In the latest Lessons in Leadership segment, Dave Anderson challenges automotive leaders to recognize and resist the pitfalls that can quietly erode even the strongest organizations. Drawing from his book Elevate Your Excellence, Anderson outlines six temptations leaders must overcome to maintain momentum.
To recap, Anderson outlines the complete list of temptations that dealers need to focus on to overcome the challenges faced by successful organizations. He notes, “Leaders…”
- Stop working on themselves
- Stop thinking big
- Stops leading from the front
- Stops developing others
- Stops accountability
And the sixth and final temptation is: Everyone abandons the basics.
Anderson says the last temptation emerges when prosperity reduces urgency, causing teams to drift from the daily disciplines and processes that built their achievements in the first place. These can include customer calls, one-on-one meetings, training sessions, and other foundational duties. Without accountability, those habits fade, leading to operational slippage.
He points to a common refrain heard during downturns: “We’ve got to get back to the basics.” The real question, he says, is why organizations stray from them in the first place. Anderson ties this directly to the fifth temptation, a lack of accountability, which allows standards to erode unchecked. Maintaining accountability, he adds, makes it far less likely that teams will abandon their foundational disciplines.
When organizations find themselves in a rut, Anderson cautions against overthinking the problem or attempting a complete overhaul. Leaders often believe they must reinvent the wheel, but he encourages a different approach: focus on doing the basics better. This strengthens the foundation, reinforces discipline, and improves results.
“Sustaining your success, overcoming these temptations, is not about doing anything extraordinary. It’s about executing the ordinary things extraordinarily well and doing them again and again and again.”
For leaders who have drifted from their fundamentals, his advice is clear: return to them immediately. For those who remain committed, the priority should be holding people accountable so those basics never become optional. In either case, discipline, consistency, and relentless execution are critical to sustaining long-term success.
