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In times of recession and economic challenge, leadership becomes even tougher. In many ways, even a competent leader can appear great when the economic conditions are favourable. The real challenge is to achieve sustained success. So what areas must you master in order to achieve success in 2009, a time of major economic challenge?

Area 1: Decision Making

In 2009 you are likely to be faced with more decisions than ever. These decisions might include:

Should you reduce your staff numbers?

If you are reducing staff, who should you let go and who should you keep?

What investments should be made in the business?

What businesses should the organisation get out off?

What incentives should the business consider to gain or retain customers?

Whatever the decision, leaders must be masters at taking and acting on decisions and avoid procrastination.

Area 2: Change

At present, there are few businesses or industry sectors that are in the fortunate position of just carrying on as if nothing happened. As a result, leaders need to be masters at identifying the need for change, getting people to buy into the need for change and then empowering others to execute change.

Area 3: Finance

While it is important to keep attention on profits, what really matters in these tough economic times is cash and liquidity. Leaders need to ensure that the organisation can continue to meet obligations to pay suppliers, employers and government (by way of taxes) as they fall due. The organisation may also have commitments on loans or leases that need to be met.

As a leader you need to be confident that:

Stock is moving sufficiently quickly

There are appropriate and robust policies for approving customers to whom goods or services will be supplied on credit

Invoices are raised promptly to customers for goods or services

Payments are collected from customers promptly

Doubtful debts are identified promptly and appropriate action is taken to avoid these going bad

In addition to process, leaders need to ensure that all of the employees, no matter what area of the business they work in, fully understand the importance of cash to the continued operation of the business. For example, making sales is vital. On the other hand if 10% of the customers never pay then you have a problem.

Area 4: Motivation

With so much media coverage on the economy right now and business failures, it can be challenging to keep employees motivated. When employees become de-motivated or even just anxious about their jobs, they start to focus on survival. In these situations, doing the right things to keep the business prospering might not be at the forefront of employees minds.

As the leader, it is vital that you keep employees motivated. It is important to be ready to listen to employee concerns and to regularly communicate with them about performance. Where action is being taken to address problems, make sure employees know about this and invite them to contribute towards solutions.

Area 5: Relationships

As a leader you need to be maintaining excellent relationships with your customers and also with your suppliers. When you actively manage relationships, it becomes much easier to respond to the inevitable peaks and troughs, such as temporary cash flow challenges.

Bottom Line - All indicators are that 2009 will be a challenging year. If you are to prosper as a leader in these challenging times there are some key skills that you will need to master. So where do you need to focus your attention to achieve leadership success in 2009?

And I invite you to get some skills development for free by taking advantage of my free audio e-course Leadership Success available at http://www.goalsandachievements.co.uk/