Follow the Leader

by David R. Butcher | February 27th, 2007

Email |

Print |

Post Comment

Let’s face it: leadership, that ever-elusive quality, can be hard. Yet leadership and competitiveness are interrelated. Leadership can breed innovation, and innovation is the driving force of today’s competitiveness.

Follow-up: No Contract, No Work

Who’s the World’s Clean Energy Leader?

For some time, the cult of “leadership” has hooked executives to the point that they almost always opt for “leadership development” when asked what kind of training they would prefer, even though they seldom know what it is they are requesting.

Further, consider PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Management Barometer late last year, which found nearly half of surveyed senior executives believe the United States has lost ground in its economic competitiveness and in educating its people to meet new global business challenges.

Both supposed-truths are related, as leadership and competitiveness are indeed interrelated. Leadership can breed innovation, and innovation is the driving force of today’s competitiveness.

And the innovation game can be brutal: create a new market and other companies flood in. Parry one threat and up pops another hungry entrant. Companies that move forward while vigilantly looking for ways to disarm existing and potential competitors can enhance the chances that their disruptive story will have a happy conclusion.

This takes leadership — that elusive quarry. Consider the judgment of a Harvard Business Review piece earlier this month entitled Discovering Your Authentic Leadership. After interviewing 125 leaders of assorted ages and occupations, the authors admitted they finally understood “why more than 1,000 studies have not produced a profile of an ideal leader.” They said they were “startled to see that [the interviewees] did not identify any universal characteristics, traits, skills, or styles that led to their success.”

Leadership once was considered part of a management skill set as opposed to the whole kit and caboodle. Clearly, though, the two are indispensably linked. While you can be a good manager without being a great leader, you can’t be a great leader without being a good manager — because the leader ultimately depends on the quality of the support and contribution made by the followers. The better your followers manage, the greater your chances of success as a leader.

Perhaps the only consistent trait across all leaders is to have followers.

At least that is the thought of John E. West, who directs the Major Shared Resource Center (MSRC) at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC). West, who wrote a book on the subject called The Only Trait of a Leader, in an interview last fall noted how leadership is not one of the traits most often associated with the typical engineer or scientist. “We expect technology professionals to have a firm grasp on the hard sciences, while leadership skills are often considered expendable.” But a lack of leadership “can create a vacuum” in organizations, particularly in technology organizations.

West said:

First, if you accept that the only trait of a leader that matters is that others follow his or her example, then you see that everyone in every position in society and in companies has the potential to be — and probably is — a leader. Everyone influences someone. The second thing you see is that because we impact society and its future, we have an obligation to lead for positive change, right now, whatever stage of our careers we are in. Leaders have a picture of how things can be better. Then they work for change to make that picture reality.

Which brings us to competitiveness … on an increasingly expanding global stage.

Today, when it comes to grooming and bringing on the leaders of the future, the U.S. is best, a new global study suggests. Consultancy Hay Group and the magazine “Chief Executive” carried out a 2006 poll to identify those companies most committed to and most successful at fostering leadership talent.

The top five companies were all American: General Electric, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Citigroup and Johnson & Johnson. The top United Kingdom company, ranked at No. 6, was banking giant HSBC, while Holland’s BASF was the highest-ranked continental European business.

However, “an estimated 75 million workers will retire in the U.S. in the next five to 10 years,” noted Mary Fontaine, vice president and general manager of Hay Group’s McClelland Center for Research and Innovation. “There’s an urgent need for leadership with only 45 million workers available to fill those roles,” Fontaine continued.

This concern, of course, is not isolated to the U.S. and Western Europe. In emerging and developing countries — particularly in China, Eastern Europe and Brazil — “there is a clear need to bring on and develop enough leaders to maintain necessary pace of growth,” the report found.

Science and engineering are fundamentally creative fields, and at their most basic level, the products are “ideas,” West further proposed. And ideas create value not only for your career in that you are paid for those ideas and the ability to implement them — they create value for your company or organization in that they sell products based on those ideas. If these products aren’t made and sold, the company cannot succeed. And those products cannot be made without ideas.

Those innovative ideas cannot come without thought leaders, and they cannot be fostered in a work environment — which is often set by a manager, supervisor or other leadership — that is not conducive to creativity.

Resources

Technology Leadership Begins With the Individual
HPCwire, August 2006

Management Barometer: Senior Executives Say U.S. Has Lost Competitiveness Over Past Five Years
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Aug. 2, 2006

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership
by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, Diana Mayer
Harvard Business Review, Feb. 1, 2007

U.S best at grooming leaders of the future
Hay Group and Chief Executive magazine (via IACCM), Jan. 4, 2007

Email |

Print |

Post Comment |

Follow Discussion |

Recommend | Recommended (0)

Fluid Metering Inc: Valveless Metering Pumps & Dispensers

EIC Solutions - Protect and COOL Electronic Equipment in Any Environment

Comments:

Tom McRay

February 27, 2007

The article on Leadership by David Butcher, imparts no useful information on the subject of being a good leader. It leaves me being no more informed than before I read the article.

Reply to this comment

DRB

February 27, 2007

Tom-

I am sorry you found the article lacking any useful information. The intention was not to publish fluff, but to reaffirm the fundamental importance of leadership’s role in global competitiveness. Truth be told, this is common sense (or, at least, it should be). Yet, as we hear so frequently from our readers, organizational leaders seem to be lacking (or lacking “something”) today. So we feel the significance of the topic above cannot be stressed enough.

Anyhow, hopefully some of (or at least one of) today’s other posts will be of interest to you. If nothing else, we’re pleased to provide a place for professionals to vent their frustrations over trends in industry and the workplace.

I personally hope you continue to read IMT and find some useful knowledge or news in future bloggage.

Regards,

David R. Butcher, IMT editor

Reply to this comment

See More Comments

KM

February 27, 2007

They said they were “startled to see that [the interviewees] did not identify any universal characteristics, traits, skills, or styles that led to their success.”

I agree with the above, it just like a can of mixed nuts.

My style tends to be aggressive A-type, kill or be killed, so to speak.

Cheers.

Good Article. No new answers. But Good.

Reply to this comment

Nabeel Eltarabily

February 27, 2007

The article is superb, but it did not address any of the existing businesses that still need good leadership, and those who are totally failing. If you follow the Wall Street news, you will find many companies that fail and fall by the side of the road without anyone trying to find what their leaders did to reach this dilemma and what if any thing should have been done to save them.

Reply to this comment

Susan H. Santos

February 27, 2007

I am interested to get a copy of the “leadership training kit” that can be applicable here in the Philippines. Especially tailor-made for the sales force in the field of marketing “petroleum & minerals ” and other allied products.

Reply to this comment

Ed

February 27, 2007

I agree with Tom David.

This article lacks conviction and strength to set a leading standard. Though I applaud your efforts to address the issue in an impartial way.

I disagree that American companies are producing the best leaders. I look at the results of stifling innovation, or more precisely innovation that only determines 1 possible line of innovation that may not and in many cases isn’t the best option at the time.

How can that be leadership of the correct standard and one that should be revered?

Lets take for example the listed number one All America… they show leadership in one area, and that’s diversifying.

How is that directly conducive to innovation? What in their ranks shows that they should be an example of innovative design?

There are many standards that “way” touted as great, but more that in truth can apply in the test of leadership… I’d be interested in how the standards the Hay group were chosen, organised and tested?

As a result though, I think without publishing those facts, the Hay group fail in their citation. Publications of leaders as leaders without the criteria explaining why they are chosen doesn’t help anyone, and its not Fluff; ITS ESSENTIAL

Reply to this comment

DRB

February 28, 2007

For the study, Hay Group surveyed 564 companies with at least $8 billion in revenue from around the world. Data were collected from three sources: surveys of leaders within the companies, surveys of leaders from peer companies, and interviews with relevant academics and search firm executives. The study identified the practices followed by the various companies, including:

* Having leaders at all levels who focus on creating a work climate that motivates employees to perform at their best.
* Ensuring that the company and its senior management make leadership development a top priority.
* Providing training and coaching to help intact leadership teams, as well as the individual leaders, work together more effectively.

The remaining best practices highlight the need to start early on mid-level managers and high potentials:

* Rotational job assignments for high potentials.
* External leadership development programs for mid-level managers.
* Web-based self study leadership modules for mid-level managers.
* Executive MBA programs for mid-level managers.

The study also identified common practices that wasted resources. This information is provided in the link (“a 2006 poll”) embedded in the article.

This having been said, Ed, I believe your argument for disagreeing that American companies are producing the best leaders is just about spot-on. My bringing up the study was simply meant to entice readers to *think about* and discuss where nations (including the U.S.) stand in the increasingly global competitive landscape when it comes to innovation, which, as I think you support, depends on leadership in various forms. Even *IF* the U.S. is indeed “No. 1″ in this category, for how much longer will it stay there if companies follow their present course of thinking, efficiency, creativity, design, application and ease-of-use? Not much.

Clearly the post got you thinking at least about why you disagree; for that, I am pleased. Sorry for the length (I now feel like Proust, and I hope you indulge me). Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers.

-David R. Butcher

Reply to this comment

Nick S.

February 28, 2007

Well, like the man said: they were “startled to see that [the interviewees] did not identify any universal characteristics, traits, skills, or styles that led to their success.”

1. This is the main problem: that leaders nowadays base their expertise on leading and managing systems rather than people and technologies.

2. The next big issue I have with managers and “leaders” is the lack of moral values and ethical constraints.

We see the first point in the new breed of business leaders, managers to whom it is equally unimportant if they manage Taco Bell or Proctor and Gamble. As long as their “package” sets them up for life.

That is not to say that big companies don’t pay attention as to the skills of their leaders but we see too often executives from Boeing jumping to Ford, and from Pharmaceutical Industry to FDA and from the Republican Party, Congress to NPR. The business-trained manager has expertise in managing a business model rather than knowing, from the ground up, the business he is managing. This is the weak point. Many times there are intricacies that they miss, and then the people or the organizations they lead suffer.

On the second point, we saw too many times lately the headlines of inedited CEO’s. At lower levels, the damage is less but it is spread more. We all had instances when we saw or personally suffered from leadership infringing on our rights or abusing the power that they have.

If I would be to grade leadership values, I would give a 9 to the Japanese, an 8 to Europeans, and a 7 — if not 6 — to North American leaders.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Reply to this comment

Ed

February 28, 2007

Nick,

You bring up some good points across the board. The intricacies and necessities of details are needed; and so long as leaders recognised the value, and the power his/her team may hold in defining those clearly, then there should be no problem.

Ground up is great, and so long as it is focused correctly, will head towards the desired end — having found the measure to bridge any needed innovations.

If I were to give leadership a definition: “a purpose-driven vision that unites all its components into one cohesive and committed body.” And in my language it is said in one word “whakakotahitanga” unite into one people

David, I think all the time, though your article did prompt me to reply.

All those listings go without saying. That is they should be the standard common among all business. The Moral fibre component Nick mentioned is one of the rarer business qualities that sets leader out amongst leaders.

I’m reminded of a 5000 year old saying, “the higher way seeks and deals with its level”

The best idea I’ve read about leadership regarding business that would fit a lot of nonbusiness activities if not all activities, is GUNG HO. A Native American philosophy based on the attitude and work habits of the Beaver. -but all communal creature of nature seem to exhibit that behaviour. i.e. the ant, the termite.

Everyone is aware of their role and the goal, as always informed at every given moment how the construction is progressing in accordance with their goal sets both daily and long term.

Finally David, what you bring up speaks nothing about developing a leader from the ground up… from scratch.

And an even greater challenge, developing a leader from below scratch. i.e. someone that is so majorly disadvantaged, everything you know would tell you “it is a lost cause”

here is where you really see the value of moral fibre.

Reply to this comment

JOHN

March 1, 2007

It seems to me that everyone, in a round-about way, has said essentially what a Supreme Court Justice said about obscenity….”I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

It seems to me that the real leaders I have observed and work with could not be “packaged” and their traits were not learned from a six-week course. Their recognized abilities came from a broad-based approval of them as humans and a regard for their knowledge of the business at hand; and a few times that knowledge was to admit that they did not have the answer, but together we could find it.

Generally, those associated with a leader will “follow them into Hell” and come out being better for it. Leadership is a lot like faith…you can’t see it, but you know it’s there. Why is there doubt that those considered-leaders could not spout the recipe for their achievement?

Reply to this comment

Nick S.

March 2, 2007

I think I just read the most pathetic line about leaders just now: “Leadership is a lot like faith…you can’t see it, but you know it’s there.”

If the LEADER’s last resource to convince the others to follow is to ask them to have faith, we have to return to middle ages and, closer, maybe to communism to see that that approach failed. What a pile of junk.

People will follow if you can tell them something they don’t know, if you give them an example they can follow, if you give them hope, prosperity and structure.

To summarize, you have to give them results. When you come home from work, drained and tired, after you gave it all you got, you have to be able to say that it was worth it, and that your leader was there with you every step of the way.

Some people might have been managers all their life and if a few yes-sayers eulogized them and kept telling them how great they were and their “visions”, they really start to believe it. Then they retire and give their 10 cents’ worth of hate for engineers.

Reply to this comment

JOHN

March 5, 2007

Nick: You quote “….people will follow if you tell them something they don’t know, if you give them an example they can follow, if you give them HOPE, prosperity and structure.”

Nick, I cannot think of a better one sentence than this that defines FAITH. When someone tells you something you don’t know and you move forward with that information without proof it is so…that’s FAITH. Hope is to look forward with expectation of fulfillment, according to the dictionary…if that is not FAITH, I don’t know what is.

Before you label something pathetic, perhaps you should
closely examine your own beliefs, stated for the world to see. Regarding your last statement about engineers… perhaps an additional description should be “to take credit for all and responsibility for little.”

Reply to this comment

Nick S.

March 5, 2007

Pathetic master of spin.

Reply to this comment

2012	2011
2010	2009
2008	2007
2006	2005
2004	2003
2002	2001
2000

Thank you for commenting	close

Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.

Error	close

Please enter a valid email address