What Makes a Leader?
To be a market leader, company’s employees, partners and customers all have to win
- By Lars Thinggaard
- Nov 01, 2014
Many companies meet
expectations; some
even exceed them,
while companies
that lead the way redefine
them. This is a way of measuring
leadership that can be overlooked
by market reports that rank companies
by revenue.
However, true leadership is more nuanced
than the bottom-line numbers in
black and white. True leadership requires
a skillful and purpose-driven melding of
many other critical attributes. It’s about
much more than infusing profits into the
economy; at its best, true leadership can
reset the course of an industry.
Let’s take a look at a few non-financial
factors of true leadership:
A clear, differentiating purpose. From
inception, one thing that separates leading
companies from those that follow is
purpose—a mission that clearly differentiates
the organization. That differentiating
purpose should be rooted in a well-defined,
strategic vision.
Milestone evolved into the leader it
is today in large part because the company’s
management identified needs in
the security industry before most others
did, and used those needs to guide
strategic decisions. Milestone, thereby,
differentiated itself by being one of the
first companies in the physical security
industry to communicate and address
the importance of open platform architecture
with IP network technology.
Today, IP is increasingly common, and
an open platform approach has earned
its reputation for enabling partner innovations
through integrations that add
measurable value for customers.
Openness. Once it differentiates itself,
to lead effectively, a company must
be transparent about its values and
demonstrate them consistently. Like a
lighthouse that shines its strong, constant
beam to guide all ships safely to
shore, clearly-communicated values
show employees how to act.
At Milestone, every decision is
guided by a commitment to reliability,
openness, innovation,
flexibility and independence. Being open
about these values clarifies purpose and
direction. Yet, genuine leadership requires
more than talking openly and
honestly about what you’re going to do.
You have to then do it. In other words:
“walk the talk.”
We take this tenet of leadership seriously.
We continue to be an open platform
company—as our tagline says—
and our commitment to openness has
spawned a business model for thousands
of partners to grow, working with
the open platform as a solid foundation
for integration and innovation that benefits
customers.
Going beyond winning. Leaders are
passionate about winning, but it’s not
just being passionate about their own
victory that makes them a leader in
the long run. When strategy is based
on openness, it involves customers and
partners bringing benefits that make everybody
win—and lift the industry to an
entirely new level.
From its earliest days, Milestone has
insisted on thinking openly, broadly
and inclusively. We built the foundation
of our ecosystem on a commitment to
mutual success. Rather than striving
for domination, we focused on partnering
to make the overall solutions even
stronger by leveraging our partner’s
areas of expertise. At the heart of our
open platform culture is the partnering
paradigm that enables endless innovation
and growth.
The spirit of partnership that took
hold early in the company’s history is
alive and well today. We strive to ensure
that anyone who interacts with Milestone—
with our people, our products
or through our partner programs—experiences
a synergy of our values. In
fact, our open platform culture, the
technology we develop, and the business
model we use to deliver it all provides
independence through the freedom to
choose customers and partners according
to changing demands.
The result of our commitment to victory
for all? When our partners win, our
customers win, and we win, too.
Commitment to a thriving ecosystem.
Leadership requires looking after not
just one’s own success, but that of business
partners’, as well. Why? Because no
one company can do it alone, especially
in a marketplace constantly thrust forward
by endless changes and innovation.
Not long after its founding, Milestone’s
role as the leading global developer
of open-platform, IP, video
surveillance software began to gather
momentum as a “magnetic center” for a
new ecosystem of partners. Today, this
universe serves as a force multiplier that
continually enables exponential growth
from every side.
While video management software
may account for only a portion of a total
installation’s cost, the economic impact
of that software is significant for its return
on investment, enabling limitless
upgrade options with new hardware or
other system integrations. The total revenue
attained by our channel partners
for the solutions they deliver to their
customers include software, cameras, IT
hardware, cables, accessories, installation
and maintenance services.
Meeting industry needs. From their
beginnings, companies that become
leaders demonstrate an almost intuitive
understanding of the importance
of meeting the needs not only of its own
employees, partners and customers, but
of the industry as a whole.
As Milestone’s ecosystem of partners
evolved in tandem with the transition
from analog to digital video surveillance,
Milestone established training and certifications
to raise skill levels in IP technology.
This enabled further success in the
partner channel—and greater customer
satisfaction.
Our partner learning programs continue
to grow on a global scale and are
noted for their effectiveness in equipping
industry professionals with much-needed
expertise on new and emerging technologies.
This form of leadership increases
knowledge levels across the industry and
builds a deeper level of customer trust.
Endless striving. It’s important to operate
well in the present, but it is equally important to be able to deliver on a
strategic vision for the future. That’s
why companies that lead think ahead,
and think big.
Striving to realize greater success
across the industry is central to Milestone’s
DNA. We encourage our partners
and employees to reach higher.
Partner events have been themed
“Think Bigger,” and the mantra for all
employees and managers, who attend
workshops and training in the company’s
leadership academy, is “One Passion
to Win.”
We believe that winning requires an
abiding understanding that innovation
is never finished. That’s why at Milestone
there are two words you’re never
likely to hear: “good enough.” At our
2014 partner events, for example, we
asked “Why compromise?” because we
believe in a constant pursuit of the best
possible outcomes for all.
Redefining expectations. When I
sat down to reflect on how leadership
is demonstrated, one of the first things
that came to mind was that Milestone
has redefined the industry’s expectations
about what video surveillance
can do with an open platform, thereby
changing the course of the future for
our partners and customers.
Milestone led the charge in replacing
analog with IP and open platform
architecture as the new standard for
video surveillance. Today, it is increasingly
common for solutions to harness
the power of open platform video
management software to deliver tools
that transcend security, optimizing all
facets of business. The role of software
is becoming the differentiator, as we
predicted.
All of us at Milestone are proud
of the business we’ve built by working
alongside our partners to provide our
customers with the best solutions possible.
We’re all proud of the fact that in
an analog world, our leadership—from
our commitment to an open platform
and business culture to meeting industry
needs as they evolve—enabled us to
perceive the enormous impact software
was going to have on our industry long
before many others did.
Rather than resting on that very
large laurel, however, we believe that
discovery never ends. That’s what inspired
us in 2012 to launch the Milestone
Incubation and Ventures business
unit in California’s Silicon Valley,
the heart of technology nirvana. Even
though I’m singling it out to conclude
this discussion of leadership, our Silicon
Valley venture is but one manifestation
of our belief that innovation is
ongoing. We believe in the potential
of the embedded software that’s being
coded there and taking shape in new
partner offerings. We also believe in
the potential of a customer and partner
working together toward better results.
And, we believe in the potential
of Milestone employees who refuse to
settle for “good enough.”
Regardless of where it happens, or
who brings it about, we are dedicated to
being at the heart of innovation, where
solutions that are developed today take
us far into the future. At Milestone, it’s
how we define leadership.
This article originally appeared in the November 2014 issue of Security Today.