As businesses struggle to work through the economic challenges they face today, the road to increased revenues is paved by an excellent awareness of the market and the fearless ability to lead the business through treacherous waters.

Sales Cooke read a recent post that talked about what we can learn from GM’s obvious and ongoing failures. The author was Doug Bruhnke, CEO of Growth Nation. Doug made two strong points. We can learn from GM’s failures by Listening Carefully and Leading Courageously. In listening carefully, Bruhnke says that despite our initial instincts to take our business in one direction, we have to be willing to listen closely to the market and respond to that information by taking our business in the direction the market tells us to go. To lead courageously, we must be willing to recognize where the business has to go and have the determination and the willingness to take risks to get the business there. GM is a great example of not listening enough to respond appropriately to the market and the impact of cautious, conservative leadership. For most businesses, the result is almost always as unhappy an ending as it apparently is for GM.

In recent posts, Sales Cooke has written about building a recession proof business and the significance of creating innovation in a thriving business model. The messages in these comments were similar to Mr. Bruhnke’s. In order to sustain growth, businesses must learn what makes their existing client relationships special. In understanding that relationship, or unique market proposition, the business is prepared to respond to the market with a product or service that truly has market value. This is where GM failed. They did not create enough market value in time to slow or stop the value based advantage being built up by Toyota.

The other component is the ability to be innovative and foster innovation. There was a very powerful quote from a blog that said, “There are rocks and a stream. You can either become a rock, and the stream goes around you, or you get in the stream and move things along and start adding value.” Creating an innovative organization requires leadership that does not hold people or ideas in check. GM has demonstrated many times the inability to be innovative or “courageous.” In contrast, a beacon of innovation, Google, encourages and empowers their team to be proactive in exploring, discovering, collaborating, testing, and innovating. There is a big difference between the direction of these two companies. The ability to lead courageously is one of the reasons Google is at the front of the pack.

In this economy, the key to success is taking a strong leadership role and having the right vision to get things accomplished. In a challenging economy, viable businesses figure out how to grow and expand. They do not just survive–they improve and innovate. This was the message from Doug Bruhnke and it was right on.