Leadership can be described and applied in different ways
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[post_date] => 2016-09-20 14:18:38
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[post_content] => Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he teaches courses on Leadership and Strategy. He is also the Faculty Director of the flagship Tuck Executive Program, and has experience working with executives at a number of other prestigious universities around the world. His latest
bestselling book is SUPERBOSSES: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent. He will be a keynote speaker at the IMI National Management Conference on 29th September 2016.
IMI: Based on your current work – if you only had 6 words of advice to give a business – what would they be?
SF: Great leaders create other great leaders.
IMI: What does this mean?
SF: Imagine a world where the work you did really mattered. Where the person who you call your boss changed your life by helping you accomplish more than you ever thought possible. Where your own opportunities would multiply in ways you may have been afraid to even dream of. That’s the world of “superbosses”, leaders with an incredible track record of generating world-class talent time and again. By systematically studying business legends and pop culture icons like Lorne Michaels, Ralph Lauren, George Lucas, Larry Ellison, Miles Davis, Charlie Mayfield, and Alice Waters, what superbosses actually do comes into focus. And anyone can do these same things. Superbosses identify, motivate, coach and leverage others in remarkably consistent, yet highly unconventional and unmistakably powerful ways. Superbosses aren’t like most bosses; they follow a playbook all their own. They are unusually intense and passionate — eating, sleeping, and breathing their businesses and inspiring others to do the same. They look fearlessly in unusual places for talent and interview them in colorful ways. They create impossibly high work standards that push protégées to their limits. They partake in an almost inexplicable form of mentoring, one that occurs spontaneously and with no clear rules. They lavish responsibility on inexperienced protégées, taking risks that seem scary and foolish to outsiders. When the time is right superbosses may even encourage star talent to leave so they can then become part of a strategic network of acolytes in the industry.
IMI: Where should we look for further information?
SF: I put together a list of interesting articles related to this subject:
Superbosses aren't afraid to delegate their biggest decisionsThe rise of the superbossesGeorge Lucas: Management Guru?The Power of Feeling UnthreatenedHire People and Get Out of the WaySydney Finkelstein is a keynote speaker at the IMI National Management Conference taking place on Thursday 29th of September. To register for this event, please click here.
[post_title] => "Great leaders create other great leaders" Six Word Wisdom from Sydney Finkelstein
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[post_content] => [caption id="attachment_22612" align="aligncenter" width="600"]Jack Welch was CEO of GE for 20 years. In a changing world, is he still the model for leadership?[/caption]
When discussing the challenges facing business leaders it seems almost de rigeur nowadays to talk about the level of change organisations are facing.
The challenge to equip leaders to build the future in these uncertain times is certainly daunting, with seismic geopolitical shifts (in this context the Trump administration seems to be the gift that keeps on giving), disruptive technological change (how many of us even fully understand the implications of bitcoin, blockchain and whatever new technology will be unleashed on us next) and even severe climate and weather events.
The very ubiquitous nature of these challenges may however inure us to their real potential as both a threat and an opportunity to affect a true paradigm shift in how we view leadership, a classic case of an issue being undervalued through overuse.
.The Concept of Leadership
From the perspective of the 21st century the development of our concept of leadership is a little clearer than it may have been in the past. From this remove we can see how the largely male, heroic models of leadership have greatly influenced the literature and teaching in this field.
The business leaders who are most often cited, Jack Welch, Steve Jobs etc. are broadly from a similar mould and the models of leadership, with the exception of Servant Leadership (as a servant leader you put the needs of others, particularly team members, before you even consider your own, but how many executives really model themselves on this type of leadership?) extol an assertive, confident, out-going and mainly extroverted style.
In fact, the Myers Briggs type most associated with leadership is the ENTJ (extraversion, intuition, thinking, judgment), which is described as the ‘general’, again exposing the military underpinnings of the leadership canon. We can clearly see this bias in the continuing popularity of books like Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people”, the pseudoscience of NLP and programmes that teach executives how to create the right ‘impression’.
Given the genesis of the leadership concept it is understandable that people might misconstrue the notion of leadership presence as the ability to impose oneself (and influence people), but there is real hope that we are about to experience a genuine shift in the paradigm.
.Unhappy Influencers
[caption id="attachment_22617" align="aligncenter" width="600"]Richard Boyatzis studied how leaders influence those around them and how that effected their lives and careers[/caption]
.
Recent research conducted by Richard Boyatzis and colleagues from Case Western Reserve University examined the relationship between the extent to which people adopted an ‘influencing’ leadership style and their later satisfaction with both their careers and their life in general. Interestingly they found a very strong negative correlation between these factors, i.e. the more people adopted an influence style the less satisfied they were with their careers and lives.
Boyatzis and colleagues did not have an objective measure of career success, so one could still argue that the ‘influencers’ did better in their careers, but Boyatzis’ research does tell us that irrespective on how well an outsider might judge your career progress, the ‘influencers’ are less happy about their situation. The researchers concluded that those who adopt an influencing style are pushing on their environment and trying to get more from others, e.g. they tend to show a high need to control social situations.
The crux of the problem, especially in the context of a VUCA world, is that pushing on or trying to control an environment that is in a constant state of flux, verging on chaos is unlikely to be very effective and will certainly lead to people being highly dissatisfied and unhappy in their work and indeed their lives.
Now would be the perfect time for the leadership movement to learn the lessons of evolutionary psychology that success in a changing environment falls to the most adaptable, those who can outlearn their competition.
The Adaptable Generation
This will require a cadre of new leaders who are less ego-identified with success and winning, who don’t see problems as opportunities to impose themselves and demonstrate mastery of the environment.
Rather we will see the emergence of leaders who can go with the flow, adapt to new realities quickly, work through and with others as either leader or follower and pivot gracefully as cherished paradigms fall away and hard-earned experience proves ineffective as a guide to new problems.
There is no doubt that the idea of women in leadership is in the current zeitgeist and may or may not create a fundamental shift in how we see leadership in the future. I am however hopeful, that as the new model emerges we will see less emphasis on the old machismo of the ability to impose oneself on others and on the environment and more emphasis on the willingness to adapt, change and ‘flow’ with emerging realities.
Bruce Lee used to tell his students to ‘be like water’, perhaps that is not a bad metaphor for what leaders will need to become.
Dr Colm Foster is Director of Executive Education at the Irish Management Institute.He has acted as a leadership development consultant to organisations in the US, Asia and Ireland, particularly specialising in Emotional Intelligence.
The next IMI Diploma in Leadership starts on 2nd May, 2018.
[post_title] => 21st Century Leadership: The Shifting River
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In my opinion there are three organisation wide people focused initiatives that I have found particularly helpful in creating high performance cultures:
The result: A workforce with the right capabilities, willing to go the extra mile (engaged) and enabled to perform at their best. An organisation where strategic priorities and culture are aligned and working together to deliver an exceptional customer experience and, in turn, impact / profits and shareholder value.
Building Capabilities:
Capability building is central to organisational performance. There is a need to identify and focus development interventions on those competencies that add the most value to the organisation’s business performance i.e. those that enable the effective execution of the organisation’s strategy. A recent Economist study reported that “61% of respondents acknowledge that their firms often struggle to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and its day-to-day implementation".
Moreover, in the last three years an average of just "56% of strategic initiatives has been successful.”1. Companies can improve on this track record by paying far greater attention to the capabilities they need to successfully implement their strategy.
C.K. Prahalad and G Hamel, in their HBR article “The Core Competence of the Corporation” argue that “the real sources of advantage are to be found in management’s ability to consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing opportunities”. They go further to state that unlike products, technology and processes which can be easily copied and replicated, core competencies are difficult for competitors to imitate and therefore can become a unique source of long term competitive advantage.
Caution:
A common mistake organisations make is to over-focus on today’s capability needs at the detriment of important longer-term capability needs that might end up not being addressed. This requires organisations to look into the external environment to identify future threats, challenges and opportunities and their impact on the capability requirements of the organisation going forward.
Engagement
There is a growing body of evidence over the past decade that validates (1) that engaged employees outperform their non-engaged co-workers and (2) the quantifiable relationship between levels of organizational engagement and financial performance
Engagement is an employee’s willingness to expend discretionary effort / to go the extra mile at work
Towers Watson’s Global Workforce Study 2014 found that only 4 in 10 employees are highly engaged; that close to a quarter (24%) are disengaged, and another 36% can be described as either unsupported or detached. A full 60% of employees lack the elements required to be highly engaged.
This engagement gap presents a great challenge but also a great opportunity to improve organisational performance
Organisations need to make engagement an organisational priority led from the top, assess current employee engagement levels and, develop and implement engagement plans.
Supportive Work Environment
Capability building and staff engagement, however, can take a company only so far. Factors specifically related to the work environment also play a critical role.
That is, organisations need to provide employees with the support they need to do their work efficiently and effectively. E.g. providing people with the tools, resources and support to do their job effectively, giving them meaningful work and creating an environment that promotes employees’ physical, social and emotional well-being. In these environments:
People are clear on the strategic direction of their organisation and what they are expected to deliver and the way in which to deliver it (Role Clarity)
People understand how their job contributes to the success of his/her department and organisation (Task Identity)
People understand the positive impact their work has on others within or outside the organization (Task significance)
People are trusted, empowered and given the right level of autonomy to perform their role (Autonomy)
People are given enough on the job learning and growth opportunities to improve themselves and achieve their potential (Mastery)
People receive on-going constructive feedback on performance from customers, colleagues and the manager for development
While an organisation’s culture can become its main source of long term sustainable competitive advantage, proactively managing, improving or changing is one of the most difficult leadership challenges.
Can your organisation’s leadership opt out?
If so, do they run the risk of their organisation becoming less and less attractive to employees and shareholders? Becoming irrelevant?
What do you think? Would love to hear your views on this blog as well as your thoughts on things / initiatives that can enable the creation of a high performance culture.
1“Why Good Strategies Fail: Lessons for the C-Suite,” Economist Intelligence Unit, 2013, http://www.pmi.org/~/media/PDF/Publications/WhyGoodStrategiesFail_Report_EIU_PMI.ashx
Pedro Angulo is the new Programme Director of the IMI Diploma in Strategic HR Management and contributes on the IMI Diploma in Executive Coaching.
Pedro is an Organisational Effectiveness Business Partner in AIB and Chairperson of the Irish EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council).
He is a motivational speaker and regular presenter at HR, coaching, change and business conferences / events._____________________________________
[post_title] => And the result: A workforce with the right capabilities & willing to go the extra mile
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[post_content] => Have you noticed that so many of the great managers – and leaders – are really odd?
This can be seen not only in business with enigmatic leaders like Apple's Steve Jobs (described by Bill Gates as "fundamentally odd", but also in some of the more eccentric characters we see in sport - take for example football managers like José Mourinho, Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough.
While there are indeed managers like Manchester United's David Moyes, who are .. average, reasonable, uninspired: just the sort of manager that might make the grade on paper in a recruitment process, the great leadership is seen from managers like Mourinho and Ferguson, neither of whom would have stood much chance of making it through to the interview stage! They weren't even great football players!
Odd, isn’t it?
But is it enough just to be odd? Unlikely... Perhaps there is good odd (Mourinho) and bad odd (take your pick of the world’s despots).
In my experience working with organisations, I have found that the great leaders, despite their seeming oddness, have at least 3 things in common:
1. They are clever– especially with people. They know whose buttons to press – and when! Who to kick and who to hug! They know the game – they know their business inside out.
2. They have more than just one style – they hold their principles constant but adapt their own style to the situation in hand. Mourinho famously let his kit man give the motivational speech to his players last week (in indecipherable “Scottish”, too!). Ferguson could tell his Beckhams from his Ronaldos, his Van Persies from his Rooneys - and found the right words for each.
3. They reach for the stars, and hold themselves – not just their staff – to the highe
st standards. They are unrelenting in their quest for success. Their self-belief is unshakable. Failures are used as opportunities to learn. Success is inevitable – the only question is when.
So perhaps there is something to be learned from seeing past what might seem like strange personalities and assessing our potential leaders instead for intelligence, a flexibility in style and an unshakable self-belief and ambition. It may be that these characteristics are more important to success as a leader that meeting any definition of "normal".
Dermot Duff is Programme Director of the ManagementWorks IMI Diploma in Management and the ManagementWorks IMI Diploma in Strategy & Innovation - programmes specifically aimed at developing management and strategic capability in SMEs. His expertise is in the area of SMEs, project management, manufacturing and supply chain management and he is the author of Managing Professionals and Other Smart People. His work focuses on developing practical implementable solutions founded on sound theory.
If you are interested in honing your skills as a leader in your organisation speak to us about the IMI Diploma in Leadership starting this Spring. The programme is aimed at dramatically enhancing leadership skills, awareness, impact and judgement. To know more check out the brochure or watch this clip.
[post_title] => Are You Odd Enough to Lead? What do Steve Jobs, José Mourinho and Alex Ferguson have in common?
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William Corless
30th Jan 2018
William Corless is an IMI associate on the High Impact Leadership Programme.
Related Articles
"Great leaders create other great leaders" Six Word Wisdom from Sydney Finkelstein
21st Century Leadership: The Shifting River
And the result: A workforce with the right capabilities & willing to go the extra mile
Are You Odd Enough to Lead? What do Steve Jobs, José Mourinho and Alex Ferguson have in common?
The Art and Practice of Adaptive Leadership
Leadership can’t be a one-size-fits-all because, put simply, leaders ultimately rely on their followers and no two followers are the same.
The art of leadership is not the heroic image many of us have in our minds. It can’t be a one-size-fits-all because, put simply, leaders ultimately rely on their followers and no two followers are the same.
Leadership can be described and applied in different ways, especially to dilemmas in the workplace. However, often when we are in difficult situations we tend to trust what we know from our experience or behaviours that have provided us with results in the past. In other words, we fall back on what works for us, not what will work for the person we are trying to persuade.
Leadership can sometimes be about leading in unknown territory (Photo source)
Leadership Styles
Leadership can sometimes be about leading in unknown territory and, due to the pace of change in today’s world, the context in which we lead continues to evolve. Daniel Goleman – considered in some quarters the grandfather of emotional intelligence – speaks about the following leadership styles: Coercive, Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic, Coaching, Pacesetting.
Each style is more effective than another depending on the circumstances, so it’s crucial for a leader to recognise and utilise the different styles. As leaders, we may have some blind spots into the style of leadership that we have and exhibit behaviours that are unconscious habits. With this is mind, we may not fully utilise the tools in our toolkit that we acquired through our management education and experience.
A great lesson my father told me was that there is always the right tool for the right job. If I ever wanted to be a success in life I should not choose the easy path. If I were to approach a difficult and complex situation with just what was in my immediate tool-kit, I would limit my capacity and more often than not, look foolish with poor consequences.
These are the dangers of habits and, most importantly, not learning from others. Be open to other people’s skillsets and approaches to enhance your toolkit. By approaching a problem by utilising all the available tools around you, rather than play to your own ego, you will ultimately be perceived as a consummate professional. Many leaders now utilise their skillset by adding coaching, communication, team development and conflict resolution skills to their toolkit – in other words, people skills.
Newly Promoted Leaders
When people are promoted to a new leadership position, they regularly have doubts about what is the best way to behave or act in certain situations. The expectations of leaders in the current climate are to be agile and to be adaptive to the context that the leadership situation presents but many people doubt their leadership styles, especially when they have navigated into unchartered territory.
They will often have a habit for using one tool or leadership styles and apply to all situations. Therefore, there is a great degree of personal responsibility and level of emotional intelligence when it comes to practising leadership consciously. Expanding your toolkit and knowing how to apply the techniques learned is essential in leadership. Leadership can be learned and it takes courage to practice leadership.
Courage and Reflection
I often think of this quote by Anaïs Nin when it comes to personal leadership: “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage”. Being a courageous leader can be achieved, however it does take focus on the discipline of reflective practice.
Reflective practice is a key enabler for leadership to be demonstrated. We are all now bombarded with communication whether that medium is via computer, smartphone, newspapers, conversations or even the radio on the commute home. Many successful leaders use reflective practice to develop and enhance their leadership presence.
If you were to develop any skill, just like leadership, you would not improve unless you gave due consideration to your approach. A simple approach to this would be to reflect on what went well each day so you can repeat that success and what you could have done differently to develop a better result. This basic premise increases emotional intelligence for greater successful outcomes in our careers and workplace.
Leadership courage can also be enhanced by peer support. Being able to speak about issues or fears that may be holding us back. The IMI is the ideal environment where these conversations can be facilitated. Gaining feedback, expertise, know-how and practical knowledge into applying the practice of leadership are key elements of the IMI’s approach to leadership. Are you equipped with the right tools for your leadership challenge?
William Corless is an IMI associate on the High Impact Leadership Programme. William is an executive coach, certified mediator and corporate trainer who works with C-suite leaders across a wide range of industries both nationally and internationally. William has continued his education studying leadership in Harvard, High-performance teams in the University of Chicago, Organisational Behaviour in the London School of Economics, Intercultural Management with Notre Dame and Negotiation in NUI Galway.