office.
An elected official may feel that they are busy working hard for the people who elected them, yet urgent matters consistently overshadow their broader policy goals and principles. After a couple of years in office and despite their best intentions, they now run the risk of losing public trust or even the next election. The calls to replace them start to grow. Politicians are usually judged on what they did rather than what they promised, so being able to deliver what was promised should be the top priority if they are to survive long enough in office to do the things they promised to do.
In business, there is a similar phenomenon at play; business leaders are also ultimately judged on what they actually deliver. But endless meetings can be a real time killer, where quarterly targets create relentless pressure. One quarter follows another, and short-term wins prioritised to keep shareholders on side can take precedence over long-term strategy. The leadership team may decide to push for immediate sales growth rather than new product development, only to find out later that they have now been outpaced by competitors. This can feel self-defeating, particularly if they had loyally prioritised shareholder demands in the short term but now face their ire because they have jeopardised long-term growth. How can a team of apparently great strategists fall into such an easy trap?
Business success is really about choices, and a big part of that is how we organise and implement our priorities. But that doesn't always happen. We may have a clear vision of our goals, but somehow still become so consumed by daily pressures of the system that our long-term objectives slip further into the horizon.