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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? 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.

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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.

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Unhappy Influencers

[caption id="attachment_22617" align="aligncenter" width="600"]Richard Boyatzis studied how leaders influence those around them Richard Boyatzis studied how leaders influence those around them and how that effected their lives and careers[/caption]

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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.

 

imi-colm-foster-810Dr 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.
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            [post_content] => Described as ‘The Jane Bond of Innovation’, Nilofer Merchant has grown businesses — from Fortune 500s and silicon valley web start-ups — for 20 years.  She will be a keynote speaker at the IMI National Management Conference on 9 October 2014.  As an innovative thinker and practitioner, Nilofer will share her thoughts and experience on how we best align our organisations to succeed against our business challenges today and into the future.

nmweb150

IMI: Based on your current work – if you only had 6 words of advice to give a business - what would they be?

NM: Not everyone will, but anyone can.

IMI: What does this mean?

NM: Most organizations think of work in boxes. As in engineering does this and marketing does that. Or, even more personally as Tom is responsible for delivering X and Susan is responsible for Y. This is to put work into neat little boxes to create some type of measurability. It’s a relic of the industrial era when the way to profitability and market performance was on efficiency and productivity. But if you look around your workplace, you’ll notice the most obvious truth. Most things are not failing because so and so didn’t do such and such. It’s because of a gap. A gap between organizational silos. A gap between understanding. A gap between the organizational boxes. In order to close the box, you need to organize not around boxes but around purpose. Organize not by “who should be here” but who wants to be here. And while not everybody will rise up to solve the situation, create new products, etc … what you’ll discover is an amazing reserve of talent that exists. Things you didn’t know were possible will happen. Because anybody can.

IMI: Where should we look for further information?

NM: Visit my website nilofermerchant.com

Nilofer Merchant is a keynote speaker at the IMI National Management Conference taking place on Thursday 9 October. If you are interested in attending click here to register.
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Alistair Tosh

Edwin O’Hora

27th Nov 2017

Edwin O’Hora is the Programme Director for the IMI Diploma in Organisational Development and Transformation.

Related Articles

21st Century Leadership: The Shifting River
Making Sure Your Leadership Legacy Counts
Brexit and the Beast – preparing for the worst is always best
"Not everyone will, but anyone can" Six Word Wisdom from Nilofer Merchant

Organising Chaos: Trump Inc. running America

An insurgent company has incredible advantages over its established rivals – flexibility, an openness to new ideas, a disruptive mindset – but what happens when the dog catches the car? When your organisation goes mainstream, what are the challenges facing its leaders?

Last November, Trump Inc. caught the car. An agile, family owned business suddenly found itself essentially managing one of the largest bureaucracies in the world. Leaving aside political (and moral) affiliations and predilections, this is a unique challenge in history. No US President has kept their business interests alive, even after taking office, and a business that is essentially built on the Trump brand name.

Now President Trump is trying to transfer the autocratic, personality led style of leadership from a single office in Trump Tower to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Donald Trump (Photo source)

In May 2016, Donald Trump, presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said during a campaign event in San Diego, California, U.S., that he would rescind “job-destroying” Obama administration environmental actions within 100 days of taking office and cancel a landmark international climate deal reached last year in Paris.

Organisational Culture

Organisational culture and organisational structure are two intriguing issues at the core of his current challenges and the seeming inability to govern effectively. The heart of the challenge is this – a nepotistic, family run enterprise that does not value challenge or cross checks is now running a large complex bureaucracy where challenge and cross checking are fundamental to the organisations core functioning.

One of the biggest cultural challenges is executive talent. Delegation will always become key in this situation, but an unwillingness to embrace new people and ideas will destroy what makes that delegation effective, and leads to Jared Kushner trying to solve the Middle East Crisis, reforming the criminal justice system, tackling the opioid epidemic and, while he’s at it, revamping the entire federal government.

In the political world, not embracing new people might include not including former political rivals. In the business world, it can be closing your eyes to competitors and what they are doing, and the resources they are using to achieve their success. Acknowledging that ‘your side’ doesn’t have all the answers is the first step to bringing more people onto your side.

Recruit, Recruit, Recruit

The obvious solution here in a ‘normal’ organisation would be to co-opt credible senior talent into the organisation – however, this is becoming increasingly difficult as career government officials do not want to be associated with the current administration. Their history of blocking potential appointments based on past criticisms has given them a reputation that the best and brightest do not want to come and work for, despite the unquestionable lure of both serving your country and the most powerful office in the world.

The best leaders surround themselves with a varied and talented group of people who are confident, competent and committed. Strong leaders expect challenge from their staff. It is hard to see that type of assertive behaviour being rewarded in this administration.

Behaviour that most people would consider problematic has been justified, excused, explained and defended on the back of loyalty to the incumbent by the staff around him. This loyalty has frequently been rewarded with support or promotion. Any contradictory voices are not around long enough to have any influence hence a vicious circle of problematic behaviour being re-enforced.

Structure

Structurally, you have an executive cohort that do not seem to have many functioning checks and balances and for whom ‘challenging the incumbent’ has clearly been demonstrated to be ‘career limiting behaviour’.

One of Trump’s key promises was to ‘Drain the Swamp’. In other words, change the culture in Washington and break the cycle of perceived corruption. Michael Moore described it as ‘throwing a Molotov cocktail into the Washington establishment’. However, to change a large bureaucracy, you need to know how it currently works or at least attempt to understand. It is hard to break something you can’t see, and impossible when you aren’t looking.

Insurgent companies see a problem in the marketplace and instinctively reach for a solution. They are not looking to break the system, they are looking to rebuild it in their own image. This demands vision, talent and determination. It requires both chaos and structure.

Unfortunately, within the Trump organisation it’s only the chaos that is rewarded. People that draw the admiration of the president is from those that shout loudest on television, while ignoring those that are quietly getting on with their jobs. This is equivalent to only listening to those colleagues that talk at meetings and not the employee who delivers again and again, without fuss.

A Mounting Challenge

When you scale ineffectively through an unwillingness to change and recruit from a limited pool of talent, the challenges begins to snowball. The evaluative process of one organisation either merging with or acquiring another from a talent perspective must be objective, fair and divorced from emotion.

In this administration’s case (for the reasons outlined previously) the process would appear to be none of the above. Culture and structure are two core elements of overhauling a large bureaucracy – however, the character of the person endeavouring to do the overhauling is also a core issue. For this reason, systemic and meaningful development of the US government organisation may already be beyond the current administration.


Edwin O’ Hora is the Programme Director for the IMI Diploma in Organisational Development and Transformation. Edwin works with a range of clients in different sectors in the areas of growing organisations, making them scalable and developing and sustaining high performance.