I'm in Greece now enjoying the sun, the sea, and a little Greek wine. Greek wine and leadership are connected.

How so?

Wine has been made in Greece for thousands of years. The wine of Nemea is referred to in the Bible and the distinctive wine, retsina, is prized as uniquely Greek. When you ask Greeks about their wine, they talk proudly about its tradition and its history.

They often fail to mention the quality of the wine, some of which is excellent, but some, to me, doesn't measure up to the wines in other countries.

What does Greek wine have to do with leadership? Tradition and history can get in the way of change. It's as difficult for leaders to overcome the customs and traditions of their businesses as it is for Greeks to ignore the traditions and history of their wine. In both cases, it's hard to get people to let go of what they've become used to, to acknowledge the advantages of trying something new, and to embrace and put to use new ways of working.

How many times have you, as a leader, heard the following statements when proposing a change?

"That's not how we've done it before."

"We wouldn't be here today if we hadn't done things right in the past."

"There are good reasons for why we do it this way."

Here in Greece, I've noticed two factors that have helped the local Greeks overcome some of their traditions and history in order to embrace change.

The first factor is the number of non-Greeks who have left other parts of Europe to settle in the Peloponnese (the large peninsula in southern Greece). The influx of British, German, Swiss, and Scandinavian ex-patriots has led to significant changes on the part of the Greeks.

Greeks have sold land which had been in the family for generations for the ex-patriots to build houses on; they have opened restaurants, shops, and stores to serve the needs of the ex-patriots; and they have developed relationships with people whom they previously wouldn't have spent much time.

The second factor is a dynamic economic environment in Europe that has filtered down into the Peloponnese, which is no longer isolated from and unaffected by what goes on elsewhere.

The European Union, which Greece joined several years ago, helped to pay for infrastructure investments; the Greeks who moved to Athens to make more money visit their villages with money to spend; and the influx of workers from other parts of the EU also alters the demographic mix.

These factors suggest strategies for leaders who want to overcome tradition and history:

What can you do to bring in new blood, people from the outside who bring with them a freshness and enthusiasm that may be missing currently?

What steps can you take to open your doors to the external environment so that the forces outside the business that demand change are more readily apparent and real?

I'm a Starbucks junkie. The following was printed on the Starbucks cup I was recently drinking from, "The way I see it isn't necessarily the way you see it."

Many of the problems I help leaders resolve result from the different perspectives that people bring to their conversations.

Their experiences, education, and personalities contribute to people making different assumptions, drawing different conclusions, and having different expectations that, when unstated, lead to miscommunications and conflict.

How many times have different perspectives contributed to the problems that you've faced? What steps have you taken to communicate and clarify your perspective and encourage others to do the same?

George Washington developed leadership talent. Joseph Ellis wrote, "Washington recruited military talent wherever he could find it, and he had a knack for discovering ability in unlikely places" and, once he found it, he developed "talented and ambitious young men, usually possessing superior formal education to his own, then trusting them with considerable responsibility and treating them as surrogate sons in his official family."

Three important keys to developing leaders are: find talent in unlikely places, choose people with attributes you don't have, and entrust them with responsibility.

How can you follow Washington's example to uncover and develop the leaders your business needs?

Next month, more on finding overlooked leadership talent.

email: archie@archietinelli.com archie@archietinelli.com