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Leadership Quality
[Richard King, Managing Partner of Tom Peters Company, UK, has this commentary on the BloombergBW/Hay Group study we included in Link Roundup #13 last week.]
Commenting on their recently published study of the Best Companies for Leadership, Hay Group's John Larrere said, "Rapid changes in the world are impacting how organizations do business, and as a result, the old rules of how organizations select, develop and retain good leaders have been turned upside down causing the future of leadership to look very different. ... It's about getting them (people) to be passionate about their work and grooming them to handle the challenges ahead."
These findings fall in line with those of leadership researchers Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner who highlight "Inspiring" and "Forward Looking" as two of the four key leadership characteristics people look for in leaders they would chose to follow (see their book Credibility). But here's a twist, Credibility was published in 1993. So ... some might argue that it's not particularly earth-shattering news that "The Best Companies for Leadership" have now worked this out!
But I think there are more important characteristics to building contemporary leadership effectiveness. For example, Kouzes and Posner's classic research highlighted "Honest" and "Competent" as the other two characteristics people predominantly look for in leaders. I wonder whether these Top 20 Best Companies in the Hay study have figured out how to select, build, and maintain people's belief that they are being honestly and competently led in today's unpredictable business world? Or are we all now so bashed about and cynical that these latter characteristics no longer matter as much?
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Comments
Richard,
Just wanted to say thanks for bringing up Kouzes and Posner. I've read The Leadership Challenge a couple times and was not aware of their book - Credibility.
I've been reading Strategic Thinking is now the #1 skill company's desire. I'm assuming you are connecting Forward Thinking with strategic thinking.
The more we are bashed about the more important the ability to inspire and forward looking become.
Regards,
Leadership Freak
Dan Rockwell
Recent Blog: Burn your job description
http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/burn-your-job-description/
Posted by Dan (Leadership Freak) at March 2, 2010 4:24 AM
Hi Richard - honest and competent matter more now than at anytime I suggest.
I am totally pi***d off about the total lack of integrity among so many infamous leading figures in public life in UK in recent years in politics, business and sport. (Hundreds of MP's fiddling expenses and John Terry's total lack of integrity to name but two recent terrible and embarrassing UK examples)
On my Blog recently I stated that in my youth people in the public eye resigned as a matter of principle when they were 'caught with their fingers in the till.' Nowadays people hang around, blaming the system and pretending they have done nothing 'legally' wrong - thus denying any sense of moral responsibility as leaders and role models ... not to mention their complete lack of insight about fairness and responsibility.
PS Richard – Up the ‘ammers – I assume you noticed Sir Alex collected his 26th major trophy for my beloved Reds on Sunday :- )
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 2, 2010 5:47 AM
I have both the books. Unfortunately the more I read the more grief stricken I've become. Then I learned to accept what I cannot change and it helped me go on a day at a time, a battle at time.
Pick your fights, and the one that's worth winning may just be all you need to continue changing the world.
Posted by Dr. Kervokian at March 2, 2010 7:09 AM
Hi Rick...It really is interesting how the same lessons continue to rise to the top of the list for effective leadership. Research continues to affirm some universal truths, yet the leadership community continues to hail them as new learnings. I have continued to reinforce that all four characteristics are vital. I am sure you have found in your work as I have in mine, that forward looking and inspiring continue to be the most difficult for western management. People do want to see that there is a better place to be if we work together. What I am seeing questioned more these days is the question of competency. I doubt that few will willingly follow anyone without a proven track record of getting things done. It strikes me that people only invest in leaders they believe in. Thanks for reminding us that it isn't what we don't know, it is what we don't do.
Posted by Michael Neiss at March 2, 2010 8:01 AM
Rick, I like "Inspiring" as a key leadership characteristic because it's easy to recognize - eve}function wpQueueError(a){jQuery("#media-upload-error").show().html('
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Posted by Robert at March 3, 2010 3:21 AM
Maybe the problem is in expecting companies to figure out how to lead and motivate. Companies don't do this - people do.
It's very easy to bemoan the same problems cropping up time and again, or to claim (wrongly, in my view) that everything was better in the old days. The fact is a) we're all human and we all have to learn; and b) times change, circumstances change and leadership has to change and adapt, too.
The thing that concerns me is that as a society we are failing to provide the bedrock values that should start people out on their working lives. Why are so many kids falling out the education system without basic literacy, numeracy and thinking skills? With a "the world owes me a living" mentality? Believing that they can walk into any job, be taught in a rather mechanistic way how to do it and be promoted the next month?
When this is the raw material companies have to work with, can you expect them to produce a conveyor belt of enlightened leaders? Of course it would be great if everyone in leadership positions was character, integrity, courage, open-mindedness, decency, humility, flexibility, curiosity, loyalty and other good things. But if business has got to teach people these qualities, society has done something wrong.
This isn't to say business shouldn't keep trying to set an example. Of course it should. But I'm not sure the answer is to beat ourselves up as though we are the source of the problem. We should be talking to governments and the public sector, figuring out how we can all be part of the solution.
Posted by Mark JF at March 3, 2010 3:46 AM
"But if business has got to teach people these qualities, society has done something wrong."
Spot on Mark. And don't let's blame education systems or governments - let's first look at the role models we are as parents as a starter ....
Posted by Trevor Gay at March 3, 2010 5:00 PM
Mark, I agree with your initial point, while suggesting that "society", "government" and the "public sector" are, just like "business", all diffuse collective terms that conveniently displace responsibility from indivduals - each of "us". We have known since the 1960s that people take their cues for what is appropriate behaviour from the response of others nearby; so if everybody else is ignoring a situation it is likely we will too. If the culture of business is dog-eat-dog MBA macho (or huge bonuses, or whatever) we tend to adapt to what we believe is the norm. This is self-multiplying cyclical behaviour, of course. But the potential for this cycle to be broken by a catalytic figure setting a different example is also well proved. Leaders, among many other things, set the tone, the culture of the organisation, and they often do this by tiny catalytic contributions. Look back at the Excellence books and they're chock-full of this. Marcus Sieff of M&S always going straight to see the state of the staff toilets when he visited a supplier. Creech turning around the US Air Force readiness figures by sending up the engineers with the pilots on test runs (if I remember the story right). The guy who moved his desk out of the office onto the shop floor; the school principal who did the same. Apart from any actual process or financial benefit, these acts made strong statements about what really mattered, about what the leader believed in, on which others could build their own behaviour and beliefs.
One reason we need to go over this ground again and again is that these catalytic figures move on, and organisations and cultures tend to revert to the mean (in both senses of the word). Which points to the other great leadership obligation - to leave new leaders behind who in turn can provide this catalytic effect. And these people need to be strong enough as individuals not to be sucked into their own cycle of CEO peer pressure. Sadly, there are very few if any current examples of "leaders" who demonstrate this; even those we praise (for not taking a huge bonus for example) seem to take the view that it's all about dealing with the currently tough times rather than having the same philosophy always, whether in bad times or good.
Anyway, as you say it's people, individuals, you, me, who will make the difference. We can all be catalysts, we damn well should all be. Are we? Always?
Posted by RobCH at March 4, 2010 3:12 AM