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Articles
What The Leader Needs To Know: Accountable Leadership - The Universal
Model
The Opportunity
A recent global survey.1 found
two of CEOs’ greatest concerns were:
- Consistent execution of strategy by top management (33.4%)
- Speed, flexibility, adaptability to change (33.1%)
Put another way “I’m not sure my team can keep us on
course nor change course when we have too.”
One common response to the lack of confidence in corporate leaders
is the continual expenditure of precious resources to find a unique
definition of leadership talent for the company. Often shortly after
the introduction of a leadership model based upon a costly, time-consuming,
in-depth competency study “the model” is rejected by
a new CEO.
"…I want people who create organizations
that get aligned,
get passionate,
get really inspired about delivering."
- Anne M. Mulcahy |
The constant pursuit of a “new” definition of leadership
may unintentionally reduce the talent supply. With each introduction
of a new definition of effective leadership, a company risks alienating
high potential people. These people often see a new model as the
company changing the rules after they’ve made heavy personal
and professional investments. They also see the development of “new”
models as motivated by politics and/or egos. When one Fortune 50
company, introduced a new leadership competency model 30% of high-potential
people left.
While CEOs and companies struggle to define it, the demand for
superior leadership talent continues to rise. Anne M. Mulcahy of
Xerox clearly states the need for leadership today: “There's
not a lot of room anymore for senior people to be managers. They
have to be leaders. I want people who create organizations that
get aligned, get passionate, get really inspired about delivering.” 2
Our careful review of several hundred of the most respected leadership
studies concludes that there is one universal set of leadership
skills which ensures success in every circumstance. Importantly,
possessing this universal skill set enables leaders to adjust their
decision-making and behaviors when the business situation shifts.
Companies that focus on one type of leader vs. another find themselves
caught short when changes in the environment require a new type
of leader.
The real solution to the crisis in leadership talent may be in
holding people accountable for developing and using this universal
skill set.
How To Leverage It
Here is how you can significantly improve your leadership talent.
- Focus on the universal model
If you examine any subset of leadership models, you will find a
core set of six skills that together define effective leadership
across industries, geographies and business cycles. The core set
of six skills is as follows.
- Taking Inventory Of Personal Readiness & Motivations
Many companies make significant investments in leadership
assessments that give them and the individual insights into
that person’s readiness to be a leader as well as their
motivations for wanting the role of leader. Effective leaders
understand that they are accountable for ensuring that their
capabilities (i.e. readiness) and motivations meet or exceed
the demands of the particular leadership role they are in.
They hold themselves accountable for consistently and candidly
assessing their own readiness and motives.
- Detecting & Integrating Patterns In
The Environment
Many individuals in leadership positions are well-informed.
What is lacking is the integration of the information they
acquire into their business strategy and tactics. Detection
and integration of new patterns in the environment is no longer
a responsibility reserved for the most senior executives.
In today’s world of relentless change, leaders at all
levels must constantly look for and then act on new patterns.
- Staffing The Team
Despite all the lip-service about having the right people
in the right jobs, we continue to be amazed by how many executives
and managers fail to act on critical staffing issues. There
is a never ending series of reasons for not removing people
when they no longer meet the requirements of the job. Hiring
managers are often “too busy” to fully engage
in the evaluation and selection of the people that will report
to them. The most effective leaders hold themselves accountable
for moving quickly to change players who no longer fit and
for being fully involved in the selection of new talent.
- Focusing & Story Telling
The turn-arounds at Honeywell (then Allied-Signal) under Bossidy,
IBM under Gerstner, and McDonald’s under Cantalupo,
Bell and Skinner all demonstrate how powerful focusing the
entire organization on a critical few goals can be. Bossidy
focused his team on cost, quality and brand; Gerstner on win,
execute and team; and despite the tragic deaths of Cantalupo
and Bell the three leaders kept McDonald’s renewed focus
on quality, service, and cleanliness. But along with focusing
the organization these and other world class leaders also
provide the context for the goals chosen by developing and
sharing a compelling story. A story allows employees to fully
and easily grasp not only what must be done but the value
of long-term success.
- Driving Accountability & Engaging People
Most would agree on the importance of holding people accountable.
Yet often holding someone accountable for results is confused
with holding them accountable for the best they could do under
the circumstance. As Winston Churchill said, “It’s
not enough to do our best sometimes we have to do what’s
required.” Imagine how different your business would
perform if everyone expected to be held accountable for results
and not just efforts.
If you are going to get the best performance
out of your people and their commitment to the challenges
they face you need to engage them as you hold them accountable.
Engagement goes way beyond leadership visibility. Engagement
is the interdependence of the leader and the team in each
others work and worklife. Engagement provides a consistent
experience of contributing while simultaneously receiving
support and development.
- Building Personal Strengths
The effective leader holds herself accountable for maintaining
the most important resource she has: herself.
Effective leaders realize that not investing
in themselves to the point where it erodes their capabilities,
knowledge, social ties and health is irresponsible. Running
oneself to the point of burn out is as damaging to a business
as failure to maintain its infrastructure. Short-term appearances
are good – long-term sustainability is jeopardized.
- Model accountable leadership
The effective leader is the accountable leader. A leader who understands,
develops and uses the six skills described above. Accountable
leaders relentlessly use these six skills they don’t choose
among them.
Certainly at any point in time more effort may
be invested in one of the six than the others. The accountable
leader knows that should he remain exclusively focused on driving
accountability and engaging employees he will be surprised by
some major shift in the environment. Nor can an accountable
leader focus on detecting and integrating new patterns in the
environment without paying sufficient attention to daily execution.
For example, Bill Ford’s stepping down as CEO was most
likely not because a focus on environmental issues was incompatible
with the auto business. It was likely a result of neglecting
to use some of the other skills of an accountable leader such
as focusing and storytelling or driving accountability and engaging
employees.
- Facilitate the talent conversation
Too often the talent management and succession planning processes
are driven by a presentation to the Board. In this “drive
to report” there is often a mad dash to fill out profiles,
get pictures taken, bring databases up to date and complete charts.
This is followed by one to several intense days of conversation.
Conversation that can be dizzying as one after another executive
or high-potential is “discussed”. Despite all the
planning, resources and time expended there is little lasting
result from such a process.
The management of leadership talent becomes real
when it is part of the DNA of the organization. When several
high-potential individuals are reviewed as a standing agenda
item of every management committee meeting. When no plan is
crafted without the talent requirements and availabilities for
its short and long-term execution. When key developmental assignments
are prepared for and made throughout the year.
There are industry specific topics central to
the conversations and decisions of every organization. For the
airline it’s the price of fuel. For the financial services
firm the major economic indexes. For the retailer it’s
consumer confidence. An on-going talent conversation is an essential
ingredient to every business’ sustained success regardless
of industry.
- Invest in infrastructure at the right time
Too many companies invest in talent management systems prematurely.
When these systems are implemented prior to the talent conversation
being part of the company’s DNA the return is minimal. Success
is defined as the extent to which the system is populated. Executives
are asked, encouraged and cajoled into getting the online profiles
of their high-potentials into the new system. Leaders are drawn
away from personally getting to know high-potentials, mentoring
them and determining what role(s) best suit them.
A system implemented after the talent conversation
is part of the company’s culture is an effective response
to a demand. The value of using the system is clear. The system
will be used by leaders across the enterprise and an ROI realized.
It’s time to stop defining leadership and
get on with the job of being accountable leaders.
1(2006) The CEO Challenge 2006
– Top Ten Challenges. Research Report R-1380-05-RR. ©2006
by The Conference Board, Inc.[Return
to Article]
2((2005) Hammonds, K.H. “Copy This” FastCompany Issue
92.[Return
to Article]
© 2004 Flanagan Consultants, LLC. Terms and Conditions
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