How to Lead, 5th Edition

Chapter 27

Control costs

A quick way to fail as a leader is to fail to control your costs. Missing budget unexpectedly, even by a small amount, is a disaster because it:

• shows you are not in control and you are no longer seen to be reliable
• surprises your bosses, who dislike surprises
• causes problems across the organisation, which will have to make up for your shortfall.

You cannot become an outstanding leader through cost control alone. But you cannot become a leader at all if you do not control costs well. Here are ten tips for avoiding budget disaster.

Here are ten tips to manage your budget:

1. Frontload performance. Use the 52/48 rule. Target to achieve 52% of your results with 48% of your budget in the first half of the year. Then ...