Custom-Built Leadership: Three Critical Decisions only You can Take

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CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP Three Critical Decisions Only You Can Take

Robin Ryde

CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP: Three Critical Decisions Only You Can Take

Also by Robin Ryde THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Moving Hearts and Minds

CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP Three Critical Decisions Only You Can Take

Robin Ryde

© Robin Ryde 2008 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN-13: 978-0-230-20259-7 ISBN-10: 0-230-20259-4 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ryde, Robin. Custom-built leadership : three critical decisions only you can take / Robin Ryde. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-230-20259-7 1. Leadership—Psychological aspects. 2. Decision making. 3. Executive ability. 4. Self-management (Psychology) I. Title. HD57.7.R935 2008 658.4⬘092—dc22 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press Ltd, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

2008037737

This book is dedicated to Frankie and Jackson, who bring excitement, humor and more than a little chaos into my life. My greatest thanks go to Lisa. I have no idea how I would have written this book if it hadn’t been for your support, inspiration and insight – thanks.

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Contents

List of Figures

ix

No One Way

xi

1

Sympathy for the Devil A personal manifesto for how you will lead Leadership may cause harmful side effects Leadership is an emotional business A dashboard of self-awareness What does good leadership feel like?

1 3 6 33 35 41

2

Your First Decision – How Long Have I Got? Tenure, legacy and unfinished business Leadership, time ambition and the tools for the job Shorter-term leadership ambition Longer-term leadership ambition Case Study: Robert Swan OBE Knowledge review and reminders

43 44 47 51 66 78 89

3

Your Second Decision – How Grand Is My Plan? Analytic pitch Your appetite Your freedom to operate Your inheritance Leadership, scale of ambition and the tools for the job Modest leadership ambition Grand leadership ambition Knowledge review and reminders

90 91 93 94 95 97 98 108 123

4

Your Third Decision – How Broadly Will I Lead? Mapping your system Authority, perspective and flux Leadership, breadth of ambition and the tools for the job Narrower leadership ambition

124 127 129 131 131

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viii CONTENTS

5

Broader leadership ambition Knowledge review and reminders

141 154

Extended Moments of Clarity

155

Notes

161

Index

163

Figures

Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2 Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 2.3

Figure 2.4

Figure 3.1 Figure 3.2 Figure 3.3

The personal implications, costs and side effects of leadership

9

Polarities that express different features of organizational life

29

An example of important sub-questions relating to tenure, legacy and unfinished business

48

Skills and qualities that have particular value for different levels of leadership time ambition

49

An illustration of the range of generic leadership characteristics identified by some of the leader thinkers

50

Example answers to the question “how can I establish relationships of greater trust?” with key internal influencers

56

Floor plans of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

92

Illustrations of different heights/levels of leadership ambition

93

Skills and qualities that have particular value according to the scale of leadership ambition

97

Figure 3.4

Different levels of risk appetite

111

Figure 3.5

How self-critical are you? – strength and frequency of self-criticism

113

Some questions to help you build a self-care strategy

117

Ideas to help you identify potential strategic allies

121

Figure 3.6 Figure 3.7

ix

x

FIGURES

Figure 4.1

A representation of a system in which business leaders operate

128

Skills and qualities that have particular value according to the breadth of leadership ambition

132

Pictorial map showing relationships with key influencers (example of audit and accountancy professional services firm)

134

A representation of how a win-win mindset causes leaders to lead positively in the interests of other organizations

140

The gray areas of this map provide the starting point for leaders with broader ambition

143

Figure 4.6

A simple journey model of leadership

150

Figure 5.1

The priority capability implications of all three leadership decisions

158

Helping you to lead yourself and others

159

Figure 4.2 Figure 4.3

Figure 4.4

Figure 4.5

Figure 5.2

No One Way

This book poses critical and fundamental questions for all leaders. It does not set out to provide “the answer” to leadership as so many other management books attempt to do. The answers are different depending on who you are and what your ambition is as a leader. This is the central premise of the book. There is no leadership silver bullet. There is no right answer. There is no one way despite everything you might hear and read. As you probably already know, leadership is hard work: intellectually demanding, emotionally draining and personally challenging. The real work on your leadership is what you have to do and no number of great academics, management thinkers, role models or gurus can do this for you. Help though is at hand. Please think of this book not as a management text or a theory of leadership, but instead as if it were a portable executive coach. Here entirely for you; full of provocations and ideas, and considerably cheaper and more available. If you would like to have more clarity in your role as a leader, to have more confidence in your actions and to simply be more certain that you will succeed, then please read on.

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1

Sympathy for the Devil

Sometime before writing this book I was the Acting Chief Executive Officer of a medium-sized organization. I had been in the organization for a short while and happily accepted the role. It was a job that I took seriously and gave my full commitment to with the intention of making a genuine difference. The word acting though always caught in my throat, like a dry biscuit crumb that had welded itself to my windpipe. I wasn’t acting, of course, in the Hollywood movie sense, nor was I acting in the undercover cop sense. In fact it felt very real in every way to me, but I was nevertheless not, at that point, substantiated in the position. Close, but no cigar, as the saying goes. People would inquire often about what would happen next in the process of filling the position for the leadership, for example whether it would be through advertisement in the newspapers or whether the Board had someone in mind. When speaking to me they would ask about arrangements for filling “your” position and then, recognizing the possible suggestion implied by the word “your,” they would catch themselves midflow and attempt to “repair” the sentence. The question would usually therefore be accompanied by a kind of stutter and I would witness the quick but all-too-obvious switch of the “your” word to the nonpossessive “the” word before asking about the position. It reminded me of the experience of feeding the ducks at the local pond where you generously hold out some lovely plump bread taken from your own bread bin and carried lovingly to the bank of the pond. An elegant and beautiful swan waddles up to you and just as it is within a few inches of your gift of food, a streetwise pigeon swoops down and snatches the whole loaf from your hands. In the acting CEO role you can always hear the flapping of wings behind you. So what this caused within me was a serious appraisal of the options that were open to me as an interim CEO. And these boiled down to three critical and interrelated questions, which remain as profound for me now as they did then. These were, how long do I think I have got? How grand should my ambition be? And how widely should I extend my influence? Looking back, I wonder how I ever hoped to be successful without first addressing each of these head-on.

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2

CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP

These were first-order questions that, once I had resolved to answer them, changed the landscape immediately. The otherwise tough, complex and demanding job of leadership became curiously clearer. My agenda for action was guided by the tramlines that the answers to these questions had produced – like a map that unfolded in front of me. More than ever before, I understood where I was going and exactly what I needed to do to get there. It provided a personal mandate for my leadership. Thinking about it now, this applied as much as it did to me in an interim role as it did in other comparable and less temporary leadership positions that I had held. But more importantly it applies to anyone and everyone in a position of leadership, whether you expect to be in the role for 4 months, 4 years or 40 years. In the same vein, your decision to keep the organization simply ticking over or to go for something altogether more ambitious makes a mammoth difference to what you need to do as a leader: how you use your time, what skills you need, how you work with others. And ultimately, how broadly you frame the population of people and institutions you want to influence will bring into focus where your efforts should be directed. The odd notion, promoted by so many leadership writers and thinkers, that good leadership is a one-size-fits-all model has always confounded me. To formulate a theory of leadership in abstraction from the priorities that leaders pursue seems to ignore the leader in leadership. Strewn across the path of leadership is a litter trail of considerations and opportunities – globalization, advanced communications, technological acceleration, climate change, people migration, poverty, health epidemics, terrorism, erosion of trust, a more demanding public, downsizing, right-sizing, outsourcing, strategic partnerships, mergers, demergers, acquisitions, virtual everything, power shifts, a war on talent, skills deficits, generations x, y, and z, sub-prime collapses, governance structures and lots more. In a modern world that truly is defined by complexity and change, absolute clarity about direction, that is the direction in which you as a leader will travel, is worth its weight in gold. And if that clarity provides a route map for the know-how and skills you need to build along the way, then this is nothing short of a recipe for success. All of a sudden the messy domain of leadership starts to take a more orderly shape and you find yourself smoothly moving up a gear and entering the fast lane. It won’t hurt for you to start working on these three questions for yourself now and to see the fog lift.

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL 3

A personal manifesto for how you will lead On the morning of August 6, 2002, an armed bank robber crept out of a hiding place in a local bank in Oxfordshire. Having broken in through the roof of the bank on the previous evening, the robber had laid low for several hours, no doubt rehearsing the heist that would see him seize a modest but not insubstantial sum of £126,000. As the staff arrived at the bank on this busy Tuesday morning, the robber, wearing a balaclava and a camouflage jacket, slowly made his way down to greet them. As they entered, he confronted the startled employees with a pump action shotgun and demanded that they provide the keys and codes to open the safe and the cash machines. He bundled them into a strong room while he started to load the money into a white waste sack. As time ticked by, the streets began to fill up outside the bank. Once all the cash had been crammed into the bag, the robber ushered his hostages one by one into a room upstairs so that he could make a clean escape away from the glare of the bank staff. Triumphant, but with no time to lose, the robber fled from the bank into the bustling town only to find that his black Alfa Romeo getaway car, parked in the multistory car park next door, had been accidentally blocked in by some cars owned by nearby office workers. The farcical scene unfurled as it took the robber some 20 minutes to locate and get the owners to move their cars to allow his escape. Meanwhile, CCTV snapped away, compiling a veritable photo album of images of the robber in an increasingly fraught and indignant state waving a shotgun aloft for all to see. After finally exiting the car park and meandering through the gridlocked traffic at snail’s pace, his car was caught again on a speed camera sometime later barely nudging the speed limit. It perhaps goes without saying that our robber was subsequently apprehended and arrested with the help of copious eyewitness accounts and photographic images. Neither the evidence nor time had been on his side. Quite unbelievably at the court hearing, where the robber was ordered to serve a mandatory life sentence, Judge Anthony King proclaimed: “This was clearly a sophisticated, well-planned and deliberated offence.” Deliberate – yes! But sophisticated and wellplanned? You can decide. The subject of leadership on which this book focuses attracts more definitions, theories, exemplars and case studies than you could possibly

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imagine. Leaders and leadership seem to be both the panacea for all problems that society faces and simultaneously the cause of all our problems. Our politicians slip from being worshiped one day to being lambasted the next. Our business leaders, once bringing desperately needed jobs to the community, become hounded for indulgent top team pay rises. Our public service leaders crack down on fuel emissions with brave policies and then step into gas-guzzling Jaguars to be taken to their next meeting. Sitting peacefully at the center of all leadership are individuals who make important decisions about what they will do as leaders: about their plan of attack, about where their energies will go and about who they will become in the time they have. It is what occurs in the minds of leaders that feature most in the pages of this book. But above all, it is the answers to three fundamental questions that this book poses that will take our thinking in a different direction and may make the difference between successful and fruitless leadership, and may also make the difference between leadership that provides answers to our problems and leadership that creates the problems with which we live. Let us now return to our bungled bank robbery, to explore one illustration of how some fundamentals shape and frame success, or otherwise. Our bank robber encountered three major challenges in his bank caper. The first inescapably significant factor was the time and timing of his robbery. In very many ways the crime had the makings of a great success. The criminal positioned himself in the right place in the bank (crawling through the roof); he had the right tools for the job (mask, jacket, shotgun, money bag) and, one can assume, the right demeanor, attitude and everything that goes with being a convincing robber. But what he didn’t plan well enough for was the time he had made available to carry out the job. As the morning marched on, the local streets and car parks inevitably filled up with more and more vehicles and the office workers converged on the town in their droves. Every second in the bank counted, and as time evaporated the prospect of success diminished. A second important factor in the robbery was the scale of the job that was attempted, which in no small part mirrored the bounty of £126,000 that was found in the vaults of the bank. The robber had selected a relatively small bank in an English town of some 44,000 residents. High street banks typically hold different quantities of cash, with most small banks holding up to around £300,000, medium-sized banks holding up to £1 million, and larger, big-city branches holding as much as £10–£15 million. He might have opted for a village post office, a bureau de change or a major city bank. In each case the volume


of cash likely to be seized would vary. Our robber nevertheless made a judgment on the size of prize he wanted to pursue, the risk involved and the skills he possessed in being able to pull the job off – and in doing so settled for a small town bank. In the event, he bit off more than he could chew and the scale of his ambition exceeded his ability to deliver. On this point alone size of ambition mattered a great deal. A final factor that had a bearing on the success of the robbery was the variety of outside influences on the job, in particular the arrival of office workers in the vicinity, the slow buildup of traffic in the area and the number and positioning of security cameras, specifically those in the car park where the robber had parked his getaway vehicle. One way in which the robber might have dealt with these would have been to extend some influence over them, perhaps by working with an accomplice who could assist his getaway or even disabling the security cameras, or, as wonderfully illustrated by the famous “Italian Job” film, he might have rigged the traffic light system to facilitate his exit from the scene. He implicitly chose to influence a narrow, rather than broad, range of factors that could in turn extend influence over his prospects of success. This example illuminates three profoundly important questions that leaders rarely ask of themselves and that shape this book: 1. For how long will I lead? 2. On what scale will I lead? 3. How broadly will I lead? For those who like propositions that are easy to remember, think of these questions as summarized by “how long, how big and how broad?” While each of these questions sounds wonderfully simple, they possess immense power and carry weighty implications for leadership style, focus, possibilities and strategy. In fact, they implicitly come to account for what leaders will spend most of their time doing. The problem, of course, is that leaders, more often than not, find themselves kneedeep in the job without having taken the time to consider where they stand on each of these questions, which implicitly form the root structure of their leadership. If we were to briefly identify the answers to the three leadership questions in relation to the robbery, we would probably come up with something like this: 1. how long (did our robber have to do the job)? ⫽ a very limited period of time, which, in the event, wasn’t long enough

6


2. how big (was his ambition)? ⫽ small to middling ambition, which, in the event, was more than what our robber could manage 3. how broad (was his framing of the influences on the job)? ⫽ relatively narrow, which, in the event, saw outside factors ultimately causing his downfall And it is the combination of decisions in relation to these questions that determined the robber’s command over the operation and the final outcome. The purpose of this example is not to create a recipe for how to conduct the perfect bank job, but to argue that, depending upon where you place your leadership on these three axes, you will come up with a very different set of skills that are required, a different set of strategies, a different set of behaviors and nothing short of a manifesto for how you will lead. So when you read in books about what leadership is and what you should do as a leader, do not take this as gospel. What you should do instead is start with yourself and undertake the thinking and analysis so that you know your mind on these three underpinning questions. Our criminal was sentenced to serve life in prison, and this is the cross that he has to bear for his actions. Similarly, leadership comes with its own consequences, and to provide further context to these three underpinning questions of leadership, we need to understand the condition of being a leader.

Leadership may cause harmful side effects My position on leadership is absolutely clear. It is an enormously difficult job that carries more complexities, personal demands, expectations and costs than most people imagine as they furiously attempt to climb up the slippery pole to the top. We all know what the benefits are, but the costs are less visible to us and provide some critical context to the challenges we face and the questions we must ask of ourselves. They also provide a powerful argument for focusing the attention of leaders, at least initially, on a small number of simple but fundamental considerations. The “condition” of being a leader is in many ways a unique, if not rare, set of experiences. At times it reads like the tightly folded piece of paper that you find crammed into packets of medication warning you of every conceivable side effect under the sun. I am reminded of a business trip that I recently took to Ghana and for which I had to take


some antimalaria pills called Malarone. In the advice note the list of potential side effects included the following (not a full read-out): Disturbances of the gut such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea or abdominal pain, Fever (pyrexia), Headache, Inflammation of the lining of the mouth (stomatitis), Mouth ulcers, Loss of appetite, Dizziness, Difficulty in sleeping (insomnia), Cough, Low blood sodium level (hyponatraemia), Low red blood cell count (anaemia), Decrease in the number of a type of white blood cell (neutrophil) in the blood (neutropenia), Hair loss (alopecia), Allergic reactions such as rash, or severe swelling of lips, face or tongue (angioedema). Out of curiosity I searched on the Internet before I departed to the country to see what symptoms there might be associated with actually contracting malaria, and much to my surprise the list seemed much more attractive by comparison: Headache, nausea, fever, vomiting and flu-like symptoms For leaders, while the list of “symptoms” isn’t always as physiologically graphic (although for those who dislike public speaking it may be all of the above), the personal impact of being a leader should not be underestimated. Figure 1.1 draws out some of the themes to which we should pay attention. If anyone ever needed a recipe for neurosis, anxiety and depression, it would be leadership. These dimensions of leadership come together to create the climate within which leaders operate and they amount to some pretty serious personal demands with which leaders need to cope. Let us take a look at each of these dimensions and further step into the shoes of leaders.

Your every action becomes amplified across the organization (and beyond) Leaders, like celebrities, are watched and observed and they are the subject of intense interest and idle speculation. In very many ways they embody the health of the organizations they serve, and their actions, no matter how small, are interpreted by individuals and by “the collective” as casting a light on how well the organization is prospering. If the boss is heard to have taken three weeks’ annual vacation, one week longer than the norm, this is seen to signal something – perhaps

8


No. Side effect/ Condition

Explanation

1

Your every action becomes amplified across the organization (and beyond).

The slightest word, inflection or suggestion by our leaders will be invested with significance by workers and echoed across the organization. A bit like celebrities without the glamour, our leaders are placed in the spotlight to become the subject of gossip, scrutiny and idle banter. Any wonder why some of our leaders become egotistical?

2

You will always feel underskilled to do the job.

At one level it is impossible for leaders to know all that they need to know: from how to structure an organization to how to change the brand image and from how to establish a governance system to how knowledge should be shared in the organization. While the leaders will never get into the mechanics of doing this, they nevertheless need to know how to lead all of the above. And the truth is that many leaders take on some of their biggest challenges with absolutely no prior experience or training.

3

You are caught between being authentic and necessarily having to say and do things in which you don’t believe.

The characteristically personal dimension to leadership means that leaders have to give themselves to the job, and while all experienced leaders will recognize that authenticity is the key to success, the job at different times forces them to do and say things in which they don’t believe. Those with a certain moral flexibility might well find this easier to contend with.

4

You permanently live amid ambiguity, complexity and change.

Leaders know more of the strategic challenges facing the organization than anybody else – more about the demands of shareholders and stakeholders, more about the “real” and often tough views of the Board, more about the budgetary crisis about to hit the organization, more of the action that Unions have threatened to take, more of the job loses that leaders will need to instigate as they give a rallying speech of support to the very group they will have to sack. The world of leadership contains no black or white, only a myriad of dilemmas painted in shades of gray.

5

You have a looser grip on the organization than you might imagine.

The notion that leaders are “in charge” of their organizations couldn’t be farther from the truth. On the whole, leaders have neither the time nor the inclination to intervene in the running of the organization, which is for the layers of management over which the leader presides. The bigger the organization, the looser the grip leaders feel on the organization.

Figure 1.1 Continued.

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL 9 6

You are time-poor.

On average Chief Executives spend at least half of their working week ensconced in planned meetings and additionally attend lunchtime, evening and weekend engagements, as well as international travel – all of which serve to erode the time available to think, reflect and recuperate.

7

You are alone/ lonely.

As an individual at the top of the organization leaders have far fewer opportunities than most other people to form bonds, to chat and to off-load their worries. The role and the position often forces distance between the leader and the people around them. The result tends to create lonely leaders.

8

No matter what you do, you will always be told that you are not visible enough.

One of the most common conclusions of organizational surveys that touch upon leadership is that “leaders are not visible enough.” Unfortunately, even in the highest-performing and best lead organizations workers just want more “leader-time” and leaders despite their best efforts will always have to accept that they will underdeliver. (Incidentally, this is not a reason to become invisible as a leader.)

9

You can become demonized.

The prospect of being demonized is more of a certainty than a possibility. Leaders simply cannot consistently succeed with their organizations, not least because organizational success depends on factors outside the locus of leaders. Can you think of one great leader who hasn’t at some point been pilloried or demonized for their decisions?

10

Your workers may hold parental expectations of you.

Without having exchanged words over the psychological deal that staff strike with leaders, very often employees project onto leaders the notion that they should look after, care for and nurture them, that leaders should act as benevolent, father/mother figures. You won’t find this in any employment contracts, but you will find it deep in the expectations of many staff.

11

You become objectified/ reduced to a symbol.

In organizations of more than a handful of people, most leaders cannot be “known” by the workers. Workers have to instead settle for a composite or caricature of their leader that is built through layers upon layers of stories, opinion and rumor. As a consequence, leaders can never be, for most people, more than symbols.

12

You are never off duty.

The implicit deal for the money that leaders are usually paid is that they should be available almost at any time to do what is required for the business. Evening soirees, weekend travels, breakfast meetings, lunchtime discussions all serve to blur the line between home and work.

Figure 1.1 The personal implications, costs and side effects of leadership

10 CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP

that they are in fact looking elsewhere for a job or that they are finding the job too difficult. If the boss is seen to drop his papers while walking along the corridor to a meeting, this is considered as a signal that he is losing his grip on the organization or that something is troubling him. If the boss speaks in front of an audience of workers and with an unintended aside mentions that she has received a lot of “spam” e-mails, the IT department goes into overdrive and reconfigures the e-mail security settings before the boss returns to the comfort of their office. For many leaders this is an easy concept to “get,” but a harder one to live with every day. While some leaders may flatter themselves that they are masters of the amplification phenomenon, and may mercilessly make use of it and the “grapevine” to their benefit, most feel the weight of the incessant scrutiny of their words and deeds. Furthermore, in the same way that the child’s game “Chinese whispers” has a phrase or sentence contorted as it is quietly whispered from one ear to the next, the interpretation of what leaders do and mean is equally unpredictable and unmanageable. An extreme example of this phenomenon was Gerald Ratner, boss of one of Britain’s most successful retailers, who in 1991 famously joked at an official engagement of London’s Institute of Directors that one of his firm’s products was “total crap.” He further boasted that some of his company’s earrings were “cheaper than a prawn sandwich.” The speech, no doubt unwisely conducted under Chatham House Rules, was immediately seized upon by the media and wiped an estimated £500 million off the value of his company. The toxic elements of his speech must have taken less than five seconds to put out into the world and ricocheted and reverberated around the business community almost as quickly. I am reminded of a wonderful story told by Lord Digby Jones, former Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (a body whose membership is drawn from thousands of organizations that make up UK private business) about his entry into the 26-mile London Marathon. Before the world-famous event, Digby Jones was approached by the company Cadbury’s, who offered to sponsor Digby a significant sum of money which in turn would be donated to Cancer Research UK and Unicef. The deal was that Digby would wear a running shirt with the Cadbury’s logo printed on the front. He decided off his own initiative to have the words ‘chocolate is good for you’ printed on the back of the shirt. What you do need to know is that at the time Digby Jones was a man in his early 50s with a rather ample build and certainly not the kind of person you could easily picture running 26 miles. The story goes that as the day of the event came closer the sponsors became worried about how it might look if,

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

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heaven forbid, Digby Jones was to collapse half way around the track while prominently sporting a T-shirt with the claim ‘chocolate is good for you’ emblazoned over it. The sponsors rather gingerly raised this issue and, as humorously told by Digby Jones, it was agreed that should he collapse he would fall onto his front so as to obscure the bold statement! The amplification principle was perfectly understood by the sponsors not least because it represented a considerable financial and reputational investment for them. It helps in this context for leaders to think of themselves as not unlike a public limited company with a diverse shareholding. Workers within the organization and stakeholders outside all listen attentively to fluctuations in the same way that the market commentators do. Rumours, statements and opinion mixed with a sprinkling of data all serve to inflate or deflate the share price of the leader. Much of this is influenced, as our Gerald Ratner example illustrates, by the behaviour of the leader whether it occurs in front of one or one thousand people.

You will always feel underskilled to do the job Positions of leadership attract some of the highest salaries imaginable. In the United States, Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, earned, at the height of his career, a $125 million package, comprising salary, bonuses and stock options. In 2006/7 the average CEO of a large US company made roughly $10.8 million each year. In the UK in 2006/7, Sir Terry Leahy, who leads the UK’s most successful supermarket chain, Tesco, earned £6.8 million. The top 300 bosses in the UK state sector saw their salaries increase by 12.8 percent on 2006 figures, boosting their pay to an average of £237,000. Seventeen of the top public servants earned more than £500,000 per year. These figures would suggest that the job of the Chief Executive and leader of an organization is extremely valuable. It would also suggest that leaders bring considerable insight, conviction, knowledge and above all skill to their position to justify the salaries they receive. What is even more fascinating though is the inevitability that as the leader of an organization you cannot possibly know all that you would like to inform the decisions you make. Very few of our top Chief Executives have been trained to do the very critical appointments that they accept. Very few of today’s leaders have been prepared for the rapidly changing world in which we exist. Very few of our leaders have all the skills they would like to so as to navigate a globalized world of everincreasing customer expectations and technology that improves at an exponential rate.


Looking to public service leaders as an illustration, we see the monumental task with which they have to grapple. In the US since the 1960s health care costs have grown by almost 3 percent every year faster than the economy as a whole. Over the next 25 years the proportion of the population that is 65 years and older will increase from 12 percent to 25 percent of the US population. The growing burden on the state system through an aging population is one of the most pressing problems that government and public service leaders face. The major difficulty, of course, is that as this unstoppable force of change drives forward, social security expenditure has increased by almost a half (48 percent from 2001 to 2007), putting a strain on budgets, programs to promote home ownership coming at a time when there is a collapse in the sub-prime market, international efforts to tackle world poverty, which barely seem to make a dint in the problem and the already prevailing energy crisis. Leadership, whether political or managerial, is no small task. By comparison, in the UK its definitive spending plans for 2007–101 set out the challenges facing its public service and political leaders: The government’s response to the new challenges and opportunities facing the UK include demographic and socio-economic change, with rapid increases in the old age dependency ratio and rising consumer expectations of public services; increasing pressures on natural resources and the global climate, requiring actions by governments, businesses and individuals to maintain prosperity and improve environmental care; the intensification of cross-border economic competition, with new opportunities for growth, as the balance of international economic activity shifts towards emerging markets such as China and India; the rapid pace of innovation and technological diffusion, which will continue to transform the way people live and open up new ways of delivering public services; and, continued global uncertainty with ongoing threats from international terrorism and conflict and the continued imperative to tackle global poverty. Still on page 2 of this lengthy central edict, the document then goes on to outline some further goals of Sustainable growth and prosperity, in order to continue to improve people’s standard of living; fairness and opportunity for all, so that everyone can make the most of their talents and share in rising national prosperity; stronger communities and a better quality of life, enabling people to lead healthy, safe and fulfilling lives; and, a


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more secure, fair and environmentally sustainable world, with the UK playing a leading global role. At a much more practical level the job of leadership, regardless of the sectors in which leaders operate, calls upon panoply of skills and strengths that most leaders cannot hope to cover. Modern leaders are faced with the task of adding value to, and exercising judgments over, the task of growing and attracting talents, managing corporate knowledge, getting organizational design and structures right, building effective systems of governance, shaping culture, “right-sizing”, building corporate alliances and strategic partnerships, leading change, defining and nurturing the skills of workers, shaping the brand and perceptions of their organization, leading the top team, satisfying shareholders and stakeholders, focusing the attention of the organization on top priorities, leveraging technology, horizon-scanning and much more besides. All of these areas appear on the radar of leaders who ultimately take responsibility, and are held to account, for everything that occurs. The result is that leaders will always be caught short and no matter how much they rely on the functional managers of these areas (where they exist), the buck stops at the top. Being underskilled and underprepared is a certain reality that leaders face and the impact is felt on a personal level. Having run senior leadership development programs for many years and for hundreds of successful leaders I can vouch for the state of performance anxiety that leaders inhabit and the chronic state of fear (of failure) that goes with the job.

You are caught between being authentic and necessarily having to say and do things in which you don’t believe A common theme in leadership literature and theory is the proposition that leaders should, above all, always act authentically. There is widespread agreement on this assertion from most quarters of the leadership field and this prerequisite has taken on significance for a few reasons. The first reason is that, in general, we are highly skilled at detecting when leaders appear to say one thing but actually do or think something very different. Where this occurs we find it difficult to believe in what we might regard as an inauthentic or dishonest leader, and without the support of followers leaders quickly become unstuck. Furthermore, those pushing for the top soon start to circle like vultures if they too feel the disappointment of the workers. This skill to see through people is one of the assets of a deficit-based thinking mode and should


not be underestimated by anyone in a senior position. Stephen Covey, the American management thinker, has spoken about this issue of alignment referring not only to the alignment of words and deeds but to the congruence of values, principles, words and deeds for a leader to be effective. A less obvious reason for the pursuit of authenticity relates to the truckload of baggage that accompanies the topic of leadership which brings to mind great, iconic role models and often charismatic individuals such as Winston Churchill, Alexander the Great, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Bill Clinton, Cleopatra, etc. This legacy creates a tension for many modern leaders who find it difficult to understand how they can step into the shoes of these leadership giants. Against this backdrop, some modern leaders find themselves emulating or borrowing liberally from these iconic figures and inevitably coming up short. This phenomenon can produce inauthentic leaders struggling with their own professional identity. The solution, of course, is to be yourself as a leader but this is much more easily said than done, particularly as everything that you do is under the organizational microscope. As we all know, leaders very often have to bite the bullet and do things in which they don’t believe. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair provides an interesting example of this when he used to join forces with President George Bush on various state visits. The strain etched across his face as he appeared with Bush in press conferences told the world more than he would ever have wanted to communicate about his real position on his partnership with Bush. There is clearly a more serious side to this point, but for now, I want to linger for a while over some other challenges to authenticity that add to the personal pressure of leadership.

You permanently live in ambiguity, complexity and change Most jobs below the top positions within organizations have a bounded and predictable quality to them. While workers on the front line attend to the wants of customers, and HR professionals, for example, might deal with personnel disputes, and managers compile project plans, it would be crass to suggest that these roles are unambiguous, simple or unchanging. Clearly they are not. However, the job of a leader is characteristically unchartered and eternally shifting in a way that is of a different order of magnitude to most other roles. This dimension of unpredictability may sound odd as over the years we have had leaders in sufficient numbers to discern a pattern to the work involved. This is true. It is just that how leaders approach their responsibilities


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is a function of the personality and style of the individuals involved. It is also true that as leaders operate within much greater degrees of freedom than most people within a given organization, they are also faced with a broader range of concerns and tensions. As the ability to take action (or more commonly to inspire action) increases so do the variety of competing interests about which no one in the organization could possibly know more than the leader. Let me illustrate this with an example taken from my encounters with the leadership of the Prison Service. The Prison Service in the UK and most Western countries is under considerable pressure. Many prisons are experiencing overcrowding, custodial sentences have increased in the long term, the daily pressures on prison workers reflect the inherent challenges of the job and the tight legal constraints within which prison officers work, many prison services have strong Unions that are renowned for being in conflict with management and occasional high-profile prison breaks hit the headlines triggering tighter controls and procedures. For a leader in this kind of scenario whatever you choose to focus on will be tainted by every other factor that you are dealing with. So, for example, if you intend to restructure the pay and grading arrangements within the service (as has been attempted on numerous occasions over the last decade), you are faced with the anxieties, suspicions and resentment of prison officers who already feel pulled in multiple directions. But you are also challenged every step of the way by the Union who counter your every move. You might also have prior knowledge, that no one else has, that the government Minister responsible for prisons (ultimately your boss) is about to be replaced with another and not only do you have to deal with the media fallout but you will now have to build a brand new relationship with, as yet, an unknown quantity. You are nearing too the start of an efficiency program that will see your organization engaged in identifying sweeping cost reductions with all the difficulties that this entails. And finally, you have your own top team to contend with, some of whom are holding the line that now is definitely not the time to restructure the pay and grading system. So, when you stand up at the annual conference to announce your plans how do you feel? As a professional you will no doubt say the right things in a way that is measured and thoughtful and, if you are lucky, maybe even inspirational. But what really goes on inside you is the true experience of being a leader; an experience that can routinely make you feel nervous, unpopular, isolated and conflicted. The root of this experience is the asymmetric nature of knowledge. You know so much more than everyone else about what is going on, but inevitably


you cannot, respecting the interests and confidences of others, share all that you know as the basis for your decisions. But the world around us is changing too like it’s going out of fashion and the job of leaders has be to predict, to make sense of and to ride the waves of change like a gray pin stripped surfer. This introduces yet another set of dilemmas that place you in the center of complexity, ambiguity and change.

You have a looser grip on the organization than you might imagine The job of leadership is radically different from most other roles in an organization. Promotion within organizations into positions of leadership can mistakenly occur on the presumption that good managers make good leaders. This would only be true if management was on the same trajectory as leadership or, simply, if leadership was a harder version of management. Good managers might also make good leaders through good luck, but for the salaries that companies pay for top positions let us hope that luck is not a strategy that is widely employed. Let us briefly explore these points of differentiation. Where management is focused on organizing the workload, leadership is about establishing the right agenda for the organization (through which the workload is determined). Where managers are concerned with driving delivery, leaders are interested in setting the tone, inspiring workers and shaping the culture (which should provide an environment for delivery to occur). Where managers specify, plan for and control the processes that lead to outputs, leaders engage hearts and minds and focus attention on how the processes and their outputs fulfill a vision for the organization. Where managers drive performance by working within the parameters provided by the organization, leadership is about creating and changing at will the parameters within which the organization operates. To the question, do leaders undertake some of the duties of management and vice versa? The answer has to be yes, but only to the same extent that a carpenter might be able to turn their hand to plumbing or the work of an electrician. What this doesn’t mean is that once a carpenter reaches the zenith of their field that they can automatically be “promoted” to Head Foreman or the job of landscaping – they are simply different jobs. So if we accept that leadership is a rather unique and distinctive function within organizations, we can start to examine its features and limitations properly without this blurring of roles. One of the most striking dimensions to leadership is that individuals in such positions can find


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themselves “responsible” for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of workers. In thinking about the magnitude of this responsibility most senior leaders have between four to ten senior people reporting directly to them, who in turn exercise influence over layers and layers beneath them comprising directors, managers, supervisors, executives, etc. Conventional wisdom might tell us that if the Chief Executive Officer of an organization wants something done, it just happens – almost how we might imagine a Mafia don giving the nod for a member of the crew to be snapped back into line. The rather bothersome reality is that, short of hauling the business unit or individual that has taken the leaders attention into his office on Monday morning to give out his instructions, the leader must work through his direct reports or someone close by to drive his wishes into the business. The CEO can of course speak to whoever he wants to in the organization at whichever level he chooses but as a routine mode of behavior it would leave very little time in his diary to do the leadership bit for which he is paid so highly. More importantly, every intervention he might make might well be implemented, but it would be nothing short of dangerous if the leader didn’t understand every possible ramification of his wishes on the business. I am reminded of the film called Amadeus about the composer Mozart who is told by the rather pompous King of Austria dressed in fineries and a powdered wig that one of his compositions had “too many notes,” to which Wolfgang Mozart replies, “Which notes would you like me to remove?” Another slice of reality experienced by most leaders of an organization when they attempt to strategically influence parts of the business is that their direct reports will very often advise them that their very good idea “cuts across a related initiative so should perhaps be held back for a while,” or “might give the wrong message about priorities,” or “will take a lot of effort to find the resources for” or “is better taken up by the member of the top team not present at the meeting.” In short, there are a plethora of reasons, some of them good and some of them bad, for leaders feeling somehow shut out from their own organizations. Another reason for leaders experiencing a loose grip on their organization is related to mastery. Understanding when and, above all, how to intervene into the organizational system is no mean feat. The famous management imagery that this conjures is the seemingly impossible task of herding cats. But it is so much more than this. At least, as the image implies, the leader can personally get close to the cats, work with them, watch their behavior, interpret the twitching of their whiskers and appreciate their individual habits. Ultimately our leader cat wrangler can enjoy perfect synchronicity between what he or she believes should happen and what will happen.


In the “real” world the cats are scattered in their thousands around the organization and they are already living lives of their own. Some of them have become smarter than their masters. Others don’t respond anymore to the food and rewards they were once given. Some can’t learn the tricks that you want to teach them. Others are waiting out their days trying to find a warm radiator to sleep under. So as a leader you have two significant obstacles to overcome. The first is that you are necessarily remote from the vast majority of those that you want to herd. If only they were all visible to the human eye or could fit within one room, but in today’s organizations of multinationals, “virtual” companies and dispersed employees working with ever more flexible arrangements, it is only possible to form a personal relationship with a small minority of those you seek to change. Secondly, you need a diverse skills-set that reflects the variety of motivations and agendas that you want to shape. And it is not only skills that you need but a more technical appreciation of how systems with their moving, interconnecting and interdependent parts affect the outcome of a given intervention. Your skills as a leader take on paramount importance and, in short, you have a lot that you need to know in order to be proficient in the work you have to do.

You are time poor I once worked briefly with a successful strategic change agent who was used to bring about major transformations across large organizations. As with all change agents he understood the importance of working with the most influential figures within the organization to get them, first and foremost, on board with the shifting agenda. He headed up a relatively small team that operated flexibly and swiftly like an organizational SWAT team. Their business was that of setting an agenda, inspiring change, getting people on board, mobilizing the organization and building ways for the change to be sustainable. One of the techniques that he adopted when meeting with very senior figures was to arrange an hour-long meeting, as one usually does, but deliberately to run the meeting so that the full hour was never used up perhaps taking just over half, but no more, of the time allocated. In every way this differs from the normal flow of events for meetings of this sort where every minute of “face time” with senior figures is soaked up like water to a sponge that has been left out in the sun for too long. The signal that this kind of meeting has gone on too long is usually when the PA pops their head around the door to


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politely remind the boss of their next engagement. The very best Personal and Executive Assistants understand perhaps better than anyone the paucity of time from which leaders suffer. Half an hour with your average PA about the bosses work lifestyle is an education in itself. Back to our change agent. The outcome of this deliberate meeting strategy is that senior people come to associate the meeting time with the change agent as a mercifully brief and focused affair that, more often than not, gives the senior figure an extra 15 minutes to grab a quiet cup of coffee or to think about their meetings for the day. The next time the change agent needs to talk something through with the same leader the diary magically opens up and where others are blocked out our change agent moves to the front of the queue like a slippery eel. The issue of time poverty is a serious one for us all but our leaders suffer more than most. Very few senior figures conduct all of their affairs from a single location. Even with the advances made by technology that give us e-mail, streaming video, teleconferencing, videoconferencing and more there is nothing that beats a face-to-face discussion where you can look into the eyes of your customer, competitor, colleague or controllers. Furthermore, there are very few leaders that have become successful without engaging internationally and taking the time – their time – to fly to the four corners of the earth to connect to the right people. Such visits typically take a few repeated journeys to further build and cement the relationships made before moving into action. So, at the most basic level, if you think of the time available in the average working week to a Chief Executive Officer, you have to first deduct the quite considerable time spent en route to doing the business. Most research into the time pressures of senior executives suggests that leaders spend between 17 hours and 24 hours a week in scheduled meetings. Once you take out the travel time, let’s say, an average of 10 hours a week, you have already reached at least 27 hours of “occupied” time and most likely more. But this is only the beginning as most senior leaders have roles that have little to do with the position for which they are paid but nevertheless place further demands on their time. These might include nonexecutive directorships, belonging to professional institutes and chairing of a diversity of groups and bodies, to name but a few. We might modestly propose that this soaks up four or so hours a week taking our running total to 31 hours a week. We then have both lunches and dinners that for most senior people become fair game pretty quickly. Working with others over lunch and dinner offers the illusion of being relaxing while at the same time


accruing all the benefits of being business-like. More often than not it fails to deliver on both sides of the equation and is more of a guarantee of heartburn and coronary disease than anything else. Nevertheless, this is the world of leaders and it serves to hack away at the time that leaders have by, let’s assume, five or so hours in an average week. Our total nudges up to 36 “occupied” hours a week. And how else do leaders find themselves spending their time on in a typical week? – speaking engagements, board meetings, unscheduled “urgent” business, meeting the workers, launching new initiatives, diary meetings and 1 to 1 chats with key members of the top team. If we attach no more than 8 hours to these responsibilities we find that our Chief Executive Officer has already clocked up 44 hours in “occupied” time in an average week leaving very little time to think, reflect on what needs to be done, and take the personal action required. All of this is not to suggest that the real business of leadership occurs in the thin slither of private time left over for leaders to quietly think and hatch plans away from the interference of meetings – like the restaurant dishwasher who gets outraged each time a customer messes up one of his beautifully cleaned plates. The task of leadership is of course played out in every single moment leaders spend with others – when they can inspire, model behavior, challenge, motivate, hold to account, paint the vision and share insights. What this does mean though is that the condition of being a leader robs you of time and, to a practical extent, of the ability to manage your own time. As a result of all of the above you very often become tired, anxious and pressured and get the distinct sense that you have become a resource for other people’s well-meant intentions.

You are alone/lonely Leadership holds some fascinating contradictions. Take, for example, the notion of loneliness; leaders are almost permanently in the company of others – in meetings, at dinners, at conferences, at breakfast engagements, on the telephone, working lunches and more. They are also in demand and people from inside and outside the organization vie to secure some time, any time, with them. But at the same time leaders inhabit a world that is unique to them. The bigger picture, with all its complexity, uncertainty and dilemmas that sit inside the head of leaders, can’t be shared freely with others. In this context, a problem shared is not a problem halved – “spilling the beans” and telling all would more likely be a problem multiplied. Leaders can’t indulge


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in the cathartic offloading conversations about what “they i.e. the management, have done this time” because the leader is the “they” and the leader, at least in theory, has no one to blame but himself or herself. Because of the amplification principle leaders can’t let their hair down, loosen their inhibitions and really get to know people. No sooner has this happened, the office at the other end of the country will have heard contorted accounts and disseminated the “boss goes wild!” story. Leaders can’t fully share their experiences and woes with their husbands/wives or family either because they too are part of that experience, often only able to come to those woes from their own perspectives. The conversation starts – “It is murder at the office and it’s taking up all of my time and energy.” “Yes, we know, the kids have barely seen you for weeks!” – The conversation abruptly ends. Leaders are alone for other reasons too. Robert Swan OBE who was the first man to walk to the North and South Pole tells of an expedition he lead in marching a crew of international people from different nations to the North Pole. The expedition became very quickly under threat from injuries to members of the team, blistering winds and unexpectedly adverse weather conditions and, above all, ice that melted into water on their route in a way that it hadn’t previously done for hundreds of years at that time of the year. What started out as a tough but achievable journey had turned into a nightmare that jeopardized the lives of every single person on the team. Knowing that the only way to reach safety and respite from the searing conditions was to keep marching forward, Robert had encouraged, advised, inspired, chivvied and implored the team to keep putting one foot in front of the other. While the team had been strong and optimistic at the beginning, no doubt buoyed by the excitement of making the pages of the history books, motivating them had been straightforward, but as conditions worsened, spirits flagged and hopelessness set up camp, Robert Swan’s invocations fell on deaf, frost-bitten ears. What turned the fortunes of this desperate party was a decision that Robert Swan made that, in his words, “would have every member of the team hate him more than the perilous predicament they were in.” Robert put to one side his preference for a more collaborative and democratic style of leadership in favor of the only method he knew would work under the circumstances, a command and control approach that amounted to barking orders at exhausted, desperate and angry individuals. Every day the group cursed and vilified their leader, and with the anger boiling inside them, they got on their feet to walk another 20 hour a day. With the clock ticking the group marched ahead of the melting ice and just as they had been pushed to their outer limits and


not long before they would have bludgeoned their autocratic leader to death, the ice station came into view. They had made it – injured, chilled to their bones, but alive. Robert Swan, during the long days and nights of the expedition, had understood what it meant to lead and to be truly alone. The marked growth in recent years of networking meetings for leaders, leadership development programs, mentor schemes and executive coaching goes some way to addressing this condition of loneliness and the weight of the dilemmas that leaders carry. The “away days” to residential conference centers that so many top teams take can sound like junkets, but from this perspective they are one of the best ways to keep the sanity of senior leaders and provide a relatively safe space for them, simply, to share ideas in the company of others. A final observation to make about the extent to which leaders feel isolated is based on my own experiences of directing leadership development programs. The leadership interventions that I have run have, like most programs, followed a broad curriculum, taking participants through the A to Z of leadership. Everything from self-awareness to organization design; from strategic thinking to emotional intelligence; from crisis management to fostering innovation; from globalization to systems thinking; from talent management to corporate governance. And after sweating my little socks off to strengthen the capabilities of business leaders across the sectors, the single most common benefit attributed to participating in these not inexpensive experiences, is always “the opportunity to spend time with colleagues at the same level.” After extensively comparing notes with my colleagues in other business schools, it was heartening for me to know that I was not alone in receiving this feedback. But the more important point in all of this is that leaders need company much more than one might imagine.

No matter what you do, you will always be told that you are not visible enough The visibility of leaders is a recurrent theme in the expectations of workers within most organizations. In short, people want to feel that they have come to know their leader. They want to connect to the person for whom they offer their discretionary effort over and above the norm. They want to know who they should go that extra mile for. The difficulty, of course, is one of scale and of allocation of a leader’s time. Leaders need, first of all, to balance the time they spend with stakeholders and customers outside of the organization with their own


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workers inside. When they engage with people within the organization they rightly need to be selective. If we assume that leaders have more than a few hundred people on their payroll and potentially tens of thousands, this makes it an absolute necessity to exercise discrimination in the internal engagements they keep. The consequence of this is that the vast majority of workers who expect and hope to connect to their leader will be disappointed, and that disappointment will find a voice. Ironically, all that we know about “employee engagement” is that increased top team visibility and engagement typically has a positive effect on well-being, worker productivity and retention. While the statistics vary widely and wildly, the message is clear that leaders who engage internally cause worker productivity to increase. For example, research undertaken with 400 Human Resources professionals in companies in the UK showed that engagement was a business imperative. Personnel Today who sponsored the research with Chiumento in late 2004 concluded:2 Board directors appear to have their heads in the clouds, according to the research, with 69 per cent believing that engagement levels in their organisations had increased in the past 12 months. Only 38 per cent of HR managers agreed with them. This difference might be because directors rarely come into direct contact with the feelings of employees on the shop floor, instead basing their opinions on the feelings of managers with whom they have regular or day-to-day contact. [One of the greatest] obstacles to engagement cited included lack of time (48 per cent of respondents). Leaders face an ongoing dilemma, that of knowing for sure that the more they connect to their workers the better this is for the organization, while at the same time, feeling the gravitational pull toward more strategic, board-level, externally focused interests. Overlay this with an array of unpredictable urgent demands that might see, for example, our leaders hauled in front of the media or flying across to the other side of the world at the drop of a hat, and we have a recipe for disengagement and low visibility. Glaxosmithkline, one of the world’s most successful research-based pharmaceutical companies, employing over 100,000 people in 116 countries undertook a global leadership survey in 2006.3 The survey, attracting responses from over 10,000 employees concluded that, despite fairing better in terms of employee satisfaction than 42 top-ranked benchmark companies, two areas for further work were identified – reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and, surprise, surprise – increasing


leadership visibility – a drive for managers to spend more time with their teams. A UK government’s 2006 survey4 of the top 1 percent of Civil Servants (2,959 Senior Civil Servants) demonstrated that more than half (55 percent of respondents) could not provide a favorable response to the statement “the top team are sufficiently visible in my organization.” A similar survey in the same year by the Treasury5 highlighted that “leadership team visibility is a vital element of successful change leadership; and staff think that the Executive Committee could be more visible as a team.” Every time a new change initiative or internal program is launched the call comes in for the leader to open it; to physically be there to support it. An e-mail or bulletin to the workers telling them something is important won’t be enough. A deputy sent in place of the leader will cause workers to feel short-changed. A refusal to appear will carry symbolic significance even if it is not intended. The workers pull the leader in one direction while the business pulls them the other way. The consequences of low internal leadership visibility are not unlike those of driving a car in the fog. The reaction to this for most drivers (like employees) is typically to slow down and to focus only on what is immediately in front of them. This is usually accompanied by a degree of anxiety and a lowering in confidence as the driver tries to anticipate what might happen next. As James Collins, author of Built to Last, would no doubt claim, the very best leaders can build organizational systems that enable organizations to thrive even in the absence of their leader(s) and can thus avoid this rather foggy picture caused by leadership invisibility. While this is an insightful perspective, the pressure nevertheless remains for those that are judged to be in leadership positions to be visible and to be available to employees. Furthermore, in these days of terrifying change, the scale and frequency of planned organizational change grows and quickens day by day. Leaders find themselves more and more having to call upon their workers to stop doing what they were told to do last year and focus on new priorities. Thanks to management thinker Kurt Lewin, there was a time when the concept of change was that of freeze, unfreeze and then freeze again once the intended change had been implemented and the organization was “re-set” to its new course. In recent years the metaphor has evolved into a description of organizational slush that better captures the notion of change initiatives that have barely had the time to solidify before the next program has come along. For today’s organizations I would suggest a different metaphor again, that of opening all the cages in a zoo. Where once there was order, now there is a world


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of shifting rules, norms and expectations. Where once we felt that we understood the environment we inhabited, now we are surrounded by new possibilities, opportunities and unfamiliar terrain – some aspects welcome, and others just plain frightening. Sociologically this is an interesting phenomenon as it calls upon us individually and collectively to assert some sense of what is occurring – to identify patterns and meaning in globalization, the technology explosion, changing demographics, terrorism, people migration, world poverty and more. In all of this, we desperately want to see a friendly zookeeper walking into the menagerie. Someone dressed in a blue uniform and a peaked cap and a purposeful look on their face. Someone who can explain to us what is going on and how the new arrangement can be made to work. If you, as a leader/zookeeper, want the organization to move with you toward the next big priority, you will want the workers to believe in you and your plans. After all, seeing is believing. So, as you set up shop in your organization as “a leader,”, one of the more significant tricks you will be expected to pull off is omnipresence – being everywhere, for everyone, all the time.

You can become demonized See if you can guess what all of the following icons have in common: Jack Welch, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Benazir Bhutto, Princess Diana, Sigmund Freud, Walt Disney, Kate Moss, John Browne, Margaret Thatcher and Michael Dell The answer is that, as leaders of their particular field, they have all been judged to be both great and awful leaders & figureheads during their lives. In most cases, although not all, “greatness” has preceded derision. Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, and Bill Clinton, former President of the US, both engaged in high-profile sexual affairs that eventually hastened their fall from the top. Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister, revolutionized the political left holding the longest Labour government for decades, only to plummet in the polls as he joined forces with the US in invading Iraq. Benazir Bhutto, having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan, was once regarded as a symbol of modernity, democracy and emancipation for women, only to lose the respect of her people due to continued allegations of corruption. Princess Diana, whose career took such very strange turns, was, at one time vilified for besmirching the reputation of the UK Royal Family


and then, upon her tragic death, was dubbed the “Queen of Hearts.” Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis brought about some of the most profound shifts in the field of psychology but, over the years and through repeated attacks on his theories, his lifestyle, his relationships and his method, Freud has been accused of setting back psychiatry hundreds of years, of damaging modern feminism, and of using cocaine in the development of his psychoanalytic theory. Walt Disney, the lovable figure of childhood cartoons and creator of Mickey Mouse spied for the FBI from 1941 until his death, made US government propaganda movies and allegedly attended American Nazi party meetings. Kate Moss, one of the very few supermodels that have gone on to enjoy lasting success, was pilloried for high-profile drug use. John Browne, former CEO of BP, who turned around the 100,000 workerstrong company in the 1990s to become one of the world’s top oil players, stepped down under a cloud following speculation about his private life and explosions in a refinery in the US, causing the deaths of 15 people. Margaret Thatcher, UK’s first female Prime Minister, who led Britain at full speed into a market-driven economy and rolled back the state sector, was eventually defeated by a Brutus-esque coup by her own Deputy Prime Minister, Geoffrey Howe, who, in many ways, reflected the mood of a disenchanted British public. Michael Dell, the computer giant, had been so determined to stick with Dell business model despite shifts in the marketplace that competitors swooped in and knocked him and the company off its top perch. The bigger they come, the harder they fall. While it might be somewhat over dramatic to claim that in every instance these leaders have been demonized they have undoubtedly fallen from grace and their descent has been accompanied by feelings of disappointment, disenchantment, anger and sometimes hatred. Perhaps the sad thing about each and every example is that as leaders of their field they have, for some time, been incredibly successful and have left a meaningful legacy. Their work, whatever you might think of it on a personal level, has been valuable, and their leadership has been impressive. What this goes to show is that the path of leadership is beset with opposition whether it is open and visible or hidden in the shadows. On a psychological level, and perhaps in some cultures more than others, we love to see successful people fail. Within business settings it pays workers, both literally and metaphorically, to convey any discontent they might have or desire for the leader to fail, in a stealthy and less obvious manner. But, without doubt, behind every smile and behind every handshake are great expectations that, if dashed, can attract nothing short of contempt.


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So what does this mean for you in your leadership journey? One implication of this is that people will hold high expectations of you. Another is that you will be closely scrutinized to see how well you deliver against these expectations. The third is that should you fail to be all that you should be, the crowd will quickly turn against you. From a day-to-day perspective each time workers hear of a new shift in priorities or an adjustment to the course they are required to adopt, the more you will be experienced as an irritant. You will also become a kind of “vomit bucket” for the negative feelings of the workers. It is partly a consequence of the powerlessness that workers feel when they are asked by the “management” to change, for the hundredth time, what they do. But, It is also because the call to change seems to come from a remote place far away from the local business unit, which always feels impersonal and frustratingly nonnegotiable. But leaders become the vomit bucket for the organization too because it is part of the tacit transaction that takes place between workers and leaders. The leaders get the money, the status, the power and the celebrity, and the workers in return get to blame the leaders for everything from the hours they work and the lack of career opportunities to the quality of internal communications and the food in the staff canteen. It’s all just part of the unspoken deal and not a million miles away from the general attitude of the public toward their government.

Your workers may hold parental expectations of you An old Australian lady was being interviewed for a local newspaper. She had lived in the same remote region of Australia for her whole life, and the journalistic piece was to reflect on how the town had changed over the decades and to open a window into the mind of a well-loved local figure. Toward the end of the interview the interviewer became puzzled as to why the old lady had not once left the country let alone the area in over 80 years. The journalist asked, “have you ever wanted to travel more widely perhaps to other countries?” to which the old lady asked, “what countries do you have in mind?” Thinking of the heritage of Australia and stuck for anything else to offer, he answered, “what about visiting England?” The old lady paused for what seemed like a lifetime. “Oh no,” she said, “definitely not.” “Why doesn’t it appeal to you?” the interviewer responded tentatively. “Well, isn’t that where all the convicts come from?” In the 1970s Robert Greenleaf introduced a powerful and alluring leadership concept that became known as Servant Leadership. The ideas


presented by Greenleaf were so engaging that numerous leadership thinkers over the last 30 years, including Ken Blanchard and Peter Senge, have gone on to further develop and amplify the theories presented. At its heart, the notion of Servant Leadership proposes that rather than focusing on their own issues and sense of priorities, leaders should instead orientate their activities toward meeting the needs of their workers. Not only is this an elegant challenge to the traditional definition of leadership, but also it has a wonderfully egalitarian and (despite being over three decades old) very modern feel to it. In taking a Servant Leadership approach, Greenleaf encourages leaders to be nurturing and to help those served to grow as individuals. Greenleaf goes on to inspire servant leaders to help their workers to become healthier, wiser, freer and more autonomous. Over the years, I have seen various people teach Greenleaf’s theory of leadership, many of whom have used an exercise that invites students to write down, at the outset of the discussion, what they traditionally expect leaders to do. They have then been asked separately to record, from the perspectives of workers, what they would want from their leaders (sometimes qualified by saying “in order so that the workers can do their jobs better”). Two important observations are usually made in this kind of exercise. The first is that the two lists often differ considerably which serves to demonstrate that there are very different notions of leadership depending on the perspective you adopt. And the second is the suggestion that by turning our attitudes toward leadership on their head and giving greater emphasis to the needs of workers we may have found a strategy for leadership that nurtures, empowers and liberates workers to be both happy and, at the same time, productive. This exercise and much of Greenleaf’s philosophy often creates excitement and, at times, an epiphany for those about to embark on a path of leadership. While I do not want to attempt a critique of Greenleaf’s theory, what I do want to do is connect elements of this theory to another notion, which is that workers often tacitly expect their leaders to act almost as if they were in a parental role in relation to them. In the various organizations that I have worked with over the years, I have listened hard to what I hear employees saying they value in their managers and leaders. In this, while there are of course some differences that are expressed, there is a range of common responses that include desired qualities such as honesty, fairness, consistency, visibility, accessibility, integrity and competence. But a feature that I have heard articulated on numerous occasions is the desired behavior that good leaders should “look after their staff,” which is meant to imply acting in their best interests, defending them against “attack,” helping


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them to grow, being nurturing and being caring. Looking at this more closely, we can see some similarities between good leadership as identified here and good parenting. In fact if you were to see a list, let’s say, that had mixed up top parenting tips with top expectations of leaders using the servant leadership method you might be hard pressed to distinguish between the two. Manfred Kets de Vries, the French leadership thinker, talks about a similar phenomenon, based on Psychoanalytic theory, called transference whereby workers subconsciously transfer the responsibilities of parenthood onto the workplace leader/ manager. This is thought to be particularly pronounced at times of organizational upheaval and change. It is useful for leaders to be aware of this dynamic in organizational settings and it is worth pausing for a moment also to look at how this might play through into the broader responsibilities of leadership. Figure 1.2 presents some polarities which highlight different features of organizational life. Continuing with the same parental dynamic in mind, we can identify the features on the left-hand side of the figure as those more commonly associated with the servant leadership or parental expectation model. In short (and slightly exaggerating the polarities to make the point), the items on the left are what workers want from their work environment and from their managers/leaders. Interestingly though, it is the features on the right-hand side that necessarily occupy the minds of leaders. It is also what shareholders would want leaders to concentrate on as it is through change that organizations prosper and survive; it is through challenge that performance can improve; it is by being flexible that organizations can respond to changing public demands; it is by being tough that difficult decisions can be made; it is through efficiencies that organizations can be competitive. And it is

continuity

change

praise

challenge

predictability

flexibility

kindness

toughness

generosity

efficiency

business as usual

continuous improvement

Figure 1.2 Polarities that express different features of organizational life


through unrelenting improvements to processes, systems and behaviors that progress can be made. Where does this leave you as a leader? Once again, it leaves you somewhere between a rock and a hard place, having to live with worker expectations that might strike you as somewhat misplaced, and probably more appropriately expressed in the family home. And at the same time, you feel a sense of duplicity knowing that where the workers want continuity, consistency and support, you need to bring about change, challenge and more change.

You become objectified/reduced to a symbol All CEOs at various points in their careers will have been interviewed for a variety of external and in-house publications. It might have been to record their hopes for the coming year, to comment on the latest business results or as a profile of the “boss.” On each of these occasions the CEO will have been faced with a question that will have lurked behind their eyes like an old fashion villain. The question, of course, being “how will I choose to present myself, the business or my views on the world?”. This of course will be a different proposition to simply answering the question honestly, authentically and naturally. These days in fact it would be seen as profoundly naive to choose the second of these two options. This is because we all understand that perception is reality and that if we can somehow define the way people think of us then we are one step closer to achieving our goals (whatever they may be). Success in projecting a desired image of oneself (that may or may not correspond with reality) is partly a function of distance. If you have little or no contact with someone, and as a result you have a limited amount of data on which to assess what they tell you, you have little reason to doubt what they say is true. For leaders in most organizations, particularly those where there are significant numbers of employees, workers typically have little, if any, “face time” with their leaders and as a consequence have little data on which to base their assessments. What this tends to give rise to is a picture of the leader which is built up almost like a police criminal identikit from the messages that leaders send out about themselves mixed with the information from infrequent contact with them. But because the data on the leader is so scant the pictures tends to look more like caricatures – just as personal and just as exaggerated, and sometimes just as cruel as the caricatures you might see in the newspapers.


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Most of the time, interpreting the caricatures of the leader won’t be too demanding. I used to work with a senior figure who had the reputation that he was a “man of the people” and that he was “on the side” of the workers. He would be seen smoking outside of the company headquarters with the janitors and the security guards, and would always be found at the bar at any office party. Of course there was much more to this particular individual that if known to the populous would put frowns on more than a few faces. Nevertheless, what this leader symbolized proved enormously valuable in situations where he was called upon to give out messages to the organization that held the prospect of receiving an adverse reaction from the workers at the administrative levels. I worked alongside another leader who was widely reputed for being a “hatchet man” and, as such, was represented, usually by people who had never met him, as being hard-nosed, tough and exactly the man for the job if downsizing was required. While it was true that the individual had led a successful and large-scale redundancy program, he was one of the nicest and most sensitive people you could ever meet – certainly not the brute that he was understood to be. So while as a leader you might know that you are a sophisticated and complex being, others will be perfectly happy to hold an image of you that is grossly oversimplified and quite possibly entirely inaccurate. If you yourself are a sensitive soul and the cartoon persona that you have been given is harsh or unkind you will need to be contend with the way in which everything you do is tainted by that image. So, for example, if you are thought to be a jet-setting CEO that enjoys, rather too much, the first-class travel to exotic destinations, when you genuinely undertake an exploratory trip looking to set up an operation in Japan, your employees will assume they know the real reason behind your travel. Of course, you won’t hear this said to your face, which in many ways makes it harder to deal with, but it will be thought and discussed. And one day, when you least expect it, your oversimplified, exaggerated and distorted reputation may well come and bite you on the ass. Looking again at the earlier theme of the demonization of leaders, it is worth commenting that within the military it is a deliberate and well-worn strategy to objectify and dehumanize the enemy so that an attack on them is made psychologically more comfortable and less guilt-ridden for the advancing army. An extreme example of this is the propaganda poster campaigns during the Second World War which, from the British perspective, saw German soldiers literally depicted as spearing babies with their bayonets and, from the German perspective saw, Jews represented as Rats. Neither set of images could seriously be taken to be true or accurate, but in both instances they represented


the “enemy” as unfeeling, brutish and inhuman which then justifies the action that might follow. Of course this strategy is by no means limited to a military context as it also finds expression in the school playground, attitudes toward criminals, the media’s treatment of celebrities and the position taken against the unemployed, to name but a few examples. The social construction of leaders as symbols is a similar objectification process that makes it much easier for you, as a leader, to become demonized. If we add to this a dash of the amplification principle also discussed earlier, mix it liberally with the “them and us” notion reinforced by the workers and garnish with the sense of loneliness leaders inevitably experience, we have quite a cocktail. So if, as a leader, you find yourself feeling strangely self-conscious, paranoid and very uncomfortable in your own skin, remember that you are among friends.

You are never off duty I feel sympathy for leaders who can experience a sense of inescapable responsibility and expectation. While this is felt in all quarters, the extent of this will vary according to the industry and situations in which each leader operates. Leaders that are closely watched by the media, for example, will feel this acutely. This category might include highly successful and renowned companies such as Coca Cola and McDonalds whose reputation is always under scrutiny. It might include leaders that work in the public sector, particularly those areas dealing, for example, with healthcare, older persons and childrens’ services and the criminal justice system. Other industries that are included are those where business hours are broader than a 9–5 window, such as the entertainment industry, catering and construction. The list goes on and on which is an illustration of the depth of the phenomenon. What is interesting about this “condition” is that it is chronic rather than acute, and diffuse rather than being specific. This is because the prospect of being called in to attend to something – anything from a fire in the office to a breakout of a fatal virus in a hospital – is always present but exactly what and when it might happen is hard to predict. This leaves you, as a leader, in a state of low-grade anxiety, the cause of which you cannot hope to control. But the notion of never being off duty has another meaning that refers to the daily life of organizational leaders who, as they go about their business, get approached, questioned, sidled up to, pilloried,


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flattered and lobbied by all and sundry. This takes many forms. For example, leaders can find themselves engaging in conversations that appear to be informal, harmless and meandering (as all good informal conversations should be), only to discover that the discussion had been used to give the green light to a particular form of action that a worker had in mind. It might have been anything from taking a business trip to adjusting working hours and in the absence of outright disagreement, and unbeknown to the leader, the worker will have walked away with all they need. The engine that drives this behavior whether it is from employees or people external to the organization is the not-tobe-missed opportunity arising from a chance or rare encounter with a senior leader – an individual that one assumes possesses a degree of power, knowledge, influence, wealth and intelligence that most other people don’t. What would be wrong therefore with pouncing on any opportunity that presents itself? A senior person being harangued as they munch through a bread roll in a restaurant isn’t that bad, is it? A firm and intrusive handshake from an absolute stranger in a bar suggesting a meeting is ok, isn’t it? An unsolicited conversation on a train before you get passed the first page of a novel that you’re reading – that’s surely fine? For some leaders this may be just part of the terrain and of course it is, but when set against each and every one of the 11 other side effects of leadership discussed so far, this might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Leadership is an emotional business So where does this leave you as a leader of your organization? Let us briefly look at a simplified and deliberately bleak summary of each of the side effects of leadership: The amplification of your deeds and words leaves you self-conscious and cautious about what you do and say The sense you have that you are underskilled to do the job eats away at your self-confidence The lack of authenticity you inevitably experience leaves you feeling duplicitous The world of ambiguity, complexity and change that you inhabit makes you feel uncertain and, at times, overwhelmed The loose grip that you have on your organization makes you feel powerless and questions the value that you add


The poverty of time from which you suffer leaves you feeling tired, used and confused The loneliness you experience helps you to feel unloved and paranoid Despite your best efforts, the eternal dissatisfaction with your lack of visibility makes you feel unappreciated The way in which you can become demonized causes you to be resentful and potentially live up to the negative image people can have of you With workers holding parental expectations of you, you feel compromised in relation to your employees and might even begin to treat them like children The more that you are objectified and thought of as a symbol the more used and undervalued you feel The sense that you are never off duty leaves you tense, tired and anxious One quick look at the list of feelings associated with being a leader makes the picture very clear and equally terrifying. As a leader therefore be prepared to feel: Self-conscious, cautious, lacking in self-confidence, duplicitous, uncertain, overwhelmed, powerless, self-doubting, tired, used, confused, unloved, paranoid, unappreciated, resentful, compromised, undervalued, tense and anxious Interestingly, emotions don’t work quite like numbers in that you can’t simply net-off positive and negative feelings to reach an absolute emotional state. Whereas an income of 100,000 against an expenditure of 60,000 gives a net position of ⫹40,000, feelings of anxiety, paranoia and confusion can’t be weighed up, for example, against feelings of achievement to make you feel generally content. The colors of our emotions tend not to run in the wash – they remain intact and preserved in their original state. This is important because even though we can freely recognize the upsides of being a leader it doesn’t subtract from the plethora of mixed negative feelings experienced on the downside. Furthermore, we know that negative feelings aren’t abstract concepts without real and sometimes physical consequences. These feelings take their toll and chomp away at everyone in a position of leadership. And they will make their presence known to you too. There is a wonderful Swedish proverb that, translated into English, says Eyes that do not cry do not see


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The job of leadership will bring tears to your eyes, but it may not, at least for sometime, help you to see more clearly. The emotional rapids of the leadership journey can have a paralyzing effect on your ability to lead. The swirl of self-consciousness, doubt and paranoia causes a white spray that clouds your decision-making. The powerlessness you feel as the boat bounces from rock to rock leaves you dizzy. The sheer exhaustion of battling against the shifting currents robs you of the strength to think clearly. So what is needed is something to bring stillness and calm to the water on which the boat sits. With this you can then plot a clear course across the river. This is the purpose of the pages in this book; a purpose that in every way has your interests at heart. So, this book will help you in many ways and, if nothing else, the absorbent properties of these pages will catch your tears as they trickle down your cheeks.

A dashboard of self-awareness Returning for the last time to our metaphor of a boat on turbulent waters, I want to touch upon the contribution made by the dashboard instruments and dials you will find on most craft. Depending on the size of the boat you are in, the instruments could be telling you about anything from fuel levels and the speed you are traveling to positional information and depth of the water. We are all familiar with the concept of dashboard information whether it is as we drive to work and look at the temperature gauge in our cars, or whether it is as we look at the TV to learn about weather conditions as we embark on a journey. The value, of course, is that dashboard information gives us quick feedback on factors that are critical to our success and often to our safety. The equivalent dashboard information from a personal leadership perspective is important because of all the emotional issues described so far. But more than that, the job of leadership is as much about the individual leading the organization as much as it is about the strategy that they set for the organization. As such the personal “stuff” needs attention paid to it. It is mission-critical data. So, what I suggest is that as you go about your business in leading your organization, or your slice of the organization, you should visualize a dashboard in front of you that gives you moment-to-moment feedback on three vital areas: 1. How you are being seen by the people around you (as if you had a camera trained on yourself)


2. How you are feeling at the time 3. How you are apprehending the situation you face (your lens on the world) Of these three dashboard indicators the third is perhaps the most difficult to understand first time around, but more about this soon. All of these though offer a treasure trove of data that, with the occasional flick of the eyes down to the dashboard, put you in control and with the confidence that you are on the right track. I regard these as the “must haves” for leadership and as a foundation for the rest of this book.

Dashboard Indicator 1: How you are being seen by the people around you (as if you had a camera trained on you) What you do as a leader and how this is perceived by others is a key factor to your success. The amplification of what leaders do is one good reason to remain eternally vigilant and alert to how you are perceived. One false slip of the tongue or unintended remark can be quickly taken, interpreted and bounced around the organization creating havoc in its wake. In this context, a little really does goes a long way. Knowing, for example, that you are seen as looking tired or perplexed or behaving in a hesitant or bullish manner is good to know. This allows you to react accordingly. In this knowledge, you might decide to casually and perhaps humorously acknowledge this perception in conversation with others with the benefit that you are then seen to be self-aware and in control. Tired? Yes! But its because you are working hard on engaging with employees; Perplexed? Yes! But only because you are faced with some great choices for the organization; Hesitant? Of course! But only because you are picking the best moment to share some good news; Bullish? Certainly! And this is because the organization is in a very strong position. Whatever it is, you need the data first in order to decide how to respond. I once attended an address by His Royal Highness Prince Charles, the potential king of England. He spoke on the subject of sustainability, something he has been known to care about deeply. The event was held


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at Clarence House, a wonderful royal palace adorned in glittering gold, plush red carpets and huge pristine mirrors covering the walls. It was the first time I had come into contact with Prince Charles and I carried, as we all tend to do, certain prejudices about the kind of man he was. Over the years he had been reported in the media, as many members of the royal family are, to have been a rather stiff and awkward person who was sometimes clumsy in social situations. When he was a little younger he had been famously known to talk to plants and was characterized as accordingly being out of touch. He was also thought to be rather outspoken and would launch, as commented on by some, ill-judged attacks, for example, on architecture and building design. This provided the context to my experience of Prince Charles who stood in front of a hundred or so people and outlined his call to action on sustainability. What followed was a delightful presentation that surprised and impressed me in so many ways. What stood out and remains with me still is the effortless and masterful way in which Prince Charles evoked each of these characterizations one by one and left the audience feeling rather silly for having believed the media stories in the first instance. So, for example, Prince Charles demonstrated the argument for action on sustainability with a barrage of statistics depicting the impact of pollution, migration, deforestation, climate change and more and then, with a crystal clear insight of how he was perceived, he wryly said, “not bad for a man that talks to plants.” Actively acquiring this kind of data needs to become a habit of yours. You will need to sensitize yourself to your reputation “on the street” and build your listening skills. As a leader you may not always receive honest and frank feedback from people around you, many of whom will feel uncomfortable in speaking truth unto power. For this reason you need to create the right environment with others so that the data flow is rich, unadultered and easily tapped. The way you frame questions is critical in this. Asking workers, for example, about their feelings about your leadership (Feeling Thinking6) as opposed to a critical analysis of you will help. So will asking about how others, rather than the person you are speaking to, around the organization view you (360 Degree Thinking7). Above all though you should inquire, ask, invite, probe, request, canvass, solicit or otherwise populate your dashboard with data. And if your source of data is directly from individuals, thank them too. For the moment, and just as a practice, write down a few key words, both positive and negative, that capture how you believe you are seen by the people around you.


Dashboard Indicator 2: How you are feeling at the time It’s a strange thing that as you go about your daily work and life throws all that it can at you, you somehow find yourself gritting your teeth and getting on with it. Survival is humankinds’ greatest strength – we are just good at it – and if we weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to argue the point. As with all things though there is often a cost which for many is a disassociation of our actions from our feelings. We become somewhat estranged from ourselves as we are forced to toughen up, to protect our feelings and to put on the emotional armor that we need to withstand the hardships of life. What this can lead to is a situation where as a leader you do attend to the rational side of your business, that is, the logical, intellectual dimension to decision-making and action, but miss the significance of your own feelings, energy and emotions and the interplay of both. This is potentially problematic for three reasons: • Your feelings are a central component of your intuitive ability. It is that sense of discomfort or wariness that you might find hard to rationalize, that tells you to think a little harder about the decision you are facing. It is that sense of excitement within you that is suddenly lost that tells you that something, not immediately apparent, is now missing from the proposal you are looking at. It is the feeling of “rightness” and elation that magically leaps into your body when you know you have got it right. And it is the awkward, negative energy you feel as you enter a board meeting that tells you are not going to get a good reception. It is worth looking at all decisionmaking and behavior as comprising at least 50 percent emotion – and emotion that you need to bring to mind, acknowledge and factor into your thinking. • You rely on your energy, emotional strength and resilience to carry you over the leadership terrain already discussed. Leadership is tiring. It is demanding. It is unnerving. It is all these things and more. Understanding where the dial is on your own fuel gages couldn’t be more important. Knowing how close you are to the breaking point is critical, not least if you are two days away from your most important presentation to your shareholders. Better to clear your diary, leave early today and get an afternoon nap than appear tomorrow


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in front of your most important stakeholders looking like someone that’s just been washed up on a desert island. We can, I hope, all agree on this, but the data must be in first to make the decision. • Your emotional status is leakier than you think. Confidence tricksters, street magicians and poker players alike all are familiar with the concept of the “tell” – the minute adjustments to our expressions or body movements that give away, to the trained eye, our true intentions and thoughts. But for all of us we pick up with remarkable ease the emotional state of those we are talking to. While it is one thing, as a leader, to give out these emotional signals that may or may not help your cause, it is quite another not to be aware of what emotional signals you are giving out. One of the best ways to identify what emotional data is leaking out is to know what you are feeling at any point in time. For the moment, and just as a practice, write down a few key words, both positive and negative, that capture how you are feeling right now.

Dashboard Indicator 3: How you are apprehending the situation you face (your lens on the world) Unlike the first 2 dashboard indicators, this stream of data is less likely to change significantly from situation to situation. The reason is that how each person sees the world, and therefore each situation, tends to be highly patterned and highly predictable. The easiest place to start with this idea is to think of someone that you know really well. It might be a husband, a wife, a parent, a sibling, a best friend, but above all someone you have spent a great deal of time with. Before reading on, have this person firmly fixed in your mind. Now imagine that you are asked to predict how you think this person will respond to buying a new laptop computer. Will they undertake research? – perhaps buying some computer magazines to compare models, speaking with friends about theirs, analyzing the kind of purpose they plan to use the computer for thereby identifying the most appropriate model, searching the Internet, etc. Or, are they more likely to visit a shop to find the one they most like the look of and, providing it seems to fit the bill, buy it there and then? If instead


the person you have in mind has a tax windfall of $200,000 (we can always dream!) would they be more likely to invest it prudently in a range of moderate return, low-risk security options, or apply it to their high-risk business scheme? Finally, and again with the same person in mind, if they were to be invited to a friend’s dinner party that started at 8 PM, would they arrive there on time or would there be a scramble getting out the house at about the time they should have arrived? There are three observations I will confidently make about the exercise that you have just done. The first is that you will have accurately predicted the behavior of your chosen person (please check with them). The second is that 10 years on from now I will predict that your answers and their behaviors will still be the same. The third is that for every person reading this book, there will be a variety of responses to each question. So what can we conclude from this? The main conclusion I wish to draw is that each and every one of us is biased in the way that we see the world and the opportunities it presents. But this bias is not a function of self-interest or because we have more information to hand than everyone else or because we are smarter than other people. Our bias precedes the arrival of the matter or decisions to which we turn our attention. We are, in the most neutral sense of the word, totally prejudiced when it comes to decision-making and our behavior. The question is, are you aware of this? And if so, do you have an understanding of our own repertoire of defaults and prejudices? There is no shortage of models and techniques to help you gain access to your own set of biases. The more well-known approaches include the Myers Briggs Type Inventory, The Belbin model, Insights, Firo-B and Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence. A whole range of more specific models and tests help you understand your leanings in relation to activities such as creativity (for example, the “Kirton AdaptorInnovator” test), conflict management (for example, the “ThomasKillman” psychometric) and career leanings (for example, the “Strong Interest Inventory”). From a leadership perspective, these prejudices tell us what we routinely and automatically pay attention to. They tell us where our natural strengths lie and inevitably what we tend to be less good at. And they tell us about our blind spots – what we miss time and time again. This third dashboard dial therefore relies upon you having done the work to understand your natural frame of reference and relies on you having done this thoroughly and honestly. If you are not at this stage yet, I suggest you go out and get yourself profiled until you are sick of thinking about yourself. When you have reached this point you will know that you have done it thoroughly enough. Assuming therefore


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that you have done this, the third dashboard dial becomes a kind of flashing reminder alerting you to your default thinking. This dashboard indicator is context-specific to the extent that if you are buying a computer or spending a tax windfall or structuring an organization or giving a presentation, the dial will call up the relevant data and set of biases that you need to observe. But by and large it is a data stream that reveals different facets of your mental model that represent the way you always see and apprehend the world. For the moment, and just as a practice, write down a few key words, both positive and negative, that help to describe how you typically approach the challenges that you face.

What does good leadership feel like? It is commonplace in the business world, whenever we think about a new proposal or program, to hear someone piping up with the predictable, but nevertheless insightful, question “what would that look like?” It is a question even more likely to rear its head in our modern world that is defined by the presence of change. Customers want more; citizens want more; we all want to do whatever we are doing better, differently, quicker, cheaper, etc. The world beyond our wishes and desires changes too from technological developments to globalization to security threats. All of this invites, and sometimes forces us, to drive change and in doing so to have a destination or desired state in mind. This is often understood by questions such as “what would success look like?” or “how would we know if we had been successful?” or something similar. You have probably, at some point in your life, asked or helped to answer this type of question. But in the context of this discussion and the focus so far I want to ask a slightly different question of you as a leader, which is – “What would you be feeling if you were being successful as a leader?” Implicit in this is the need for you to put aside what you will expect to achieve and the decisions you will make. Put out of your mind the specific activities you will engage in whether they be negotiating with the unions or speaking with the workforce. Instead, pose this question about your feelings and emotions – and let me presume to answer this question on your behalf. I would imagine that you would want to be feeling some of the following (and there may be others besides): • confident • happy • clear-headed


• proud • energized Feel free to add your own feelings to this list and to bring your own definitions. Make the list as long and comprehensive as you like. So, for the duration of time that you read this book, every time you pick it up and curl over a page, I want you to focus on using what you read to help you achieve the feelings that you have listed. As we move, in the remainder of the book, into the three major questions for you to consider as a leader, I want you to use them in just this way. Ask yourself, for example, “how can I use what I am reading to make me feel more confident or clear-headed?” Similarly, reflecting on what you have read so far, ask yourself, “how can I utilize what I have heard about the ‘side effects’ of leadership to help me feel energized about my role?” “How too can I ensure that as I picture the dials on my dashboard they give me data that will steer me toward a greater sense of pride?”

2

Your First Decision – How Long Have I Got?

A man, who for some time had not been feeling well, decides it is time to go to the doctor for some tests. The doctor takes one look at him and guessing his condition immediately gets out his instruments. After a couple of minutes the doctor confirms his assessment and delivers the solemn news. “I’m afraid Sir that the news isn’t good. The illness that you have is terminal.” The patient asks, “How long do I have?” The Doctor pauses for what seems like a lifetime, “How long do you need?” he asks. While according to the discipline of Quantum Physics, time may indeed be infinite, my and your slice of it sadly isn’t. With this in mind it remains for us, in our own lives, to determine what we will in fact do with this scarce resource – this unknown, but estimable, quantity of time. I am not sure how many of us feel we will ever get the answer to this right, but there are undoubtedly key transition points that come to us all that trigger an evaluation of how best to use the time available. Whether this is in response to an early childhood question such as “what do you want to be when you grow up?” or whether it is prompted by a mid-life event, the determination of the path to follow should be preceded by a fulsome analysis of the options available and our appetite for each. There is, of course, a subtle interplay between the two forces of the time available on the one hand, and our hopes and dreams on the other. They liberate and constrain each other and then inform us of what needs to change to get to where we want to be. We might decide to move house or move country, we might decide to embark on a new relationship, we might decide to work fewer hours to spend more time with the family, we might even decide not to decide and to see what happens next. The operative word in this is decide. We sit in the driving seat rather than in the back of the car with the kids. We take responsibility for what happens next and push the gas pedal with our eyes open. In leadership, as in life, we have the same need to decide before we plan and plan before we act. For each leader the gaps between these 43


three stages are incredibly important and they cannot afford to be empty. This is because once having decided how we will use the time we have we need to identify and acquire the skills and resources we need to make the journey. In planning, we may need to understand the obstacles and opportunities on the way. In acting, we learn about the difficulty of the journey and the traction we can achieve. We return to our decision wiser and more likely to succeed. This book invites you to make three top-level decisions, the first of which is captured by the question “how long, as a leader, have you got?” For each top-level decision the book then goes on to populate the gaps between the stages of decide, plan and act, and in doing so lays out the skills and qualities required that correspond to your answer. These necessarily differ according to each answer. A long-term leadership strategy requires a very different approach to a short-term campaign. Leadership on a grand scale calls upon a different set of skills to a business-as-usual plan. Leaders who wish to influence a broad range of people and institutions need to develop different qualities to those with a narrower engagement plan. If you are embarking on a new leadership role, preparing for the first time for a position of leadership, or just pausing to reflect on where to go next, I suggest you read on. Let us return to the opening story to this chapter, that of our visitor to the doctor. For those with a delicate disposition, please be assured that the doctor’s diagnosis turned out in the end to be wrong and it was just a case of wind. Death therefore did not follow the trip to the doctors, in fact on the way out of the surgery the patient bought a lottery ticket which won him $10 million (honestly!). Now we all feel a little more comfortable, let’s go back to the story. The doctor jokingly asked of his patient, “how long do you need?” which illustrates for me that there is more to the original first-order question than meets the eye, and this is where I would next like to stop off on this journey.

Tenure, legacy and unfinished business The question “how long have I got?” is not simply a question of leadership tenure. Tenure is undoubtedly a major point of reference in the question, but it is not the only one. The broader frame within which this question should be placed is what I call time ambition. The reason for this alternative articulation of the proposition is that leaders may well wish to look beyond their time-in-post in terms of their ambition. A wonderful case study used later on in this chapter is that of Robert Swan OBE who was the first person in history to walk to the North

YOUR FIRST DECISION – HOW LONG HAVE I GOT?

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and South Pole. His leadership campaign is called 2041, which is the year in which the treaty protecting the exploitation of Antarctica – the last unspoilt continent on earth – comes to an end. Robert is 17 years into a project that he assumes he will not live long enough to see the outcome. But nevertheless his leadership time ambition drives all of his activities and behavior in the present. Tenure in this context is not the whole story. Even with a clear view of their tenure, leaders may also look beyond their time-in-post to the legacy that they wish to leave. Legacy is the inheritance of the leader and the people that follow you. Much in the same way that you inherited the circumstances created by the leader who preceded you, you have the opportunity to consider in what state you will leave the organization when you depart. In our own lives we face these questions all the time – the values and morals that we teach our children, the financial inheritance we will pass on to our family members, the environmental legacy we will pass on to the next generation. The invitation that I extend to you is to do the same kind of thinking that you would in your personal lives in your job as a leader. So, tenure is not everything, but it is still important, and as such a question that may spring to your mind is, “what happens if I don’t know how long my tenure as a leader will be?” I have only one answer to this which may sound a little flippant, but is not intended to be so. In short, you should guess. Your role, if as an employee of an organization, will in all likelihood have a contractually stated or implied term. This will help to put some broad time parameters around your tenure, let’s say for illustration, somewhere between two and five years. If you are not an employee and are instead an owner or a steward of a going concern you should still be able to begin with a ballpark estimate. You will also be able to pick up some data from your track record of staying in the same role. We are all different. Whereas one person might view himself as a start-up expert only interested in the first flush of activity, someone else might pride themselves on their ability to complete and embed their leadership ambition. You need to know what kind of person you are. A quick glance at your career history and a bit of self-enquiry into where your energies seem to be in greatest flow will give you some of the data you need to refine your starting time parameters. Let’s assume that this suggests that your broad estimate of 2–5 years could be narrowed to 2–3 years. This level of detailed attention to your likely tenure is very important work for you to do. Ignoring for the moment both the leadership time ambition issue (the Robert Swan example) and the legacy issue, there is an ocean of difference between what can be achieved in one year as compared to three years. Planned


organizational change is an excellent illustration of this. Not only do most experts now agree that around two-thirds of planned organizational change programs fail, we all know from our own experience that real transformation takes years. As a leader at the front of the battlefield raising your sword aloft and shouting charge, you don’t want to find yourself half way down the hill having to quietly slouch off to attend to a different battle altogether. If I were on the horse behind you I might not be the only person to “accidentally” give you a kick up the ass as I go by. It follows that once you have a degree of clarity about your tenure, you then have a time frame in which you can focus your efforts, including those that contribute toward your legacy such as identifying, developing and pulling through potential successors to your leadership. The practices in this regard vary quite widely from culture to culture, country to country and sector to sector. The range of strategies for recruiting into top positions and their related cultural attitudes produce a spectrum of approaches from fully competitive processes to personal selections of known individuals. Between these two poles is a diversity of policies which include explicit, well-articulated talent management programs, internal-employee only candidature, external “head hunters” and “just-in-time” filling of positions. In private industry, particularly those firms or close-knit family companies that operate on a partnership basis, there tends to be a much stronger ethos of talent management that is often, but not always, internally focused. In the public and state sectors in the United States, the UK, many Scandinavian countries and some of Northern Europe, there is a preference for open competition to fill senior positions. However, there is much cross-fertilization and sharing of practices across the sectors. So, while the type of business you work in and the market conditions at the time will frame what it is possible for you, the point remains that leaving key appointments (such as your successor) to chance greatly diminishes the prospects of a positive outcome for the organization and the legacy you leave. Few people will have a better understanding of what it takes to be a successful leader in your organization and how your role in this is paramount. The work though needs to be done and it needs to start early in your tenure. Finally, it is also worth considering what you will inevitably have to leave unfinished when your tenure comes to a close. There is a great saying from the Chinese writer Lyn Yutang (1895–1976):1 Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.


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The question arises of what you, in light of your tenure, will identify as essential and what you will eliminate, out of necessity, from your leadership effort. This unfinished business will inevitably form part, or at least a missing part, of your legacy. The knowledge arising from such a decision enables you to carry out your leadership duties with your eyes wide open and to be aware, from one moment to the next, of what you won’t be intending to change. In my view mindfulness is at least 50 percent of great leadership. So as you engage your thinking in this question of the time available to lead, you will need to ask of yourself: 1. 2. 3. 4.

How long do you expect your tenure to last? To what extent will your ambition be affected by your tenure? What legacy do you hope to leave? What action will you take to bring-through a successor to your position? 5. What will you be content to leave unfinished by the time your tenure ceases? Before we move into the implications of these choices I want you to take five minutes to do the following. Take a blank piece of paper and answer each of these questions as they relate to you in your current role. Think of this activity as the limbering up before the game – it’s just to get the heart pumping and the blood flowing. There are no eyes on you at this stage. So that you don’t feel alone, I have provided my own answers in Figure 2.1 as they relate to the Acting Chief Executive role that I described at the start of this book.

Leadership, time ambition and the tools for the job My message to you is that far from your practice of leadership being based on generic models borrowed from the great and good it should, in the first instance, be a function of the decision you take about your time ambition, whether it be short term, long term or something in between. In this context, good leadership is about committing to build the skills, qualities and capabilities that correspond to your decision. And great leadership is about taking responsibility in the present for your legacy after you have moved on. Reviewing and flexing your approach will be absolutely vital but the decision precedes the action and the action then informs the decision.

48 CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP Question

Answer

1.

How long do you expect your tenure to last?

9–12 months

2.

To what extent will your ambition be affected by your tenure?

Tenure is an important factor for me and the true ambition I have for the organization could not realistically be delivered in a 9–12 month period. However, there is much I can do – most of which is about bringing energy, confidence and renewed clarity to the purpose of the organization.

3.

What legacy do you hope to leave?

I am determined to give the organization a much clearer sense of its priorities and to drive the business toward delivering on those priorities. This is what I will have achieved by the time my leadership comes to an end. I also want to confront some difficult top-team issues that the organization has allowed to fester for some time.

4.

What action will you take to bring-through a successor to your position?

We need to urgently get our People Strategy (covering skills requirements, talent management, development strategies, etc.) progressed and have a clear framework within which a successor can be identified.

5.

What will you be content to leave unfinished by the time your tenure ceases?

I will be content to leave unfinished the job of building some key alliances with similar organizations. This is a strategic imperative for the organization but one that will take at least 18 months to develop. However, I will at best put existing relationships on a strong footing and prepare the way.

Figure 2.1 An example of important sub-questions relating to tenure, legacy and unfinished business

In Figure 2.2 there are illustrations of some skills and qualities that have particular value for different levels of time ambition. This is not an exhaustive list, rather an indication of some important distinguishing characteristics. Take a few moments to reflect on these in light of your own leadership ambition (that you considered in this previous section) and conduct a two-minute self-audit to gauge your own proficiency/ utilization of each. Perhaps even give yourself a score out of 10. Before reviewing your scores and exploring this further, I want to acknowledge that if you scan both columns in Figure 2.2 you can see that the qualities and skills listed could be of value to you regardless of your time ambition. For example, even with a short-term leadership ambition, resilience and self-belief are useful qualities to possess. Similarly,


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SHORTER-TERM LEADERSHIP AMBITION

LONGER-TERM LEADERSHIP AMBITION

Skills and Qualities of Particular Importance


✓ Working through others (extending your reach)

✓ Personal resilience, self-belief and commitment

✓ Prioritization and pragmatism

✓ Self-awareness (including having critical friends)

✓ Quick, clear and regular communications

✓ Telling of a compelling story and vision

✓ Working on the “tipping points”

✓ Horizon scanning

✓ Creativity and innovation

✓ Organization design and development

Figure 2.2 Skills and qualities that have particular value for different levels of leadership time ambition

your skill in working through others is important for a leader not only if you have a short-term ambition but also if your ambition is longer term. The aim here, though, is to help bring some focus and a sense of priority to what you do as a leader. There are many reasons for wanting to do this. One of the reasons for this is set out in Chapter 1 of this book referring to the general complexity, ambiguity and changeability of the leader’s domain. All of which provides every leader with simply too much to think about. Another reason for wanting to bring focus to the job is that if you were to scour the literature on great leadership you would find a mountain of characteristics and capabilities of leaders – some good, some bad, but most generic, as if leadership were a single notion somehow existing in a world without context or reference to the individual who sits at the center. Figure 2.32 lists just a few leadership qualities taken from the literature. It is difficult to take issue with any of the quotes listed in Figure 2.3, or for that matter the vast body of literature and teaching on the subject of leadership. All bring value to the question of leadership. All are good. It is just that without a very specific context or reality to which these statements can be anchored they sound like truisms. It is, in the first instance, the question of time ambition that I believe introduces a means of separating out those qualities and propositions that are more relevant, useful and urgent from those that are less so – not because they are wrong but because they are less germane. Think of being a leader as a bit like being a competitive runner. To be told for example that diet, exercise, stamina and training are important is something

50 CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP “Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” Jack Welch “Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.” Colin Powell “Great leaders are pragmatists who can deal with difficult realities but still have the optimism and courage to act.” Nitin Nohria “Great leaders are willing to make the difficult decisions that none else wants to take … believe in something bigger than themselves … have a sense of humility about themselves. … great leaders lead by serving.” John F Kennedy “Great leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction and they, along with everyone else, sacrifice to get there.” John Kotter “Effective leaders: 1. Make others feel important, 2. Promote a vision, 3. Follow the golden rule, 4. Admit mistakes, 5. Criticize others only in private, 6. Stay close to the action.” Christian Nevell Bovee “Effective leadership are intelligent, have integrity or loyalty, mystique, humour, discipline, courage, self sufficiency and confidence.” James L Fisher

Figure 2.3 An illustration of the range of generic leadership characteristics identified by some of the leader thinkers

you cannot fault. However, there is a whole lot of difference between being a 100-meter sprinter and a marathon runner, or between running at a local event and at the Olympics. And there is an important difference between the diet needed for quick, explosive energy bursts associated with a 100-meter sprint, as opposed to a long, sustained release of energy needed by a 26-mile marathon runner. The same is true of the level and type of stamina required in each event and the associated exercise and training programs. Time ambition in the discipline of leadership helps you determine what kind of race you are in and what skills and resources will therefore be of greatest value to you. Back to the self-audit of your skills and qualities in relation to your own time ambition, let me help a little by providing further analysis of the skills and qualities listed.


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Shorter-term leadership ambition The interesting paradox about short-term, as opposed to long-term, ambition is that while less time implies that less can be achieved this is often not the case. Why? This is because there is little else that focuses the mind and gets the creative juices flowing quite as effectively as having an impossibly small amount of time or a poverty of resources to get a job done. Think of how quickly you can get out of the house in the morning when, on those rare and brutish occasions, that your alarm clock goes off late and you just have to get out of bed, get washed, get showered, get dressed, and get in your car – all in under 10 minutes. Maybe you make it in 12 or 13 minutes instead, but it’s certainly better than the full 60 minutes you seem to need on a normal day. In the field of creativity, introducing wretchedly short-delivery timescales is a proven technique to inspire great results that exceed expectations. Imagine if you were asked to complete a particular project you are personally responsible for in a quarter of the time you have allowed for it. Not a modest 10 percent lopped off the timescale. Not even a reduction by a half, but a 75 percent reduction. Instead, for example, of having 10 months to lead a restructure of the organization which would see an entire layer of management being removed and a new project-based team structure introduced, you now have two and a half months. Sounds hard, but I bet that thinking in this way would liberate some great ideas and mobilize the organization like it had never been moved before. The starting point therefore for a relatively short-term ambition should not be one of dismay. You should not necessarily conclude that you have to settle for a diminished ambition. If anything, it is about having 100 percent clarity about priorities in order to efficiently deliver on what could comfortably be a bold ambition. Let us examine in more detail some of the skills and qualities that make a real contribution to shorter-term leadership ambition. Shorter-term ambition: Working through others (extending your reach) I have often thought that the single greatest contribution of leadership over any other kind of discipline or business art is that of efficiency. It may not be the benefit that typically springs to mind; many people might think of the benefit of delivering change or the ability to formulate strategy or the power to engage. Leadership though can be a


supremely efficient way of getting things done. It can be the only way to marshal the diverse and disaggregated resources of an organization, to get all the boats in the flotilla pointing in the same direction and to do so without producing chaos. Of course bad leadership can easily do the opposite and management has a central role to play, but it is leadership that steers, guides and lights the way so that others can follow. In the same way that individual pilots (or managers) bring aircraft in to land, it is the leadership in the air traffic control tower that orchestrates the entire operation. Permitting each pilot to work it all out themselves might conceivably work, but the cleanest most efficient method is leadership. For leaders whose time ambition is relatively short term, efficiency becomes an important notion. A definition of efficiency that I use is the ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system. For leaders with restrictions on their time the total input to the system is necessarily limited. Nevertheless, the output achieved is paramount and leaders need to think and act in a highly efficient way if they are to maximize their output. There are a number of ways to be efficient and typically two ways of doing this that warrant attention. One way is through streamlining, tightening or otherwise “sweating” the systems and processes over which leaders preside. The work of management thinker Edward Deming illustrates this wonderfully. Deming’s work, best known in Japan and the United States, looked to minimizing the variation found in organizational systems, such as manufacturing processes. The key benefits of which include greater efficiency, cost control and higher quality. Inspired by the ideas of Deming, the Motorola Company developed a management discipline in the mid-1980s known as Six Sigma which similarly sought to restrict variations in operating processes to deliver efficiency. The name Six Sigma refers to the objective of there being no more than six standard deviations between the mean of a process and the nearest specification limit. This translates into their being no greater than 3.4 defects in every million occurrences in a process. Those who follow the Six Sigma discipline can achieve levels of proficiency similar to the martial arts belt system. Disciples could be green belts, black belts or even Master Black belts. The discipline in some quarters assumes the standing of a philosophy or even a religion. The difficulty of course for a leader with limited time on their hands is that reconfiguring processes and systems whether it be through the methodologies of Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, Business Process Re-engineering or Lean Management quite simply takes time – something in short supply. This is not an option to rule out though if we are to turn our attention, for example, to the question of legacy.


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So starting the work on business process re-engineering may indeed be part of your plan. What may though be of higher priority – something that provides a second source of efficiency when time is short – is the ability to effectively work with and through others to multiply the impact of your leadership. This is about the focus of your efforts and the skills that are required. In short, people become your priority and relationship-building and influencing become the skills that are required. On the people front, there will be key groupings and individuals to whom you need to successfully connect. The management (or “top”) team (which may be for the organization as a whole or the unit you are in) is one of the most important groups to get on board. As they extend their influence across the business, you want their communication channels to be carrying your messages. You want the top team to be aligning their behavior and priorities with yours. In all organizations workers are sensitive to the relationships that appear to be played out at the top and fractures and enmities between top team members are publicized from the minarets of the organization. Division is the enemy of efficiency. And inefficiency is the enemy of short-term leadership ambition. Other key groups and individuals to concentrate on will be the known influencers within the organization that could appear anywhere, and at any level. Such individuals and groups stand out. They can’t be missed. They are the critics and the cynics, the long-serving granddaddies, the heroes, the rebels, the people that challenge every new initiative, the creatives and the “organizational deviants.” If you were asked now to write down 10 people in your organization who fit this description you could probably do it immediately. And your list would be more or less the same as that produced by every other member of your top team. You know them, your colleagues know them, the organization knows them, and for these reasons they provide an unmissable opportunity to achieve some traction in what you are trying to achieve. It is interesting in itself how the workers in an organization, who of course are diverse and engaged in different functions, can collectively reach a view on anything from the intentions or capabilities of the leadership to the health of the organization. Of course we know that everything is contested and contestable. We know in this postmodern world that meta-narratives or generalizations about how things are nothing short of hubris. Complexity reigns and with its arrival comes the death of single, simple and uncontested notions of the “truth.” And yet, the people within organizations can collectively conclude that “the organization is doing well” or “the change program has


worked” or “we are the best in the market,” whether or not any data, which could only ever be partial, supports such a position. So while intellectually it may not be possible to discover “truths” about the world or about an organization, the force of group processes and the power of social psychology nevertheless means that we come to believe, as if it were true, certain accounts about the state we are in. The role of opinion-formers in this, such as those identified in these paragraphs (the top team, the influencers, etc.), should not be underestimated. They have a profound influence on the way in which organizational reality is constructed and this is why you have to engage them. Your leadership is an act of social construction of reality and you have to be skilled in identifying and working with the “reality builders” of the organization. In all of this there are skills sets in which you need to be proficient. One particular area of importance is the concept of emotional intelligence first brought to mass public attention by Daniel Goleman in 1995. Emotional Intelligence of course refers to the relationship between emotional mastery (to include self-awareness, self-moderation, interpersonal skills and relationship management) and success, whether it be in an organizational, personal or any other context. What it does require is a recognition of, and a mastery over, the emotional dimension in our lives. So, for example, when we experience stress or frustration or anger or excitement or any emotion that has strength, we are aware of those emotions as they arise within us, we take action to manage them as they impact on us and we similarly exercise influence over such emotions in order to achieve a desired and managed effect on others. We own our emotions and use them as resources. Framing this in a slightly broader context, we need to engage with and build relationships with the category of key influencers already discussed both within and outside the organization. Emotional intelligence is an absolute must as it helps us to build good relations quickly, which is the imperative of a leader with a short-term ambition. The truly impressive feature of emotional intelligence as articulated by Daniel Goleman is that where we have known, and possibly deep-rooted, emotional issues we can retrain ourselves to exercise command over them in a relatively short space of time – sometimes in just a few months. An example of this might be an emotional reaction to confrontation, and by this I mean well-intended and professionally justified confrontation, let’s say with colleagues whose performance is a proven problem. Some people do not find this challenging on an emotional level, for example in being assertive and saying what needs to be said. However, many people do, and the emotions that this throws might include


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trepidation, anxiety, aggression and hostility, which often limit quite considerably the prospect of an honest, straight and moderated conversation taking place. According to Goleman, by deliberately imposing on ourselves an alternative behavioral response to this situation, and doing so repeatedly and without fail in every occasion that confrontation, for example, takes place; we can reprogram our emotional response in a short period of time. Thirty years in therapy is not, as Goleman would argue, necessary to fix this problem. So in working through others we first of all put people as our top priority and engagement with them as a means by which we magnify the impact of our leadership. In doing this efficiency becomes another priority because time is short and we have to draw upon inter- and intrapersonal skills to help build relations to mobilize support and action. A related set of important skills and habits to utilize is set out in my earlier book Thought Leadership: Moving Hearts and Minds. In this book I identified some largely invisible but well-worn engagement habits that we, usually unconsciously, deploy. These divide into six categories but are best defined as a set of forensic engagement habits where we find ourselves focusing on flaws, weaknesses or deficits, emphasizing the logical dimensions to our discussions and limiting the variables in the discussion. What offers great value and is less utilized is a set of habits of engagement that represent the opposite (or shadow side) of the six “forensic” thinking styles; these can be summarized as creative engagement habits. What these deliver are conversations that take account of the strengths and value of a particular subject (rather than focusing only on the deficits), the feelings that people possess (rather than focusing only on the rational dimension), the multiplicity of perspectives available (rather than reducing our options) and the real expertise or wisdom we have (rather than settling for common sense thinking). In short, our default forensic engagement habits are not enough on their own if we seek to build relations, to inspire and to energize our people; in fact, many of our default approaches, such as our unrelenting search for deficits, flaws, weaknesses, etc. can have the opposite effect. So as well as having emotional mastery understood through the concept of emotional intelligence, we need to have mastery over the social thinking process. A final thought I would offer which ties together both the need for efficiency when time is short and the need to work through others is the accelerant in this equation, which is trust. When people are trusting of one another work gets done so much more quickly. Where trust is low so much mental and physical energy is spent on checking, probing, challenging, reviewing, communicating, arguing,


stalling and positioning. All of which costs time. Think now of two professional relationships in your life, one where trust is high and one where trust is low. Spend a moment to describe to yourself each of those relationships – fill out the picture a little of the individuals you have chosen, how the relationships work, how the conversations typically go, how goals get delivered. Now ask yourself, which of those two relationships are easier and fleeter of foot in getting the job done. If you had your most important mission or project to deliver which of those two people would you have on the team first? What value would you attribute to the trust that exists between you? Trust is a quickening agent; it accelerates and mobilizes action. The question therefore is how do you quickly build trust with the key influencers inside and outside the organization? You do this with the help of emotional intelligence which puts you in the driving seat of your emotions. You do this with the help of your skill in the process of social thinking which changes the kinds of conversations you have. You do this by setting for yourself high trust as an explicit objective of your leadership. Few leaders do this, perhaps imagining that trust will be a by-product of a fruitful relationship. But if you make it an objective in itself you will be significantly more successful. So, take a piece of paper now and write down what you would need to do if you want to have higher trust relationships with your key internal influencers. What will you need to do differently? More of ? And less of ? Don’t look at Figure 2.4 below just yet. Avert your eyes and then afterwards compare answers. If you take seriously your objective to establish relationships of greater trust you will find that instead of trust being a by-product it will in fact be a quick route to delivering on your own shorter-term ambition. More/Greater?

Less/Fewer?

Differently?

✓ Deeper conversations

✘ Impersonal communication

✓ Acknowledgment of emotional factors ✓ Openness

✘ Changes of direction/ focus/mind ✘ Division at the top

✓ Honesty

✘ Top-down only decision-making ✘ Unclear communication

➔ Routinely articulate awareness of risks and strategies to respond ➔ Illuminate personal hopes and fears ➔ Honor the contribution of others ➔ Celebrate success regularly ➔ Engage with those who disagree with you

✓ Empathy

Figure 2.4 Example answers to the question “how can I establish relationships of greater trust?” with key internal influencers


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Shorter-term ambition: Pragmatism and prioritization There is a saying that goes “the good is the enemy of the great.” It has variously been credited to the US management thinker Jim Collins, recognized as an old Jewish proverb, and used and altered in various ways to give the message that if we settle for satisfactoriness we will not achieve greatness (or excellence or perfection). This, of course, is a bad thing, right? How else could we triumph over life’s challenges if we found ourselves comfortable with doing OK? Where would be the motivation to strive for ever-better things? I once heard a joke about two elderly ladies in their final flush of life. They were both living out their days in a nursing home that catered for their every need. One day they found themselves complaining about the awful food that they felt obliged to eat. “It’s always served cold,” one lady complained. “And the meat is always so tough,” the other replied. “The gravy is too thick and the vegetables taste of old socks,” came the response. “And the smell is like something the dog has brought up!” They whipped themselves up into a tornado of complaint. “And do you know what’s worst of all?” the first lady asked. “… the very worst thing about the food we have to eat?” The other lady waited for the answer to come. “… the portions are just too small.” So if we chose to, we can view the world as one always falling short of our demands, a world that always disappoints. And this may inspire us to act to improve every situation to make it better, to make it better than good, perhaps even to make it great. I, however, prefer an alternative perspective, particularly if we are to tackle the theme of short-term leadership. This is exemplified by a quote from François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778),3 better known by his pen name Voltaire. The quote taken from La Bégueule is “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.” Which translates into “the perfect (or the best) is the enemy of the good.” In this line Voltaire implicitly warns us of the effect of striving beyond a point where we have reached a good result, a good outcome. Why might Voltaire make this argument? There are a number of explanations. One is that aiming for perfection can be a recipe for paralysis – the ambition of perfection leading to inaction. Another explanation is that “good” in this world of complexity and difficulty is something to take pride in, something of real value not to be underestimated. At the heart of the sentiment though is the tension that exists between striving to achieve “the best” when good may be within reach. It has echoes in sayings such as “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” (English proverb) and “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” (Miguel de Cervantes 1547–1616). It is, in short, a call for pragmatism and realism.


Think therefore of a sliding scale running from perfect through to great and then onto good, and finally to “good enough.” Your leadership, if it is short term, needs to be at the lower end of the spectrum. “Good enough” should be the mantra that you follow as it will help you to focus on your priorities and keep you aware of the clock that is quietly ticking behind you. Prioritization is a real talent in leadership. The job of a leader is characteristically wide-ranging. Whereas most workers within organizations have a relatively delineated world comprising their “day job,” leaders can find themselves doing pretty much anything, anywhere. On Monday you might find yourself in front of the press being interviewed about the performance of the company. On Tuesday you might be in your Head Office inspiring support for the next change initiative. On Wednesday you are on a plane to Mumbai to open a new office. On Thursday you are on a three-hour conference call for a meeting with your Board. On Friday you are locked in battle with your Union leaders while you take the night flight back to your company headquarters to face a crisis on Saturday morning caused by a virus on the computer network. As a leader you have an abundance of challenges matched by a paucity of time. Prioritization in the context of leadership is not unlike project management, at least at a theoretical level. They both share the same principles of having an end goal in mind, of breaking down the tasks to get there, and understanding the sequencing required and the critical relationships between the tasks. What is different, apart from the diversity and volume of their engagements, is the inevitable distance that stands between the leader and his or her objective; the absence of explicit management levers to direct activity whether they be financial, people or technological. Another difference is that leaders carry around in their heads a truckload of information about the organization: the external threats, the financial risks it is taking, the behavior of competitors, the tough decisions that have to be made, the human resources and legal cases in train, the challenges coming down the track. All of this stretches the ability of leaders to prioritize effectively. The most important thing therefore that a leader can do is to have a simple plan. Not a simplistic plan, but a plan that is clear, that is easily describable and that has a small number of stepping stones to help you deliver the plan. This and the remaining chapters of this book are designed to help you formulate such a plan for your leadership, so help is at hand and you will have the opportunity to develop your thinking throughout these pages. You may want also to reflect again later on what you do next. But for the moment I would ask you to take a piece


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of paper, or use the empty box provided in this book, and write down, in no more than 12 words, the simple plan you have in mind for your leadership. This should encapsulate what you hope to achieve by the time your leadership comes to an end. The sentence outside the box begins, “by the time I have come to the end of my leadership here I will …”

Clearly there is no right answer to this, only the answer that is right for you. So, an example of a simple plan that I had for an earlier short-term leadership role is: By the time I have come to the end of my leadership here I will … have the workers confidently aligned with and advancing the new strategy. To complete the process now identify the critical three or four steps needed to help deliver the plan and write them in the box below. 1. ................................................................................................ 2. ................................................................................................ 3. ................................................................................................ 4. ................................................................................................ A further illustration of some simple steps relating to the previous plan is: 1. Actively engage workers in dialogue about the strategy 2. Search out and publicize our achievements and successes 3. Remove the biggest obstacles to our strategy In your role as a leader there will clearly be more that you intend to achieve, but the value of this approach is to pinpoint the essence of your ambition. As you hold your simple plan in your head and keep repeating it to yourself, your priorities will leap out at you. Your path will begin to light up.


Shorter-term ambition: Quick, clear and regular communications For those of you who have played any one of those team-based (often corporate) outdoor games that involve shooting paint pellets at one another through a high powered gun (in most countries called “paintball”), you will know two things for sure. The first is that if a paint pellet traveling at 300 feet per second hits your body, it really hurts. In fact it hurts in a way that has the “fun” of the game exit your body as quickly as the scream that leaps out of your mouth. The second thing that you will learn, as you and your amateur team of “paintballers” scatter across the battlefield mercilessly being pelted with bright red paint bullets, is that rapid, clear and regular communications is absolutely essential. Being able to communicate where the “enemy” is or how many team members are still in the game or how the plan needs to change is your lifeline. You learn about leadership in the strangest of places, and I have learned a lot about poor leadership having had the misfortune of playing paintball a few times. The fascinating thing about this “sport” (and I use the word rather generously) is that when the going gets tough as the game is designed to be, the worst kind of leaders allow the members of their team to fight their own war, to focus in on themselves and individually to work out the plan. It’s understandable that this would happen because the terrain and the environment and the prospect of being shot in parts of your body you can’t even see makes you look after no.1 first and foremost. The irony of course is that the best way to look after no.1 is to work as a team. And the only way to complete your mission with your team intact is to keep communicating regularly, clearly and quickly. When time is short for a leader, the same applies. You need to build some particularly important alliances with people in the organization that can help you do just this. As a priority, you need to establish excellent relationships with your internal communications people. Internal communications people have ready access to the formal channels of communication, whether this is the in-house newsletter or magazine, the Intranet or the organization’s core brief. And there are other key communication posts such as professional groupings, executive team members and the informal spokespeople for the organization discussed earlier. But the defining quality of all of this is the frequency of communications needed to help you move quickly to deliver your short-term ambition. Leaders, regardless of their time ambition, typically make the mistake of thinking that because they have shared their message once, twice, three times or even four times that this is enough. It isn’t. A rule


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for all leaders to follow, but particularly those with short-term ambition, is to count the number of times in a single week you share your central message (ambition, thesis, objective, strategic intent). If it is less than 5 times each week then you are not doing it enough. Communicating your central message so often may feel rather uncomfortable and perhaps even boring, but it is utterly essential. Furthermore, your communication needs to be as simple as possible, even if what you need to communicate is complex. This principle of simplicity applies regardless of your audience. You will, of course, want to adapt the message depending upon who is listening. The New York office may need to hear the message slightly differently from the office in Brussels. The corporate services functions may want to hear a subtly different message to the members of the Board. The administration teams may need a different flavor to the message than the legal teams. But two things remain the same – the essence of the message and the simplicity of the message. Some examples of some clear and simple central messages might be: “our objective is growth in all areas of the business” “we need to change our organization to put the customer first” “Our top priority is quality. High-quality services. High-quality products. High-quality people” There should be sufficient alignment between the simple plan that you have for your leadership (discussed in the previous section covering prioritization and pragmatism) and the central message that you need to repeatedly deliver across the organization. These two objectives have a slightly different focus in that one is your personal vision and something you may not share at all with others and the other is an explicit message you give to the organization. The combination of the two, though, provides you with clarity about your mission and anchors your intentions.

Shorter-term ambition: Working on the “tipping points” The concept of a “tipping point,” although wonderfully elucidated by Malcolm Gladwell in his book of the same title (principally in the context of the behavior of epidemics), has been with us for many years. Buckaroo is a childhood game that I remember well despite it being almost four decades since I last played it. The game, made by Hasbro, the American toy company (also the company that made the world’s


most popular board game “Monopoly”), involves a plastic spring loaded bucking bronco on the back of which each player is required, in turn, to place a variety of items – some rope, a frying pan, a hat, a bedroll, etc. As the game goes on and the weight increases on the horse’s back the spring mechanism reaches a critical point and without warning – pow! the horse bucks scattering all the items around the room. If you are the unlucky person to have caused the horse to buck then you are eliminated from the game. One specific reason why I remember this game so well is that a friend of mine was nothing short of a master in the art of Buckaroo. He was a god among my friends possessing what, at the time, could only be described as magic. With pinpoint accuracy he could predict the precise moment at which the horse would flip. And it wasn’t luck. We would play game after game when he would either calmly say, “here we go” – which was the sign – or he would smile in a resigned way if he knew that the item on his turn, perhaps a saddle or a banjo, would trigger the always alarming kick of the horse. My friend had a sixth sense for the tipping point in my childhood game Buckaroo. Sadly, I am not aware of any way in which this unmatched talent has been used by my friend in later life but, as the saying goes, better to live an hour as a tiger than a lifetime as a mouse. The parallel in business is found in a multitude of circumstances. The tipping point might be reached when a major investor finally agrees to commit, when a major new training program starts to make an impact on the bottom line, when a new branding campaign demonstrably changes perceptions of the organization, when the new matrix human resourcing system becomes owned by a previously reluctant workforce. Alternatively, there will be numerous ongoing projects and transformation efforts that the organization is engaged in that despite great planning and great execution will still need longer in the oven before they mature. The job of a leader with short-term ambition must be to scan the organization with the clear objective of distinguishing those projects that are in what I call a quickening phase from those that are in hibernation phase. Both sets of projects will have attracted investment, good will, backing and support, but not all will have gathered the same pace or will be equally poised to deliver. The quickening phase projects require only a relatively small amount of effort for them to achieve real traction and impact. The hibernation phase projects, for a leader with short-term ambition, may never deliver in the time available. Once again, you, if you are currently a short-term leader, may be fully committed to leaving a particular legacy after you have moved on, in which case, hibernation projects may be just as interesting as quickening phase projects. The choice, as they say, is yours.


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My encouragement to you is that this is a choice rather than something you just walk into. Behavior born out of choice rather than habit is the priority here. I do not want to apply an overly rational model to the way that change occurs in organizations. To assume that all change somehow falls out of an explicitly named and managed project, whether it is in its hibernation or quickening phase, is of course to grossly misunderstand the way that shifts and transformations happen. The world is interconnected, interdependent and, with thanks to the Internet, an open book. Ideas flow more freely than they have before and ways of improving business are not exclusively channeled down from the top of an organization like a funnel. The process is increasingly like a sponge where all sides of the organization are permeated by hopes, aspirations, knowledge, skills, politics and much more. However, regardless of the provenance of change agenda, your role as a short-term leader remains the same, and that is to smell the air; to scan the environment; and to listen on the wind to the areas where you, with comparatively little effort, can light the blue touch paper. The job therefore for you to do is to identify where you think you should add a little more of your weight in the organization to move things in the direction you wish to travel. This strategy builds on those already articulated in this section, specifically the need to be pragmatic and prioritize your effort, to accompany this with quick and clear communications, to extend your reach through others and finally, as the next heading outlines, to make creativity and innovation work for you.

Shorter-term ambition: Creativity and innovation When we think of creative or inventive people who might spring to mind? Perhaps we might think of artists, maybe Leonardo da Vinci or Freida Kahlo. We might picture business people such as Bill Gates or Richard Branson. Perhaps sports men and women – the likes of Pele and his famous bicycle kick, or Jacques Cousteau the underwater explorer. We might look to scientists such as Marie Curie or Albert Einstein. We might think of management thinkers such as Edward de Bono or Tony Buzan. For many of us, we associate creativity with experimentation and discovery. After all, great and innovative masterpieces can’t be produced without having wandered a little from the path or/and maybe even making a few mistakes along the way. The world famous creative pioneer Edward de Bono talks about the value of deliberately taking illogical


or random steps in our thinking in order to bring fresh perspectives to the challenges we face. We knowingly take a wrong turn in order to reach our destination. So for many of us the act of creativity or innovation is, by its nature, exploratory and unpredictable. And, by implication, the act of creativity with its inevitable dead ends and its false beginnings takes time. Proposing creativity at times of short-term, time poor leadership may appear to be a contradiction in terms. Creativity seems to be an inefficient, unpredictable and difficult act to perform. Doing things differently as opposed to business as usual has to take more effort and more time for an unknown gain, doesn’t it? I would argue however a very different perspective and that is that time constraints drive creativity like no other force. Hidden deep within us all, even those of us that believe that we don’t have a creative bone in our bodies, lives a creature of immeasurable inventiveness just waiting to explode onto the scene. The trigger does not need to be oceans of time with which to experiment as it’s very absence can be the accelerant. Short-term leadership should, by definition, provide the conditions for creative leadership. Time is a strange phenomenon though. As we travel forward through time, a period of, let’s say, 12 months can sometimes feel long even if, given all the things we have to do, we know intellectually it isn’t. Your own period of tenure, no matter how short, might not automatically feel like it is accompanied by the same pressure of having to deliver something, for example, by 6 PM tonight. Strange as it sounds, your ability to feel the passing of time and to hold on to a sense of proportion about how quickly it falls away is greatly important. So do not lose the powerful contribution to creativity that limited time produces by assuming that everything after next month is a lifetime way. While the poverty of time squeezes creativity from the marrow of our bones, we nevertheless need to harness that creativity. I would like to propose four golden rules for leaders to get the best from the creativity they possess: 1. Always have absolute clarity about your ultimate purpose. Visualize that purpose as if it were a bright light in the center of a forest. The ways to get there are as many and varied as there are trees but the destination remains fixed and clear. 2. With the exception of your ultimate purpose, assume that nothing else is fixed; in your thinking you should feel comfortable in challenging everything else – assumptions, parameters, resources, timescales, conventional wisdom, history, culture – you name it, you can challenge it.


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3. Borrow and apply ideas and concepts from the world beyond yours. Look to the arts, nature, sport, history, architecture, professions, technology, cooking, other cultures, childhood, marriage, drama, transportation. 4. Commit to acting and behaving differently from the way you behave now. The most important of these rules are rule 1 and rule 2. Let us take a practical example of creativity as applied to shorterterm leadership. As we all know, organizational change takes time, something in short supply for you if your tenure or time ambition is relatively short. So how, using creativity, might you affect large-scale change on a small-scale time budget? Starting with rule 1, you might set your clear objective (the light in the center of the forest) to buy-in to the change program sufficient numbers of workers in the organization so that it has real momentum. On to rule 2, the parameters and assumptions you choose to challenge might relate to the time available to influence the required number of people. So let’s start this challenge and adopt a position that it is perfectly possible to personally influence thousands of people in a short space of time, but how might you do this? On to rule 3, what if you were to look to the arts to see what you could learn? When you think of the theater or the ballet or even rock concerts what do these activities possess from which you could learn? One thing they all share in common is that they involve performances to thousands, often tens of thousands, of people. Furthermore, if these performances are executed well they can stay with the audience for a lifetime. This line of thinking, as applied to your work challenge, might be to consider convening large-scale events, involving thousands of workers who in a matter of hours create a powerful transformational experience – like a ballet or a concert. Providing that this is orchestrated well, you might, in one swoop, personally connect to thousands of workers who can bring energy and commitment to your change program. What a great possibility! On to rule 4, you must commit to changing your behavior, which means routinely operating on a larger scale and, for example, rather than cascading information through the management chain allowing the message to drift and become diluted, you will now work as a convener of mass meetings. Your leadership has found new shape. So creativity offers a means through which you can achieve perhaps more than you ever thought you could.


Longer-term leadership ambition Leadership over the long term has a very different feel to it than shortterm leadership. As your time horizon moves away from you, path taking you to your destination becomes harder to see. The journey turns from a short hike into an expedition across unknown terrain and the only part of the journey that is clear to you is the starting line. The provisions you need to take with you – your skills and capabilities, your strategies, your personal qualities and your hopes – all need to be adjusted accordingly. You can, as we all often do, busk it along the way, but if you do want to be successful and incur the minimum personal cost associated with a journey of this distance, you should take this opportunity to collect your thoughts and give yourself the best chance possible of success. In the following paragraphs, two sorts of advice will be provided. The first is a brief explanation of the five key qualities and skills shown in Figure 2.2 that will help you as you set out. The second form of advice, to augment the brief exploration of the five key qualities, will appear in the form of an extraordinary case example of long-term leadership demonstrated by Robert Swan OBE, the first man on earth to have walked to the North and South poles. His story should give you all the sustenance you need to make the journey.

Longer-term ambition: Personal resilience, self-belief and commitment In all forms of leadership personal resilience, self-belief and commitment are useful. As outlined in Chapter 1, leadership is a tough calling. The path is strewn with complexity, ambiguity, personal pressure and very little thanks. Resilience and emotional strength are about taking the hits but not being knocked down. The image that works well for me is that of walking into a head-on wind blowing at gale force. As a leader you keep walking forward knowing that with every step you take you meet a near equal pressure pushing you in the opposite direction. But the important thing is that you maintain your course. Selfbelief is about the certainty that you possess that what you are doing is right. It is about acknowledging doubts but not letting them erode your will. Commitment is about knowing that you will continue in your leadership journey, that you have done the thinking in advance and, having decided to act, this is what you will do.


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These are desirable and laudable qualities in all human beings, but in leadership over the long term they become truly tested. How you build these qualities is not something that can be learned on a twoday resilience or self-belief course (although they do exist). They are qualities that can really only be developed through experiential learning and of a type which necessarily is personally demanding (wherein the learning lies). Some theorists tell us that the best way to augment resilience is to repeatedly allow ourselves to be in situations where our resilience is put on the line. We might put ourselves in the limelight more than we would be comfortable with – perhaps giving presentations, chairing meetings, getting our opinions known – and in doing so making what is out of the ordinary somehow routine. The benefit is that we create a range of habits for tackling what previously seemed emotionally demanding. However, we can look at resilience in other ways, for example by focusing on, and seeking to strengthen, the component parts of emotional resilience which include our beliefs, our values, our convictions, our early-life experiences and our internal, often self-critical, voices. The component parts relating to beliefs, values and convictions come into play with a force when we consider long-term leadership. To hold a personal ambition that spans many years has, by definition, to be accompanied with a set of beliefs. The longer term the leadership ambition the more we might see our beliefs being better described as a philosophy or a mission. For powerfully held beliefs to sustain us over the long term they need to possess integrity. I don’t mean this in a moral sense but more in terms of how you might think of a car engine or the human body needing internal integrity. The different parts in the system need to work with one another. When different parts of the system fall out of sync or when one part breaks down it affects the entire system. For example, poor diet, particularly excessive fatty intake, can cause our arteries to narrow which can then place a greater burden on the heart. This, in turn, can affect the functioning of our respiratory system, which may decrease the level of oxygen supplied to all organs around the body. A range of expected and unexpected consequences can arise ranging from leg cramps and swollen ankles to angina and emotional stress. Our belief systems bear similarities to other systems in that if the beliefs we hold do not sit well together and are not fully considered and road tested we carry the risk that as we undertake our long-term leadership journey, we may find that we either lose heart or lose our way. Or in the case of our car example, the wheels might come off. The encouragement to you therefore, if your leadership ambition is


longer term, is to fully understand your beliefs and motivation as both provide you with the fuel to make the journey.

Longer-term ambition: Self-awareness (including having critical friends) Self-awareness is another cornerstone of the practice of leadership and, as outlined in Chapter 1, it is the nonnegotiable element. Leaders simply must understand how they impact on others, where their strengths, weaknesses and blind spots lie and what their leadership style or way is. This applies equally to leaders regardless of their time ambition. As discussed there are some very well-established and highly successful techniques for building self-awareness. These range from psychometric assessment tools to the use of executive coaches, 360-degree reporting techniques, good performance management feedback, leadership development programs and good old-fashioned experience. By placing this leadership imperative in the context of a long timescale it not only assumes even greater importance but it points to a number of particular areas where self-awareness is key. The famous experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1974 provide an excellent example of resilience and one’s belief structure (highlighted in the previous section) and the importance of self-awareness as time marches incrementally on. A lot has been written about the Milgram experiments and I do not want to repeat the many lessons learned as a consequence. Neither do I want to draw out the conclusions developed in relation to authority, which the experiments principally set out to explore. However, I do want to focus in on these issues of resilience, belief and self-awareness that this work touches upon and what this might tell us about leadership over time. The Milgram experiments involved a setup that invited members of the public to “teach,” ostensibly, to other members of the public, particular paired word sequences that the “learner” was required to repeat back. In one variation of the experiment, teachers and learners would be in separate rooms so that they could communicate but not see each other. There were two particularly unusual features to this experiment. The first was that the teachers were required to administer increasingly large electric shocks to the learner should they get the answers wrong. The highest volt shock capable of being delivered was a potentially lethal dose of 450 volts. Standing beside the teachers was an authority figure wearing a white lab coat who applied consistently assertive encouragement for the teacher to do what was required of


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them. The second unusual feature was that while the teachers were genuine members of the public, the learners, unbeknown to the teachers, were in fact actors who faked being on the receiving end of electric shocks. The astounding findings of this experiment were that in the variant described above, some two-thirds of teachers, moving upwards in 15 volt increments, punished the actors to a maximum level of 450 volts of electricity. In the experiments the teachers could hear the screams for mercy by the learners and still, in the vast majority of cases, continued to dispense a lethal dose of punishment that eventually rendered the victims silent, assumed dead. This is relevant to long-term leadership because it provides an emotionally charged scenario that forces individuals to confront and test their own belief systems – in this example, whether it is morally right to do what is asked of them. But the way it does fascinates me most of all, and that is through incremental shifts in the situation (an expected increase in 15 volts each time) to the extent that individual teachers may not be fully aware (or at least find it easier not to be fully aware) of what they are doing. Clearly, I am drawing different points out of the experiment than was intended and I would not want to diminish for a moment the greater learning that is derived on the subject of what people will do if they are asked by authority figures. Nevertheless, in long-term leadership as time advances in the incremental way that it does, two very different sets of dilemmas can emerge. On the one hand, as the world changes around you, it can become increasingly difficult to remain faithful to the essence of the original belief or philosophy that first got you started on your journey. On the other hand, you may become too fixed on your originating mission to the extent that you do not hear or respond to the new circumstances you face. As a leader, you need to actively track down data that will tell you where you are on this spectrum. Both ends of the polarity are dangerous places to be. And it is self-awareness that is the key to this data. A final word on self-awareness is about the value of critical friends. These are friends first and foremost, but the type who will tell you how it really is. If I asked you to list these people in your lives you could do it immediately. They are the folks you probably end up arguing with most of the way through a dinner party, but always end up agreeing with at the end. They might be family members or your husband or wife or, in some cases, they might even be your children. The point is they hold a mirror up to you and your actions and don’t allow you to look away. Value these people if you are on a long leadership journey because they will keep you away from both ends of the polarity


discussed. You might not always like what critical friends say to you, but listen hard.

Longer-term ambition: Telling of a compelling story and vision Much is said in leadership theory about the role of leaders as storytellers, as people that can provide a narrative to the actions of the organization. We know this has value from a communications point of view in that we all understand the format of stories – a beginning, middle and an end; a situation, a complication and a resolution; a journey that sees troubles fought and overcome. Books, films, plays, jokes, music – all at a very basic level mirror this implicitly held expectation and flow of events. Stories often have a sticky quality in that they stick to our memories and can be recalled with relative ease, another reason why leaders find this technique useful. If we add to your story a vision that you might hold for the organization or the cause you represent, then your message to the world as a leader stands an excellent chance of being understood, of it engaging hearts and minds, and of it standing the test of time – which is why it matters to long-term leadership. If you were asked now to describe your vision in your current leadership role, do you feel confident that you could paint a compelling and clear picture of the future? Take a moment to think this through. Are you clear about your vision for your part of the organization, for your cause or for your campaign? Earlier parts of this chapter will hopefully have made this easier to do. Remember, in painting a future picture I am not asking you to set out your plan of what you will do to the organization or your campaign. This is not a question about activity or method, it is about describing a desired end state. For the moment let us assume that what you have thought of (and perhaps even written down) is about right. If I then asked you to add to your vision a story that has a beginning, middle and an end that leads you to your vision could you do that? Take another moment to reflect on this. There are no correct answers here, just some questions at this stage. Finally, when you think about the vision and story you have in your mind, ask yourself whether there is some inbuilt tension, some dilemma to which your story attends. So, to recap, try for the moment to describe: • your vision • your story • the dilemma or problem that is being solved


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One example of a long-term leadership vision and story is from the international activist organization Greenpeace:4 • [vision] for there to be a green and peaceful world • [story] In 1971 a group of antiwar protestors chose to take nonviolent direct action against US nuclear weapons testing in Alaska. They chartered a ramshackle fishing vessel, renamed her Greenpeace, and sailed off to bear witness in the prohibited zone. Less than a year later the US Government under considerable pressure abandoned their nuclear testing in the region in Alaska. Inspired by this victory, Greenpeace turned its attention to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific, then to whaling off the coast of California, the slaughter of seal pups in Newfoundland and Scotland and over the years the battle has continued, broadened and gained pace. Greenpeace has successfully halted scores of operations to dump nuclear waste, destroy wildlife and accelerate global warming. And some 30 years after its creation, Greenpeace staged the largest antiwar protest in the history of humankind. • [dilemma] One of the world’s premier economic forums, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), identifies environmental degradation as the greatest threat we face. “Climate change is mankind’s most important long-term challenge … and if we want to avoid irreversible damage to our environment … we’d better start working right away.” Over the longer term your story and your vision need to contain two important qualities. The first is that they need to be responsive to changing circumstances over time, and in doing so always remain relevant. But at the same time they need to endure and honor the original message and storyline that created them. It is no good claiming one day that you are leading the organization so that it can be a slim, lean and sharply focused operation, only the next day to be talking about growth and a broad portfolio of services. In the same way, there is little point in holding on for dear life to a vision of the future that is no longer relevant. To deal with both objectives the telling of your story will need to be faithful, but flexible. Finally, as a leader you will personally convey your vision and your story to others and you will need not only to have done the thinking on what you want to impart, but you will also want to deliver your message with energy and impact. When in front of people, the storyline technique will help you and you should practice this almost as if you were an actor – perfecting your style, pace, intonation and physicality.


You will also want to draw upon language and phrasing that quite simply excites people. When leaders talk within and from the platform of their organizations they are not really competing with other speakers or people in similar sectors or industries. They are competing with the television and the movies and increasingly so in this modern age. When actors appear on the silver screen they are scripted; they are often handsome and visually appealing; they are directed; they are produced and post-produced; they are accompanied by sound effects, specially written scores of music, sometimes by canned laughter; they are played through the very finest technological systems to project and enhance the picture and sound. By comparison, you stand up amid the feedback from your microphone, a PowerPoint presentation that freezes when you touch the mouse and look out at a sea of bored faces. It’s not fair is it? Nevertheless, audiences increasingly expect high-quality, polished, theater-style delivery, so my advice to you is to become expert in the mediums through which you work. Become the world’s expert in PowerPoint. Get to know how you sound from the back of the room. Get familiar with the way microphones work whether they are handheld, lapel microphones or booms. Know how to work the space you have available to you. Work out what you are doing right when people seem to be excited by what you say. All of this applies to leaders but particularly if yours is a long-term plan, as storytelling needs to be your specialist subject. Longer-term ambition: Horizon scanning Some of the world’s most successful and largest companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Nestle and BP are truly excellent at horizon scanning and scenario planning. They are good at this simply because they have to be. Their businesses depend upon their ability to predict the future and respond accordingly. Take Shell, a market leader in this area, as an example. On their website5 they clearly set out their stall: Scenarios provide alternative views of the future. They identify some significant events, main actors and their motivations, and they convey how the world functions. Building and using scenarios can help us explore what the future might look like and the likely changes of living in it. Shell has been using scenarios for 30 years. Our audience does not only consist of businesses and governments but of all people who are curious by nature, and who are highly motivated


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to acquire a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. In their published report entitled “People and Connections: Global Scenarios to 2020” Shell provides some fascinating accounts of how we are and how we might become: … As pressure on governments increases—in part because of the demands of ageing societies—and their capacity to act diminishes, citizens become more cynical about both mass politics and governance. Many people feel compelled to seek alternative modes of political expression—through participating in demonstrations staged as media events, for example, or in various forms of direct pressure by NGOs and other interest groups. Corporations are also active in the policy making arena, pushing their own agendas. The public sees multinationals, especially, as having a large impact on global policy, and these companies are often targeted as a prime cause of global problems … In a world where no one is in charge and where governments have no monopoly on power, a kind of “new medievalism” arises. Rather than neat, self-contained national markets and nation-states, with political authority unambiguously asserted within defined geographic boundaries, a mesh of multiple authorities and competing loyalties arises, based on networked relationships. As political decentralisation continues, cities and even some smaller, local communities set their own global agendas alongside states and companies. A foreign company has to satisfy not only the laws of the host government, but also the demands of local and provincial authorities, its own home government interests, the rules set by inter-governmental organisations, and the concerns of the nongovernment organisations. You, personally, as a longer-term leader, could probably not hope to mobilize the same level of resources as one of the most successful companies in the world. Nevertheless, if your plan extends over many years you cannot afford to ignore potential shifts going forward. And not all of these changes will represent risks or challenges. Taking technology, for example, this continues to make communications, knowledge acquisition, automation and more besides quicker, better, cheaper and easier. But this should not just be “interesting” to you, as of course it is to all of us, but as Shell do with their scenarios, it should help drive your strategy. Globalization as another phenomenon offers remarkable possibilities. The growing economies of the world such as China, India,


and Central & Eastern Europe at the most basic level introduce new markets that you might wish to enter. They provide new workforces, new ways of thinking and new voices in the economy. Emerging concepts such as the “death of deference,” which suggest that authority and expertise is not as respected as it once was, may mean something for your leadership plans. Just the other day a member of the public arranged for a section of spray painted urban art on the Israeli segregation wall (produced by the UK artist Banksy) to be removed and advertised for sale on the Internet auction site ebay.com. In under a week it sold for over $500,000. These occurrences, whether they are firmly within our orbit, such as technological advances, or whether they are somehow foreign to us, such as the Banksy example, give us data about how the world is changing. Your job should be to notice them, to understand them and move them from the “just interesting” category into the “what does it mean for me?” category. Horizon scanning helps you shape your leadership in the context of your vision, but it also offers a tool for staying relevant. Your journey, as a long one, needs to cross three time zones – the first is when you are determined that you would commit to a vision for the longer term; the second is the present that you now experience where you are acting on your original commitment; the third time zone is the future vision you hold which may be anything from a few years away to a few decades. For you, because time matters, you need to stand back a little and see what is going on and understand your place within it. Before leaving this subject I want to tell you a story about leadership where a long-term leader did not effectively horizon scan or remain relevant. This is a true story of an organization that had the same leader for 20 years. The specific individual was smart, extremely capable and for a long time highly respected within the organization. In many ways they embodied what the head of the organization should stand for. The individual had gravitas, was likeable, used humor powerfully, understood the business well, gave the organization external credibility, built excellent stakeholder relations and engaged the workers. They were, for quite some time, an excellent leader. Over time though the environment changed and some important factors worked against the continuation of their leadership. First of all, the governance of organizations, all organizations, came under pressure. This was sparked in part by a spate of corporate and financial reporting scandals such as Enron, Worldcom and Parmalat. Driven by new regulations in the form of the Sarbanes Oxley Act and more importantly by public pressure, organizations had to work much harder to show that their leadership were acting appropriately, transparently and


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accountably. This is understandably pertinent to organizations where the individual in charge has a very long tenure. But this seemed to make little impact on the organization concerned. A second important shift in the environment was a more subtle but important change in the way that authority was viewed. As more and more graduates entered and left the organization, and the leader remained unchanged, the corridors buzzed with questions “when is he going to leave?”, “shouldn’t someone tell him?” This was not a personal attack, but more a reflection of a modern workforce that was more comfortable with challenging the leader than the management team that surrounded him. The mood in the organization shifted but the leader continued in their role and, if anything, retreated a little more from the voices of the workforce. A third factor was that the media and the press picked up increasingly on the tenure and behavior of the leader. This developed over the years. At first the ratio of positive to negative comment was squarely in the positive camp, but as time passed the digs and pokes increased. Anyone in this position should have seen and paid attention to which direction the curve was moving in. The writing was appearing on the wall; slightly faded at first but each month and year getting easier to read. Still though the leader persevered seemingly unaffected by these factors. The individual eventually departed the organization, twenty years after they arrived, under a press barrage that had gained so much momentum that it was, at that point, impossible to ignore. I suspect after an early glittering start to his career this leader would much rather have left under different, more positive circumstances, and would have rather saved the organization from the highly public external governance investigation that then followed. This was an example of how long-term leadership can become unstuck if the leadership does not listen to the changes occurring beyond the walls of the organization.

Longer-term ambition: Organization design and development Working over a longer time frame you have a number of luxuries that you don’t have with a shorter timescale. One of which is your increased ability to attend to the design of the organization you lead (or the segment of it that you lead). Organization development and design both in common parlance and as a management discipline refers to a broad collection of activities. The type of areas typically encompassed by the


field includes the organization and its • • • • • • •

• • • • •

External scanning of the environment Vision, mission and strategy Governance Shape and size Structure Culture Supporting systems and processes, for example financial reporting, knowledge management, communications, performance management, recruitment, promotions, etc. Skills Values Operating vehicle(s) Talent management and development Resource deployment

Each of the categories above provides a means by which the organization can determine and deliver its vision. The key though in doing this is alignment. If, for example, the structure does not fit the mission, or the skills possessed will not help to deliver the strategy, or the process of promotions does not correspond to the culture, then you have an organization working against itself. At times of change, it may be perfectly normal and, in fact, essential for there to be some misalignment, but this should be a consequence of a deliberate plan (one would hope). Your role as a leader, and as an owner of the organizational system, is to bring about alignment between the parts of the system so that they work together as one. Very few other people in your organization will have the distance, the objectivity or the motivation to do this. The temptation as a leader (and in some cases a necessity if you are a short-term leader) is to adopt an interventionist approach to your role. This means identifying specific agendas that you want to advance and banging the drum as often and as loud as you can inside and outside your organization to make things change. It might be accompanied by other supporting activities – a communications effort, the injection of additional resources, and perhaps even, if the organization is lucky, a roll out plan. The benefits though of a systems approach to leadership (involving organization development) as compared to an interventionist approach are: • The prospects of success are usually greater • The results are more sustainable


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• The organization depends less on the leader or leadership team to be effective The main downside is that organization design and development takes time and commitment. However, as a long-term leader this presents fewer difficulties. It also takes the courage of your convictions to reengineer the whole system rather than a less wholesale single agenda approach. In the region of two-thirds of major organizational change, programs fail to deliver what they set out to. In my experience this is explained by two key factors. The first reason, explored in Chapter 1, is that the workforce is rarely sufficiently well engaged to leave behind what they currently do in favor of the expectations of the change program; very often hearts and minds are not won over. The second reason is that many change programs are single agenda initiatives that are simply added in to the routine operation of the organization. As a consequence they are often treated much the same way that a virus might be treated as it enters the human body. For a short time, it is all the body can think about. It enters the cells, the blood stream and the organs of the body and begins to work on the immune system. The virus itself replicates and spreads further throughout the body. The message that the virus is here and has power is unmistakable. However, over the course of time and for most viruses, the body organizes a response to the virus in the form of antibodies. Antibodies, also known as immunoglobulin, treat the virus as any other foreign object in the system and steadily and persistently swarm the infected cells in large numbers to neutralize the virus. While there are clear parallels that can be drawn between viruses and their effect on the human body, and the introduction of interventionist change initiatives to organizations, there is one very important point of difference. This is that while we can see the effect of the clash between the forces of the virus and the antibodies (for example, shown by a raised body temperature, listlessness, aching limbs, headaches and poor organ functioning), the rejection of organizational change initiatives is marked more by an absence of visible action. The workforce generally does not paint on protest cards and march at the gates of the company headquarters. Many may moan around the coffee points and some may sound off that they have too much to do, but employees generally do not set out, as the human system does, to neutralize the invading initiative. It is just that unless change programs and leadership campaigns are constructed from a systems and organizational design perspective, they can unintentionally but effortlessly be swept aside.


In understanding this as a longer-term leader you have a golden opportunity to develop your organization using a systems approach and deliver more sustainability, less leadership team dependency and more success. To begin a brief exploration of your current leadership effort, I would ask you to think now about these three questions and to answer them as best you can: 1. As a leader, do you actively seek to align the different cogs within the organizational system in support of your major objectives? 2. Are you tuned in to the quiet, subtle but powerful rejection of organizational change and why this is occurring? 3. Do you feel you have sufficient skills to exercise leadership over the process of organizational design and development? If your answer is “no” to any of these questions, I would encourage you to begin enhancing and shoring-up your capabilities in this area.

Case Study: Robert Swan OBE6 The highlights from Robert Swan’s life do not read like the story of most English men. Robert Swan is the first person in history to have walked to both the South and North Poles respectively in 1986 and 1989. These two extraordinary expeditions took him most of his early life to

Robert Swan OBE, the first person in history to walk to the South and North Pole


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save, plan, train and pay for – financially, physically and emotionally. A man born in Durham in the north of England in 1956, Robert was fascinated by Robert Scott’s epic journey to the South Pole in 1912. Scott’s journey ended in tragedy and the English team died shortly after they discovered they had been beaten to the Pole by a Norwegian team lead by Amundsen. Robert Swan at a very young age determined however that he would find a way, some way, to follow in the footsteps of Robert Scott and to find success and not disaster. Neither expedition to the Poles was easy. Both journeys subjected the teams to freezing temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees centigrade and unforgiving terrains marked by crevasses and shifting ice. On the first journey Robert’s team navigated, as Scott had some 75 years earlier, by a compass, a sextant and the sun. They navigated their way to less than a few hundred yards away from the ice station at the Pole – an incredible feat, not least because of the significant variation close to the Pole between true north and magnetic north as measured by the needle on a compass. The team carried no mobile communications devices or GPS systems synonymous with expeditions of the kind these days. As they reached the station and radioed their pick-up vessel, the Southern Quest, they heard the shocking news that minutes earlier their ship had been crushed by pack ice and had sunk. The exhausted team eventually negotiated a call out mission and with a series of boats and flights they returned home battered but triumphant. The North Pole was a different kind of journey. Robert and a Russian team member from the South Pole, Misha Malakhov, lead a team of people from nations around the world: from the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany and the UK. Almost no members of the team escaped illness – Darryl, an American from Harlem, saw the heal of his foot fall off; Robert suffered a spinal injury and Hiro, a viral infection. The crew faced melting ice which threatened their entire mission and they finally arrived at their destination safe and with a full team, but days away from losing their lives. After an incredibly short break from two exhausting journeys, in 1992 Robert attended the first world summit for sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro raising, as only one of a few voices at the time, the consequences of global warming that he had personally experienced as the ice at the North Pole had melted for the first time in hundreds of years. In the years leading up to the end of the millennium Robert worked tirelessly with numerous teams to remove 1,500 tons of waste from Antarctica. In 2002 he circumnavigated Africa in a sailing yacht during which time he worked with local charities reaching 750,000 young people on the issue of AIDS. In the same year he transported


his boat inland and up to the second world summit for sustainable development in Johannesburg and in 2004 he entered the Sydney Hobart yacht race with the world’s first sail made from recycled plastic bottles. In 2008 he lived with six other people for one month entirely from renewable energy at the newly built “e-base” in Bellingshausen. And he plans over the next decade, among other things, to circumnavigate the five largest carbon-producing continents on earth, bringing attention to the issues of climate change and renewable energy. But I don’t intend to focus on any of these achievements. It is the story that ties these separate activities together that interests me above all, and this is captured by four numbers – 2041 – the year in which the treaties to protect Antarctica, the last unspoilt place on earth, come up for review. It is the year when literally and symbolically we decide, as inhabitants and owners of the planet, what we will do with this beautiful land, one and a half times larger than the United States of America, which contains 70 percent of the world’s freshwater. Article I of the Antarctic Treaty states, “Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only.” Article II states, “There shall be freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctica and cooperation toward that end.” Article V states, “Any nuclear explosions in Antarctica and the disposal there of radioactive waste material shall be prohibited.” The Treaty reads like a blueprint for some of the finest principles by which we should live. It is, in short, a prize worth fighting for. Robert Swan’s own long-term leadership has been to found and drive the 2041 campaign for what has been almost two decades with the clear understanding that there remains more than 30 years until the 2041 project will deliver. This is a cause he has devoted his life to and, bizarre as it may seem, the expeditions he has undertaken so far while meaningful in their own right, have only been stepping stones for him to achieve something greater. There are few better examples of long-term leadership ambition than that currently being navigated by Robert Swan and his team. For a man in his early fifties at the time of writing, Robert is quite frank about his prospects of seeing his dreams come true. While there are more stars out there than grains of sand on a beach, I feel that it is worth persisting with something of importance so that when you draw your last breath you can say that you tried to change something, in my case, to preserve Antarctica … I know that I will not live to see whether I will have succeeded or not but this will not stop me from trying.


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Telling your story Robert Swan has manifestly made the effort to achieve his goals; in fact there are few people that have incurred the same level of personal cost in the process. When Robert first returned from the South Pole he had amassed considerable personal debt, not least as a result of the sinking of his ship the Southern Quest. But he also had to pay back the various loans he had built up in the years preceding the expedition. His 10-year effort to remove rubbish from Antarctica sapped time, energy and more money from him. While on one level all looked positive there was undoubtedly a tougher and somewhat less celebratory side to his victories. And moreover Robert knew that he was less than half the way there to his ultimate objective in 2041. However, among all of this, Robert understood one thing with one hundred percent certainty, which was that he, along with other long-term leaders, needed to have their story straight. The most important thing about a long-term mission is that you’ve got to get your story straight. It’s got to tie together. It’s got to have a beginning, middle and an end. It’s got to be inspirational, and the story itself has got to be ongoing. If you have a really big aim, you can’t just talk about that one aim. You have to tell the story that takes you to that aim. The story for me is that I became connected to Antarctica. I was inspired by Sir Peter Scott and Jacques Cousteau and in return for the support they gave me they said “Rob, will you try to preserve Antarctica?” And so it was one thing to have walked to the North and South Pole, to undertake a mission where more people have been to the moon than walked to both Poles, but then the guys that you are working with suddenly add in a 50-year mission. But, that is something that I have committed to and I will do. The storyline to which Robert refers is not just about an intellectual articulation of a narrative, it is also about the act of relating the story to others and binding them into the vision. And so Robert tours the world giving talks and engaging with people from all walks of life – the young, the old, business, governments, NGOs, politicians – in fact there are few groups with which he doesn’t connect. Over the years though, particularly in light of the span of time he is working with, much of his effort has been focused on young adults, those people that will he hopes, in the year 2041, be in powerful and influential positions.


When the leaders get together after 2041 there will be enough people I hope who will be in positions of power who will still remember the story I tell and they will say “for god’s sake, let’s not destroy Antarctica.” An eleven-year old can’t protect Antarctica now but then can when they are fifty. Robert’s communication plan therefore has a kind of viral quality to it whereby he invites those that hear his message to spread it around. In short, his objective is to tell a story of such weight and inspiration that others feel sufficiently excited and motivated to take on the cause. The interesting thing is that the levers that Robert pulls on are not the usual levers one might find in a corporation, for example – financial rewards, training, promotion, discipline, management, project goals, work climate or performance management. His lever is simply a story told in person to the people that he meets. Importantly, in telling the 2041 story, Robert gives attention to the need for what he calls “relevance across the board” which signals the efforts he makes in ensuring his message works in different contexts, whether this is in relation to different age groups or to different nations. Many of the team’s activities have been in areas not directly related to the ultimate goal, that of protecting Antarctica. Circumnavigating Africa and working with young people and charity groups to help tackle AIDS is one such example. You have got to be relevant across the board. People say to me “Rob, why have you taken your boat across and around Africa helping people dealing with AIDS? I thought you were about preserving Antarctica?” I turn around and say removing rubbish from Antarctica is completely irrelevant, a complete luxury and to most Africans, a complete waste of time … how you make yourself relevant is to think really hard about it … if I had to talk at the House of Lords tomorrow or to a bunch of football fans I would have to do it in a way that was both relevant to the audience and faithful to the story. I think leaders need to undertake a kind of “relevancy check.” I find that a lot of leaders with longer-term missions can become irrelevant. They can drift off course without realizing it. But, the priority for Robert in conveying his message, placed above the importance of the type of groups to which Robert talks, and the relevancy across the board that he hopes to achieve, is the presentational standard that he needs to achieve in order to leave people inspired to act and changed forever. Robert is known for the visual presentations


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that he delivers, showing the photographs and the images of his journey that provide the narrative. Starting often with a white PowerPoint slide Robert describes the image as a map of the South Pole. Or if not that he will place a photograph of the South Pole upside down on the screen to catch the attention of US or UK audiences and to remind them where the South Pole is on the globe. I have seen Robert kick over a table of management and leadership books to snap his public out of their fixation with theory. At other times, he will squarely and honestly recount the emotional difficulties he faced with the reality of returning from a place in history to a world more ordinary. Drama and emotional engagement lies at the heart of the account. When I first got back from the South Pole and owed all that money I went to see Sir John Mills (the actor) and he said “I will teach you to speak.” One of the most important things he said to me was “don’t change the lines if they work.” And I continue to practice, practice, practice the speeches I give and the story I tell … I always tell leaders to practice telling their story. But to be honest, most leaders don’t speak terribly well. If you can’t explain your long-term mission in an elevator or write it on the back of a cigarette packet then you are in trouble.

Sustaining yourself, others and the mission Leaders are not impervious to disappointment, a sense of frustration, a lack of energy and a sense of “what the hell am I doing?” And you can have these really difficult dips in sustaining yourself. Often to sustain yourself you shouldn’t always jump out of that low bit, actually you should have a quick look at it and say “why am I feeling this now? Is it because I am tired, jet lagged or short of money or is it actually because I am becoming a bit stale?” … at these times it is worth remembering what inspired you in the beginning. What did I feel like at the beginning? This is one of the reasons that I live now on the river because when I did the first expedition I lived near here in the warehouse just along the way and this was the place where I planned, and worked, and saved for the expedition to the South Pole. And I live here to remember how that felt. Over the long term the spirits of even the most committed leaders become tested and Robert and his team, who spent much of their lives in unforgiving environmental conditions, do not escape the lows and the doubts.


Last year I hit a low point and after having thought hard about it I decided that I needed to “open things up” and I started work on creating the first education base in Antarctica that would be run entirely on renewable energy. This will happen in March and in the following month I will embark on a 5-year voyage around the five biggest producers of CO2 – China, USA, Europe, Russia and India. So we will have a voyage with the yacht 2041 with a really good team of future leaders traveling around various ports and talk to colleges and universities. I start with USA and will inspire them to put these issues on their agenda. At the end of five years it will be time for the next world summit and I will have hundreds of people from all these nations who are determined to protect the planet. So, when you get these dips, don’t panic, take a good look at why and then go and do something about it. As outlined earlier in this chapter, self-awareness is a critical success factor in long-term leadership and for Robert he pursues this aim with a steely and unrelenting determination. There were moments, as Robert freely admits, when he felt that he lost his way after he returned from both Poles. It is understandable on almost every level – he had achieved something for the first time in history and more than this it had been a dream of his for almost two decades. Before he set out on the South Pole expedition, potential financiers, backers, climbers, explorers, friends and family and pretty much everyone he met called him mad for wanting to walk to both Poles. In many ways you could see their point of view, not least because Robert had no background whatsoever in exploration or mountaineering – he was, after all, a graduate of ancient history from a North of England University – “I didn’t even have a beard,” Robert jokes about his unlikely appearance as an explorer. So, Robert started out possessing an incredibly ambitious vision and, some might say, a totally unrealistic aspiration, while at the same time being his own greatest critic. In every way this challenging internal voice continues to speak loudly to him, but it works for him rather than against him. Looking ahead though Robert has begun to acknowledge, perhaps more so than ever before, the need to think about succession and who could take forward his efforts. On leadership, to get somewhere you have initially to be quite protective of what and who you are and what you are trying to achieve. Real leadership though suddenly comes upon you and once you reflect


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upon what you have achieved there comes a moment when step back and acknowledge what you have done … and then you can think about supporting other people … not seeing good people coming through as threats … but start instead to foster other people so that you can make your mission sustainable … your successor has got to come from a different way than yourself. I am looking for people who are better than me. Another polar explorer isn’t the way to go – we’ve done that. Now that I am moving now to thinking about my successors, for me it is also a question of letting go as well. Contemplating what might happen after he has gone, Robert is not short of characteristically innovative and grand strategies for keeping the cause going. So, what is the plan if I drop dead? We are in the process of making 5 filmed adverts of me and my son, who is 13, which we shoot now and over the coming years. The first one is with the both of us standing on a pacific island which we know will sadly not be here in 30 years time. The film will show me saying to my son “when you’re my age son, you know that this island won’t be here?” And then if we are both still breathing in 30 years time the next advert will have us both sitting in a boat above where the island was with me looking very old and my son getting on for 50 (about my age now), saying “I told you so” followed with the question “so what can we do about it?” If I am not still breathing then my son will have to do part two of the advert alone. There will be positive adverts too with us both in a rainforest on the verge of destruction and then some years later when we will have been successful in stopping its destruction. Although he may not like to admit it, Robert is a master of marketing and conjures quite incredible images that, by their nature, endure over time. My personal acquaintance with Robert started when almost a decade ago he would present on leadership development programs for senior figures in industry and government. I would direct these programs and Robert would regularly present. The power of the message that he delivered has stayed with many of the senior delegates who attended these programs and Robert still receives letters and support from people he met, perhaps only once, almost ten years before. This says something in itself about how sustainability can be secured if the story, the message and the presentation are all aligned and are delivered with passion and conviction.


Moving with the times When the team first set out on the South Pole mission in 1986, in the same year, the US Challenger space shuttle exploded, one of the world’s worst nuclear plant accidents occurred at Chernobyl and the Oprah Winfrey show aired for the very first time. But also, there were only 2,000 users of the Internet, the Berlin Wall that symbolically and literally divided East and West stood firm and it would be almost a decade until George Bush, the President of the United States, would acknowledge “that the surface of the Earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases is contributing to the problem.” So what does this tell us? From a long-term leadership perspective it tells us that the world will change as you go about executing your leadership ambition and you would ignore this at your peril. You have to recognize that in the long-term things will change and in my case they have actually changed for the better, not for the world, but for our efforts, it has become easier … now everybody is talking about the environment … and looking after the Antarctic now makes more sense to people than it did before. As this book is written Robert Swan sits in the Antarctica at the newly built “e-base,” the first education base in the Antarctica powered entirely from renewable energy. The seven people at the base are communicating live to schools through live video streaming; they are using solar panels built into tent materials, clothing and mobile phones; they are drawing on the energy of wind; and they are making maximum efficient use out of their water supplies. All of these advancements were not possible only a few years ago and if this book were to be read in 10 years from now the tools for energy creation and communication will have shifted again. Horizon scanning and movement offer are key to the work of Robert Swan and his long-term leadership. But looking forward, the specifics of how we will execute the plan when it comes to the final stage are yet to be determined as the tools and methods available will no doubt change as they have done with systems such as “Facebook” and “My Space” which didn’t exists until recently and will change again. We use all of these but always remain on the lookout for new methods of engagement. Furthermore, in terms of strategy, I have moved from years and years of trying to get to primary schools to now focusing on children a little older deliberately to move the message to different audiences. Strategically I also remain always positive and constructive. And


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finally, I don’t tie all of my colors to one government or corporation because I do not want to sell or promote products or fix my position, rather I want to inspire the people that inhabit all of these organizations and be free to do so.

Sharing the load As an individual that has operated in an environment known for its hardy conditions, its long line of heroic male figures (Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, etc.) and an implied requirement for toughness, Robert Swan is quick to dispel myths that more sensitive qualities are surplus to requirement. With a big mission or a big aim the most important thing is to admit that it’s pretty tough; that it’s pretty hard and the gung ho attitude will not be sustainable. You do have to turn it on and off so you can be inspirational at times, gung ho at others but also able to be more human and just talk to people. Let people you know that you feel shit or are exhausted by the mission. And for a long-term mission this sustains you also. And with this, other people respond well and take the reins for a while. The lessons that Robert learned about the long journey he took to the North Pole were that the ability to ask for help, to demonstrate patience and to hold relationships together can make the difference between life and death. These qualities not necessarily associated with the great charismatic leaders of our time are what are required for long-term leadership. For Robert as a leader of the 2041 campaign and the various expeditions to build the story, the ability to talk openly about technical and emotional matters is paramount. In short, emotional intelligence, emotional resilience and a willingness to share the load are some of the skills that will make the 2041 project a success.

Looking forward Looking to the future which, for the 2041 team means the next 30 or so years, the strategy, the tactics, the methods of communication, the submissions may well change, in fact they will have to do to keep with the times, but the central mission and importantly for Robert, the central story remains the same. Robert will continue to hone what is already a highly developed set of skills that he uses to tell his story. His long-term leadership is, in large part, dependent on this skills set and


the message he gives to leaders in similar positions is to practice telling your story, to view it, in a sense, as a piece of drama and to truly connect to your audiences. Don’t become one of those “glossy leaders,” as Robert puts it, always communicating through the in-house magazine or talking at people. At times when the journey will inevitably feel exhausting or when the path in front seems to disappear, Robert invites us all not to skate over that period or ignore it but to pause for a moment and ask why. Robert tells a wonderful story about how his brothers would always, as many brothers do, tease him when he was younger “they would know exactly what to say to wind me up and what buttons to press” Robert spent a long time becoming resentful of these moments until it dawned on him that they may actually have a point, that they can see something that he can’t. To ignore that data could only serve to disadvantage him. In leadership theory a lot of sense is spoken about emotional resilience and self-care. In leadership, you are the instrument of leadership. Unlike managers who might have Gantt charts, project plans, project resources, supportive colleagues, teams of people working to them, in leadership you are pretty much it. If you aren’t able to keep yourself together, the organization or mission will suffer. How you do this is to share the load a little; talk about how you are feeling with others; “open things up,” as Robert would put it. But also you need to think hard about succession if you are to sustain the mission as well as yourself. Robert is engaged in this thought process now and his hypothesis for the moment is that he may need to look to people who are not polar explorers, people who are better and different from him. This resonates with Robert’s plan for building the team that successfully walked to the South Pole. The members were explicitly chosen for their diversity and for the different attitudes and skills each would bring. As Robert says, “It’s hard to live in a box with people very different from yourself for nine months (the wait in the Antarctica until the terrain was fully frozen over), but absolutely essential.” So the future for Robert Swan, the team and the 2041 project is yet to be written, but with leadership of this caliber it is certainly going to be a journey worth watching. A final question that Robert modestly answered gives us confidence that he isn’t planning on giving up. What should your epitaph be on your tombstone? On my tombstone it would be nice if it said “Robert Swan really tried to preserve Antarctica.” The key word here for me is “try.” To try hard from my perspective is what counts and all that you can ask of people.


Knowledge review and reminders 1.

What is the most likely tenure of your current leadership role?

2.

Will your current mission be a priority to you after your tenure has come to an end?

3.

What legacy would you like to leave for the organization/campaign once your tenure has ended?

4.

What plans do you have in place for succession to your and other top positions?

5.

When you depart what business will you be content to leave unfinished?

6.

Based on the likely duration of your leadership, have you pinpointed the key skills and qualities that you will need to be effective?

7.

Have you conducted a self-audit of the skills and qualities you currently possess?

8.

What would you say are the top three top priorities for you in terms of building your capabilities?

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3 Your Second Decision – How Grand Is My Plan? If you’ve ever watched science programs on television or movies about space travel you may have seen a familiar cinematic device where the camera will be trained on a small object on earth, perhaps a man walking a dog or a couple arguing about something that seems terribly important, and then it will move further and further away so that people look like ants, then cities look like dots on the landscape, countries become engulfed in deep blue sea and when the image comes to rest, the earth hangs in black space like a small blue ball. Somehow, what appeared to be matters of great concern such as the argument between the couple are seen from a different perspective, often rendering them rather inconsequential. As a result of this technique we quite literally see the world and all that is in it differently. It is this notion of perspective, or what I prefer to call analytic pitch, that is of real importance to leadership. Knowing at what level you will operate and therefore understanding the scale of your ambition is a critical judgment for you to make as a leader. Not only does it help to determine the skills and qualities you will need to be successful, but it also helps you appreciate the effort that it is going to take on your part. This second first-order question “how grand is my plan?” is really about you deciding when the camera will come to rest and what you will take as the pitch of your ambition. You are the director of this film determining what you feel is the right time to shout “cut!” As with our previous first-order question “how long have I got?” the starting point is one of personal choice, a choice that you make that should precede and frame the actions that you take. It may feel at times as if your work as a leader is predetermined and prescribed. The role that you inherited as a leader will have brought with it certain obligations that you may feel you should embrace. You may see yourself as a representative of, or perhaps a servant of, the organization carrying out the preexisting wishes of the workers, the stakeholders, the shareholders and the customers. You may feel constrained by the resources, people, culture and customs in situ that you are required to marshal. You may wonder, as many leaders have done, what right you 90

YOUR SECOND DECISION – HOW GRAND IS MY PLAN?

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have to exercise your personal will over the organization. All of these forces exert a pressure on you leaving you eternally trying to navigate the relationship between the organizational mission and purpose and your own personal role and purpose within this. As explored in the first chapter, one of the unique qualities of leadership is this overlap and blurring of the two ends of this spectrum. In order to help you navigate this relationship between organization and self, in order to help you understand how you need to change to be successful, in order to prepare you for the journey ahead, you can at the very least do the thinking work on your personal answer to the question “how grand is my plan?” You may have already taken this decision when you took the job, in which case you can move quickly on to reading the corresponding success factors in the following pages. You might not have considered this before and these pages will provide some helpful pointers. You may want to see what skills are required according to different levels of ambition before deciding. Whatever your motivation happens to be treat the words that follow as an opportunity to think about your leadership so that you can more fully take ownership of what you do. In undertaking this thinking you will find your purpose clearer, the task a little easier and the outcome much more predictable.

Analytic pitch Like leadership, the subject of research and evaluation is a fascinating area. When we come to scrutinize, audit, examine, evaluate, research, diagnose and assess, we enter the fray armed, above all, with research questions. I see questions as doors to a large and complex building – picture the Pentagon in Washington, the Kremlin in Moscow, the Houses of Parliament in London, or even Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. The specific door you first chose to open will provide you with access to certain parts of the building. Depending on the complexity of the building (or the research topic) you may find that the door you first open provides entry to yet more areas of the building. However, your first point of entry determines, perhaps even without you realizing it, where you are likely to end up and what you are likely to find. Figure 3.1 shows the plans for some, but not all, of the floors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From a quick look we can see that there are numerous points of access to and within the building. If we enter on the ground floor at the main entrance on Fifth Avenue and then turn immediately right we find ourselves in the Egyptian room


Figure 3.1 Floor plans of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

which then takes us automatically through to the American wing. If we were to decide that we would rather visit the Modern Art wing we have quite distance to travel either by doubling back on ourselves or making a long roundtrip. For anyone that has spent an afternoon in a museum of this scale you will quickly recognize that it takes an act of will and at least a rucksack with supplies to navigate the large, strangely interconnecting rooms, to get to your destination. To add a further dimension of difficulty, you also have the opportunity to move vertically to higher floors as well as the floor at which you enter.


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Growth?

Efficiencies?

Product Range?

Rapidly and aggressively build the business as an international operation

Implement large-scale redundancy program and sell off major assets

Reposition the business as an entirely different business

Buy out existing business already operating in international markets

Remove all areas of the business that are unprofitable and centralize wherever possible

Reorientate the business toward an entirely different range of products and services

Shift the major focus of your business away from the domestic market to other territories

Outsource back office functions and introduce matrix working structures

Enter new markets not traditionally associated with your range of products and services

Establish some offices, distribution centers and corporate offices internationally

Reengineer all major systems, processes and structures

Broaden range of services and products

Take some steps toward operating internationally

Seek to streamline all major systems, processes and structures

Look to sweat the profits of existing products and services

Maintain focus on the domestic market

Maintain all major systems, processes and structures

Maintain existing range of products and services

Figure 3.2 Illustrations of different heights/levels of leadership ambition

This analogy is meant to illustrate two points. The first is that the questions you ask (or the points of entry to the analysis) are critical and that they help to create, rather than just reveal, the future. This is why this book is based around three carefully selected first-order questions. The second point, more relevant to the specific question of “how grand is my plan?” is that the level at which you pitch your analysis (or the floor/stage/storey you access) makes a world of difference to the type of leadership you need to exercise. To place all of this in a practical context, the polarities in Figure 3.2 offer some examples of different levels of leadership ambition. Deciding where to pitch one’s leadership ambition may not only be a question of personal choice – although this might be the major determinant. Three key considerations come into play and these are • your appetite (for taking on varying degrees of ambition), • your freedom to operate and • your inheritance.

Your appetite For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won. (Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1908)1


With all ambitious acts such as those you might carry out as a leader, you need to be one hundred percent clear in your own mind that your appetite corresponds to your vision. This is because there are fewer things that workers want less from a leader than being asked to march in one direction to then find their leader sitting down half way in the campaign, red-faced and demonstrably regretting that he had proposed the battle in the first instance. From the perspective of your own self-interest and as implied by the quote from Lucy Maud Montgomery, it is helpful to build an understanding about your own stamina and willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve your ambitions. It is one thing to have dreams and wishes but something different altogether to undertake the journey to achieve them with its associated costs and commitments. Perhaps in life, as distinct from the professional path of leadership, you can be a bit looser with your hopes and ambitions. In life you may have a limited number of constituencies to square your wishes with, such as family members and some friends. You may even view your life as an adventure, full of possibilities that you wouldn’t for a moment want to map out, pin down and conduct cost-benefit analyses on. Of course, this is fine, but in business, and as a leader, you owe it to your people to know yourself well enough to be sure that when you order a forced march over the mountain range you will be there at the start as well as at the final celebrations. I would ask of you now to still your thoughts and steal a moment of truth about yourself, your leadership and your scale of ambition, and by picturing a vertical scale as used in Figure 3.2, decide where your ambition truly lies. Physically set the pointer at the level that you think accurately encapsulates your scale of ambition in relation to your appetite, your willingness to commit, your stamina and your preparedness to invest accordingly. Once you have done this, hold the image in your head and now move on to the next section.

Your freedom to operate In the public services there is a wonderful concept developed by Professor Mark Moore of Harvard University called the authorizing environment. As applied to the government sector it refers to the formal sources of authority that allow a public service leader to act, such as rules, regulations and legislation, but also the informal sources of authority such as interest groups, businesses, civil society, the media, politicians and so on. It is the combination of these factors that serve to permit or challenge the ambitions of public service leaders.


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Using this notion and applying it in your context as a leader you too will encounter formal and informal sources of authority that help and hinder your wishes. Your ambition as explored in this book therefore needs to be considered in light of the authorizing environment which may comprise the expectations of the Board, your bosses, colleagues, professional groups and any relevant oversight groups, for example, health and safety, the unions, the auditors, etc. As touched upon in Chapter 2, these days organizations operate in the wake of the leadership failings associated with Enron, Andersons, WorldCom and Parmalat, and accordingly there are now greater levels of governance to adhere to. But this is only one of the very many influences on your leadership. These and other factors paint a picture of your freedom to operate as a leader. While few are likely to be fixed or insurmountable they nevertheless place real and often understandable demands upon you. At times it may feel like you’re cycling with the brake on your bike but it’s good to know how much harder you’ve got to peddle to get to your destination or whether you might in fact settle for reaching the next village rather than the city you planned to find. Once again, and with the image in your mind of where you previously placed the pointer on the vertical axis, consider whether you feel now the need to raise or lower the level of your ambition. Keep this image in your mind and move to the next heading.

Your inheritance I worked for many years with a wonderful colleague called Lorraine Chapman that I am sure saw me as someone that was rather idealistic. At the time I did have fairly grand hopes and certainly wasn’t short of new ideas. My colleague, by contrast, was a pragmatic individual and, as if she knew what was about to leave my lips before I did, she would say “we are where we are Robin,” by which she meant that while we might want to start somewhere else on our journey, we have to work with what we’ve got, right now. “Damn her realistic, pragmatic, nononsense approach to work!” I would think to myself, probably with it spelled out in the veins that stood out on the side of my head. While ambition is necessarily about bringing about change and as Mahatma Gandhi is famed for having proclaimed “You must be the change you wish to see in the world,” the tantalizing reality remains that what you inherit by way of people, resources, conditions, customs, culture, technology, history, etc., all influence the ambition you might


develop. It is rarely the case that we inherit positions of leadership as a tabular rasa; a blank sheet of paper. Most leadership positions arrive like a lucky bag of sweets containing some tasty flying saucers filled with sherbet, some wine gums, some sweet and sticky chocolate toffees and some chewy liquorice sticks, but sadly, you also get some horrible gobstoppers that break your teeth and put you out of conversational action for days. A specific example of your inheritance might include the rolling out of a major change program that preceded your arrival as leader. If the change had been to significantly restructure the organization or to move from a centralized to a decentralized model of decision-making or to implement a contraction of the product range to focus efforts on more profitable lines, it becomes more difficult to turn the tide back in the direction from where it came. This will be even more challenging where the change program was hard fought but successful or if it in itself followed hot on the heels of a previous change effort. Another factor that is in every way about your leadership inheritance but might be practically brought to bear by the actors in the authorizing environment is the nature of the business that you are in. This is easier to illustrate by reference to some well-known companies. Take for example the Coca Cola company, but not the 13 brands or the 409 different product lines it produces (including Dr Pepper, Dasani, Fanta, Minute Maid, Powerade, etc.), but the eponymous and best-known brand of all – Coca Cola. If your inheritance as a leader was to become responsible for the Coca Cola drink brand, you could be forgiven for being more than a little nervous about tinkering too much with such a staggering success. You would probably think long and hard about which aspects of the business you would hold ambitions for and would, at your peril, propose altering the brand, the logo, the formula, the business model, the vision, etc. This is not to say that you wouldn’t have high ambition, but that you might need to find a space within which to operate. Alternatively, if your inheritance was the leadership of Apple Inc, one of the world’s fastest growing companies, attracting around $25 billion per year, and renown for invention and constantly pushing the boundaries of mobile communications and entertainment, you might face a different prospect. You might feel that your ability to set your leadership ambition higher up the scale is considerable. That said you might equally find it difficult to aim for a more modest standard of ambition. So inheritance (also the other side of legacy) has the ability to shape and condition your leadership ambition and this is the third and last of our considerations in setting the level of ambition. Picture again a vertical scale and adjust the pointer accordingly to reflect your final


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assessment of where you are. You now have a reasonable assessment of where you pitch your leadership ambition.

Leadership, scale of ambition and the tools for the job A fourth area not yet explored in relation to the scale of your ambition relates to the capabilities and the qualities you need to be successful. You know what your appetite is, you understand how free you are to operate, you fully grasp what you have inherited and now you turn your mind to the tools for the job – your skills and your abilities. As with the previous chapter what follows is not a prescriptive or exhaustive account of the skills and qualities required for different levels of ambition. What matters here is your personal engagement with the kind of questions relevant to your situation. This is like visiting the tailors rather than buying your suit off the peg. You need to try a few styles on and see how they feel. Once you identify exactly the right material, shade, pattern, drape, linings and embellishments that suit you, it can then be cut uniquely for you, and only you. The process in tailoring involves the creation of a half made suit known as a baste featuring the characteristic large, white baste stitches which allow the suit to be easily taken apart and remade. The purpose of these pages is to deliver you the space to try out the baste that corresponds to your type of leadership. At first glance what you chose may not fit right,

MODEST LEADERSHIP AMBITION

GRAND LEADERSHIP AMBITION



✓ Consolidating change

✓ Creating a powerful vision

✓ Building and strengthening systems

✓ Acting with courage and confidence

✓ Understanding and leveraging strengths

✓ Exercising self-care

✓ Actively scanning the environment

✓ Nurturing strategic alliances

Figure 3.3 Skills and qualities that have particular value according to the scale of leadership ambition


and this is fine. You should feel at liberty to unpick the stitches or try something else on. The trial and error that occurs now while you are thinking off line is a golden opportunity. Play a little with the different scenarios and the corresponding requirements that they make of you. Figure 3.3 provides a starting point for an exploration of the skills and qualities that are useful for different levels of ambition.

Modest leadership ambition For many people the word leadership is synonymous with ambition, and by that we usually mean great ambition. To therefore apprehend leadership with a modest plan in mind might, to some, seem counterintuitive, maybe even a contradiction in terms. But there is no shortage of sound explanations for why leadership might need to be appropriately controlled and ambitions correspondingly held in check. In this context, a decision taken to cool off rather than throw more coal into the boiler is often a tougher but wiser approach to take. One reason might be the undulations of the market. If your part of the economy stalls or starts to slide into depression, your risk appetite will be understandably affected. Timing may be another factor. As public opinion swings toward road safety, renewable energy and smaller automobile footprints, now is probably not the time to think about launching your fastest, loudest and biggest car to date – maybe in 10 years, maybe never, but certainly not now. Your own tenure as leader, a subject you now intimately understand, will also shape the scale of your ambition. It is clear that for the very best reasons your leadership ambition may need to be modest, but does this therefore imply doing nothing or very little? As a leader there are two answers to this: no and no! You may not have attended the same kind of village or town fetes that I did when I was a young boy, but I distinctly recall the celebrations in my local town often sponsored by fund-raising charities. Looking around the garishly adorned stalls, smelly food tents and games areas, my eye would always be drawn to a bizarre activity involving nothing more than a bicycle and a small corner of flat ground. I have no idea what this “event” was called, if indeed it had a name. For ease of reference let’s call it the slow bicycle race. The objective of this challenge was for one person at a time to ride the bike over no more than 10 or so feet but in the longest possible time; not to tear along the strip in under a second crashing into hay bales at the end, but to edge forward with grit, determination and unholy balance defying gravity and


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time. As a spectator sport it was fascinating for a plethora of reasons. It allowed you to take a proper look at the new kids in town without being accused of being rude. You could marvel at the jerks and twists the rider would force in order to keep the bike on its two wheels. You could enjoy the symphony of squeaks, pops and clangs as the rider would hold and release the brakes, the chain would snag on the gear cogs and the tires would rock and bounce on the floor. The thing that intrigued me above all of this was the sheer effort and concentration on the face of the rider and the beads of sweat that sprouted on his or her forehead. This person, desperately trying to tame a wild steel beast, would not be advancing forward, at least not to the human eye, nor would they be going anywhere at all it would seem, but the energy that went into the endeavor could power Japan’s largest power plant. It takes an enormous effort, clarity of purpose and determination to achieve ambitions that to the outside world may not appear to be heroic, grand or majestic, but nevertheless keep the organization firmly on track. Modest leadership ambition however creates opportunity, and with opportunity comes choice. Your organizational raison d’être will differ from the business or organization next door and to speak in anything other than broad terms would be unwise. However, I can guarantee that regardless of the type of operation you lead, you will have gone through or be going through some form of major change. Furthermore, it is certain that you will have an implicit or explicit vision for the organization on which you hope to deliver. You will rely on systems, processes and structures to get you there. You will employ workers that you hope will understand, get on board with and take the goals of the organization as their own. You will also operate in an environment that moves and shifts around you with a daily impact on you, your business and your leadership. The opportunity that modest ambition creates is that of being able to pause to look at each of these moving parts in the organizational system and then choose where your attention is required. What follows are priorities that might be higher up your list and for which you will want to have the right capabilities.

Modest leadership ambition: Consolidating change Change rears its head in very many ways in organizational life. There are planned, centrally driven change programs; day-to-day innovations at the interface with customers; behavior changes brought about by competitive pressures, training courses and the like; loosely managed


change initiatives that allow a thousand flowers to bloom; externally imposed edicts and regulations and other categories too. If we were to take a snapshot of the change activities in any organization, let’s say your organization, it would look like an exposed archaeological site. What it would show are the different layers of civilization built on top of one another. In some instances it would be apparent that previous cultures had cracked particular challenges, perhaps under floor heating or sanitation, while others had a less enduring impact. The layering of change efforts produces a melting pot of priorities, programs and change agendas, all with different birthdays and very few with clear expiration dates. From the perspective of workers within your organization it is something of a big ask to expect them to work out what is going on. If you want them to be archaeologists or anthropologists and devote themselves to piecing together the intricate change messages laid down like clues over time, then fine, but I rather think you would want them instead to focus on their work. Consolidating change is so rarely done by leaders these days. Many leaders prefer to put themselves on the map rather than continue building with their predecessor’s blueprint – sometimes for very good reasons and at other times for less noble reasons. If you can consolidate change, if you can be the organizational anthropologist that makes sense of what has been asked of the workers, if you can create value from the past rather than cement over it, then you might just achieve something that very few leaders before you will have done. What characterizes this approach, as compared to many that have gone before, is that it is a both/and strategy (that is, an embrace of both the change programs of the past and those that follow) rather than an either/or strategy (that is, an approach that cherishes either the preceding change programs or the change phase underway). What this requires of you to practically do is the following: • to not suggest or imply that the time before your arrival was a time when the organization was failing • to develop and articulate an organizational story that makes sense of the change programs of the past and the present • to seek out areas of the business where change programs have taken hold to good effect and understand why this has occurred • where possible transfer across and replicate lessons learned from successfully transformed areas of the business to those that are struggling with change


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Lying at the heart of much of the work you do here is sense making, dialogue and narrative. Your role as a leader in this mode is to discover for yourself how the various change programs in the organization (of past and present) fit together. This is not though simply an act of discovery in the sense that the various change efforts will line up in front of you revealing their rationales and the threads that link them together. It is of course a creative act that requires you to take a position on how you might weave them together. This is a powerful role that you can play and it will help the workers in the organization to understand that they are being led rather than being pelted with new ideas every minute and asked to clear up the mess. The imperative is the consolidation of change and in doing this you will avoid creating an organization with split or multiple personalities unsure in which way it should jump next. Some other qualities and skills that will support you in consolidating change are in the sections that follow.

Modest leadership ambition: Building and strengthening systems From a leadership perspective there are two key avenues through which you can exercise influence over the organization. The first is your people, and the second avenue is through the systems, processes, protocols and structures you operate. Turning to the second of these two, if your leadership has a modest plan, this is one area in which you can make a truly meaningful difference. Partly (but not entirely) reflecting this duality of method, leadership itself tends to fall into two broad styles, not the styles you might see set out in management books but those you would see demonstrated in practice. The first is what I would call an interventionist approach, and the second is a systemic approach. An analogy to help explain these two leadership styles is found in the medical profession. From an interventionist perspective, a surgeon might be called upon to correct, remove or otherwise operate on a specific part of the body to make a patient well. The work of the surgeon may, or may not be successful in itself, but it is without doubt a singularly focused intrusion; an intervention that begins and ends when the scalpel is taken out and the last stitch is sewn. Adopting instead a systemic perspective, it helps to think of a nurse or a holistic doctor that might be interested in the overall well-being of the patient. This would involve an approach to treatment that takes full account of age, medical history, diet, exercise,


genetic inheritance, lifestyle and the wishes of the patient. The specific treatment that follows would therefore combine clinical, behavioral and environmental factors to deliver a sustainable plan that would continue long after the doctor had faded to the background. We are not in either/or territory here and therefore not suggesting that interventionism is bad and systemic leadership is good. The solution clearly lies with both. The tendency however in leadership is to favor the former and the balance often needs to be redressed. Quite apart from this, in your leadership much can be achieved through ensuring you are building and strengthening the systems that drive the business. In consolidating change, the right systems will routinize and normalize the new world. To fully embed good practices and ensure they are repeated throughout the organization, it is systems and processes that will help most. So what might these processes be? These will of course vary and you will know the systems of your organization far better than anyone outside of it. But they might include any of the following: processes for handling customer complaints, deploying staff, capturing financial data, promoting to top positions, decisions for major capital investments, reviewing the success of projects, recording how staff time is allocated, understanding client requirements, tracking orders, determining budgets, handling staff grievances, recruiting graduates, selecting suppliers, recording meeting discussions, forecasting busy periods, managing sickness absence, directing inward telephone calls, capturing and sharing good practice, periodically controlling expenditure, managing organizational performance, managing people performance, project specification changes, resourcing new lines of business, exiting the organization, etc. Some of these processes you might feel are at a level you shouldn’t need to be involved with. You will recognize others as being more strategic. These decisions are yours to make, although I would encourage you to think hard for your own operation about which are which. Sometimes quite “low-level” processes barely blip on the radar of the leadership, but have a disproportionate influence on worker engagement and customer satisfaction. Examples might include customer complaints systems, performance management systems and staff deployment systems. The joy of course of systems and processes is that if you get them right they exercise the most incredible leadership you can imagine. It may feel strange to think in these terms and to implicitly put yourself out of a job, but elegant, efficient and powerful systems make great leaders.


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Try to identify a system within your business now that exemplifies how the organization has been changed for the better. You might need to take a few moments because we rarely equate matters of strategic change with such mundane matters of process. But, take the time to think. When you have an example in mind consider what has made the process effective, what has made it stick, what it has changed about customs and the culture of the organization. Now think about how the new system, structure or process exercises its own form of clear, transparent, powerful and sustainable leadership. Once it is working well this process needs no ongoing intervention from you or the leadership team. Workers understand what is required of them; the organizational “attack” is set and consistently driven home time and time again. From the standpoint of a modest ambition you can see how excellent leadership work can be executed taking a systemic perspective. An example that can be drawn from the wider world and one that very few of us will not have experienced or heard of is the airport passenger security systems that we now encounter in the post 9/11 world. For years the security systems in airports carried out good but manifestly flawed systems. They were partly effective, often triumphing symbolically but not practically. With 9/11 came the need to think differently about the security checking processes. For the moment, let’s put aside the broader efforts to gather intelligence on likely suspect passengers before they enter airports, in favor of an examination of the specific system that tracks passengers from check-in to boarding the aircraft. The redesign of the airport system, certainly for most international airports, now involves new expectations on passengers, such as extended check-in periods, the requirement to carry only small amounts of liquids on board (sometimes in clear plastic bags), limited size of hand luggage, the removal of shoes when passing through the archway metal detector, removal of laptops from hand luggage before entering the X-ray machines, the application of random checks, etc. Initially these checks were greeted with a mixture of feelings, from acceptance to rage, from discomfort to being comforted. Over the years, passengers have now started to take these procedures in their stride and build in extra travel time accordingly. The custom and culture around security processes has shifted and technology has ushered in Iris recognition systems and body imaging equipment. The training practices of airport security staff have shifted too. Overall, it is absolutely clear that attention by the leadership to the system has lead to a better and a more certain outcome in detecting and deterring airport terrorism. Better leadership through better systems.


The challenge of building and improving systems is considerable and the doing part of the job should inevitably be carried out by the experts, managers and, where needed, the technical people. As a leader you don’t need to roll your sleeves up in the same sense, not least because you might cause more damage than good. The demand upon you though is to understand the importance of the systems in the organization, to discover and pay attention to those that matter (to company success, the change agenda, etc.) and to use the power you possess to help make them optimal. Another vantage point that you hold is the ability to stand back and look at the totality of the systems and processes and take responsibility for ensuring they work together.

Modest leadership ambition: Understanding and leveraging strengths The work of David Cooperrider, who invented the concept of Appreciative Inquiry, is a great starting point when thinking about how best to leverage the strengths of an organization. Cooperrider has spent quite some years working with businesses, government and political leaders helping them to discover their strengths and to replicate and multiply the benefit of those strengths. We know that our default mode of analysis is to look for deficits, to look for the root causes of failure and fix them. Cooperrider proposes an analysis that asks us to look for the root causes of success and to learn how to make more of them. A quotation from Peter F. Drucker, the grandfather of leadership thinking, helps to emphasize this point: The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make weaknesses irrelevant (Peter Drucker interviewed by David Cooperrider, 2005)2 In your role as a leader you could spend quite a long time down the rabbit hole of finding problems. You may even believe that this is what you are meant to do and of course, as a leader, it is your prerogative. But framing your role and organizational life differently from the default can take you to some interesting and useful places. The second part of the phrase “Appreciative Inquiry” also reminds us of the beginning of this chapter where we talked about leadership activity and the analogy of formulating research questions. With Cooperrider’s work inquiry is an explicit dimension and the way the inquiry is positioned, in this case by looking for success and what works, determines the action that


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follows. For some this quickly becomes a difficult concept because it sounds like a rose-tinted spectacles view of the world. It can feel idealistic, unreal and naive. However, we conduct our business within the default problem-centered frame without even pausing for a moment. Once again we should not see the tools of leadership as a world divided into either/or, either adopt a problem-centered approach or adopt an appreciative approach. It should be both and at the moment we are looking to the appreciative end of the spectrum. I would ask you now to think about your organization and the various challenges it faces. Think about the kind of people you have, the projects that you run, the systems you operate, the products and services you provide, the change programs you have implemented and the culture you possess. With these and other activities in mind take one example of something that the organization has done that has been a success. It does not need to be a complete victory. It is ok if it has only been partial or there is still more to do. If you are feeling bold you may even want to identify the value and strengths relating to a project that mostly didn’t work. The point is that you will be able to discover aspects of the business that have been working well. With this example at the front of your mind your job now, and as a leader going forward, is to work out why full or partial success was achieved. Why were you able to combat the difficulties inevitably accompanying the challenge and overcome them? Ask yourself the question – what is it about this organization that made all of this possible? Let us imagine that your diagnosis leads you to four explanations relating to • the qualities of the individuals involved, • the aggressive behavior or competitors that forced you to move up a gear, • the informal networks within the organization that helped to quickly assemble the right people for the job and • proactive internal communications relating to the project. What you should have in front of you is truly powerful data setting out the conditions for success. As a leader you can seek to replicate, where appropriate, these conditions and if you are to attend to the sustainability of success you may also ask the organization to embed what you have discovered in the systems and processes. You can also adopt this strategy by looking beyond your operation to similar or even dissimilar organizations. For example, what has Apple Inc. been doing right that has made it one of the fastest growing most


inventive companies in the world? What is China doing right in being one of the fastest growing economies in the world? The method you use in answering these questions will encompass your own reading, research, conversations with executives, your imagination, etc. The more useful stage though in this is what you do with the answers, how you turn data about the strengths of others or isolated strengths in the business and turn them into organizationally wide strengths. Adopting a stance whereby leaders look to success and what works to inform their leadership is not limited to times when ambition is modest, as compared to times when ambition might be grander. However, in the context of a modest leadership ambition, and when you are looking also to shore up your systems and consolidate the change that has occurred within the organization, discovering and replicating strengths is the perfect accompaniment.

Modest leadership ambition: Actively scanning the environment In Chapter 2 under the heading of long-term leadership ambition we talked about horizon scanning. We are in similar territory here but for slightly different reasons. With modest leadership ambitions we might picture the organization as a boat being rowed along a stream. As a leader you will have taken the decision to travel at this pace while at the same time doing all the good things laid out in the preceding sections. However, quite separate from your leadership decision are the actions and behaviors of people and organizations beyond yours. Looking out to see whether a huge ship might speed by causing your boat to rock wildly from side to side, or looking ahead to see how the gentle current turns into the rapids, is vital. You need in many ways to remain just as, if not more, alert to factors in the environment than if you were advancing at pace. In the UK the story of the retailing giant Marks and Spencer plc encapsulates well the notion of failing to see well enough what was going in the environment. Marks and Spencer, principally a clothing retailer but known also for its food and furniture business, suffered a catastrophic earnings collapse between 1998 and 2001 after decades of unmatched retailing success. Its most spectacular growth period was between the early 1960s to the early 1970s when it doubled its sales volume, taking it to over $1 billion per annum, and profits similarly doubled. It operates in over 32 countries and only in recent years


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has the business begun to regain some of the ground it lost just prior its collapse. As with all major business crises and transformations this story has been analyzed over and over and I do not wish to walk the same path that others have done so well. However, one of the very many lessons we should take from this is about not resting on your laurels. As Marks and Spencer continued to plow what was a very successful furrow, competitors for its three main product categories, clothing, food and furniture, changed dramatically to match and often exceed the characteristic quality standard associated with the brand. Customer tastes shifted correspondingly and the winning relationship Marks and Spencer had with its customers started to weaken. Put simply the world changed enormously over the decades and the Marks and Spencer business model didn’t adapt quickly enough. The danger of course with a modest leadership ambition is that sometimes you have to run to keep up. In the dot com market you may even have had to sprint to keep up and we know that many dot com companies were out paced by the competition at the turn of the new millennium. Your success will be a function of how well you can track the behavior of the market and consumers and take account of what you discover. There are many ways you can do this and factors that you should consider. Here are some examples: • Develop relations with your counterparts in competitor organizations and meet them as regularly as possible. • Treat criticism (whether from the press, colleagues, customers, etc.) as data and not as something to fight against. • Pay attention to deviations from the norm in the data you receive, for example, in regional sales figures, seasonal trends, recruitment results, etc. • Actively review and manage risks and do not regard strategic risk management as a chore. • Create a cultural and physical environment that encourages rather than stems the flow of communication. These can be achieved through open plan work spaces, a flatter organizational structure, liberally scattered coffee bars, high visibility of the leadership, consultation processes on strategic issues, etc. On a personal level, you will have to be prepared to hear reports that you don’t like. Your employees, one would hope, should be comfortable in giving you some tough messages in the interests of the company. They should, for example, be able to let you know if your decisions


aren’t working, at least from their perspective. But, this is not always the case and often leaders hear the words “yes” in a disproportionately high number of instances, when a few more “no”s might be more helpful. You might find it helpful to ensure you hold on to your relationships outside of your work context and in doing so take the time to listen to what your friends, your kids, maybe even strangers tell you about the preoccupations of the day. It is very easy to become disconnected from the life beyond the walls of your organization especially as a leader, so seek ways to open up the data that flows to you. It might just save your business one day.

Grand leadership ambition In 1975 Bill Gates founded the Microsoft Corporation with the core mission for there to be “a computer on every desk and in every home.” This was not a vision about being great software developers or making fantastic computers, but something altogether grander and more inspirational. At the time, the vision was bold to say the least. There were only a few thousand personal computers sold in 1975 whereas now there are hundreds of millions of personal computers and laptops sold every year. Over 30 years later Bill Gates’s vision looks dangerously like coming true, not least because of the introduction of the $100 hand cranked laptop computer launched under the “One Laptop Per Child Program” by founder Nicholas Negroponte. Ambition of this sort, whether demonstrated by Bill Gates or Nicholas Negroponte, doesn’t come along every day. However, leadership ambition on a grand scale does not need to be long term, nor does it need to be high profile. There are more acts of great leadership ambition that we don’t hear about than the few wellquoted examples that we do. But regardless of the profile or longevity of such aspiration most leaders with a bold ambition in mind will need to possess vision, passion and commitment. These three qualities taken together provide an image of the destination, the fuel for the journey and the determination to get there. If you are a leader with high ambition for your organization you will need to check your kitbag that you have in place the following skills and strategies: • • • •

a powerful vision courage and confidence strong strategic alliances an attitude of self-care


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Grand leadership ambition: Creating a powerful vision Success for leaders with any level of ambition is predicated, at the most basic level, on two fundamental factors. The first is the presence of a vision and the second is the existence of followers. If you have the first of these but not the second, then you quickly become a lone wolf and arguably not a leader at all. If you have the second but not the first then you could be leading your people over a cliff without even knowing it, and I for one want to be counted out of your campaign. With grand ambition you are, by definition, asking a lot of yourself and of others, and the need to create a magnetic vision to which people can be drawn is paramount. The components of a powerful vision vary and it is true that in terms of content, the specifics of your vision will delight some people while turning others off. I am not here to tell you what sounds like a good or poor vision in terms of content. But putting content aside for the moment, it is worth examining the characteristics of visions that mobilize engagement, support and commitment and will therefore assist you in the journey that you lead. For your vision to inspire and move others it will be more successful if it includes some, if not all, of the following features. Please reflect on these in light of the vision that you commend to your people: • It should be visual and paint a picture of the future • It should be memorable and stick with people long after the vision has been described to them • It should be simple and elegant • It should evoke strong emotions, for example, excitement, fear, hopefulness • It should create a sense of urgency and suggest that there is no time to wait for action to be taken • It should convey a sense of challenge, struggle and even hardship in delivering on the vision • It should connect to values, ethics or morals and reach for a higher purpose • It should build a feeling of collective ownership and a shared endeavor These factors are concerned with what will help leaders to construct a powerful and compelling case for change. The greater the scale of change envisaged the more thought that needs to be given to the vision that is crafted. The operative word in this is “construction,” which is distinct from other interpretations of the word “vision,” which might


suggest a sudden epiphany or visitation of a fully formed plan to the mind of a leader. The argument here is that leaders need to work hard at developing their vision and what they need to hold in mind, above all other considerations, is how the vision will play with followers. There have been numerous occasions when I have heard, as I am sure you have too, a leader stand up in front of a group of people and say “I am very excited about this initiative,” but the tone of their voice, their posture and the look in their eyes tells a different story. The words I find running around my head at this point are “if you are so excited then why don’t you tell your face!” It is interesting how over the years in business, and society more generally, there has been a decline in acceptance of authority. The phrase used in some places is the “death of deference.” Accompanying this shift has been recognition that leaders can no longer command their workers to act. The days of shouting “jump!” to be greeted with the response “how high?” have gone. Now, in response to the command “jump!” the reply comes “why should we?” In business and in particular among change agents and leaders this has prompted a shift away from insistence to persuasion. Men and women that had previously stated their case plainly and simply now work much harder at articulating the burning platform from which to leap, they pay more attention to how people feel about the proposition and, often rather clumsily and awkwardly, present their own emotions – their excitement, their determination, their passion – whatever it may be. As a leader therefore the lesson is to remain truly and authentically connected to the feelings you hold in relation to your vision. It is also about being able to summon those feelings at will whenever people talk to you or you to them. It is about being sufficiently self-aware that you know when your nonverbal communication lets you down and says the opposite to your words and you can correct this accordingly. If you can add to this some or all of the bullet points highlighted previously then you will stand an excellent chance of tying together your followers to your vision.

Grand leadership ambition: Acting with courage and confidence The concepts of courage and confidence are easily thrown into the pages of a book, but far harder to maintain in the face of the slings and arrows that life and business throws at you. I have worked for years with emerging and established leaders and I can barely think of one person that has not been riddled with doubts and uncertainty at some


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X

Risk hungry

Open to risks

Predominantly cautious attitude

Minimal risk appetite

Risk averse (always seek to eliminate risk)

Figure 3.4 Different levels of risk appetite

point in their career. It goes with the territory and if the first chapter of this book has not been enough to convince you that it is tough at the top then your own experience, I am sure, will have done. Bold leadership ambition though requires personal courage and confidence and it is wise not to take this commitment lightly. A starting point in understanding your orientation toward this level of ambition is to consider your risk appetite. Figure 3.4 shows a simple spectrum of attitudes moving incrementally from risk aversion on the left to risk hungry on the right. Risk appetite is a measure of your general willingness to take risks. This differs from person to person and is context dependent. For example, some people feel more comfortable taking greater risks with their own money than they would with someone else’s (and vice versa). Similarly, in crisis situations people often feel compelled to climb up the risk line to the right-hand side where riskier options can appear much more palatable. Context is important and therefore in relation to your current role and ambition you should be able to place yourself on this axis. Take a few moments to think about where you would put a mark on the page that corresponds to your appetite. At this stage don’t spend too long in trying to determine the precise answer, instead go with what your instinct tells you. There are clearly other factors that inform you of your inclination to take on daring leadership challenges, but if your mark is in the area marked with an “X” you will find it a much easier journey to take.


Coupled with this is your self-confidence. Confidence is of course about assuredness, about self-belief and about security in your own decisions. In leadership it is a quality that has a direct bearing on your success. This is because your workers and those with whom you engage want to feel you are confident in your actions. Anything less begins to cast doubt on your credibility as a leader. It can be almost primal at times and signs of weakness no matter how small are picked up very quickly. But more than this you need to overcome any self-limiting beliefs that you hold if you are to embark on a difficult and ambitious journey. An examination of self-confidence can quickly become a deeply psychological issue. Rooted in your childhood experiences, in the failed attempts you have made in your life, in the disappointments and successes you have encountered is the source of your confidence or lack thereof. Directly related to this is your “internal voice” – the quiet, internal commentary you provide for yourself on yourself. This is usually involuntary and may not be something of which you are fully aware but it is worth taking the time to understand the tenor of your internal voice. I have worked with leaders who are dangerously self-critical, always looking for reasons to beat themselves up. Even at times when things are going well they will pick out the needle in the haystack of their otherwise faultless performance. The outcome to avoid in cases such as these is the prospect of derailing, which although may arguably prepare you for better leadership in the long run, is not something you will want to experience by choice. The second stage therefore in your assessment of your orientation toward taking on ambitious leadership challenges is to look at Figure 3.5 and quickly gauge the tone and strength of your own internal voice. As with the previous example you will find the journey that you take much easier if your mark is in the light gray area labeled with an “X.” This is not to suggest that you would not be successful if it isn’t, rather that you will need to have strategies for ensuring that your internal voice doesn’t get the better of you. The best place to start with this is not necessarily to plunge deep into your psyche and invoke every dark experience that you have ever had in order to vanquish each one. You may prefer this approach, but I would suggest starting small and working at a practical, rather than conceptual level. This might mean identifying the occasions when your internally critical voice is at its loudest and strongest. The instances when this happens could include when you stand up in front of people to present, when you confront tough issues, when you have to make quick decisions with incomplete information or when you have a quiet moment to yourself at the end of each day. If these are the times when you become your own worst critic then this is when you should resolve to wave through each criticism


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Highly

Strongly

Moderately X Mildly

X

Gently Seldom

Rarely

Occasionally

Often

Frequently

Figure 3.5 How self-critical are you? – strength and frequency of self-criticism

and challenge. Treat each attack on yourself as if it were a car that zooms passed you as you step out into the road. Don’t take it personally. Don’t analyze why it happened. Don’t get angry or upset about it. Just compose yourself for a second and then keep on walking. The more you do this the quieter your internal voice will become. Courage of course is about acting when you fully expect there to be difficulties or impending danger. You might therefore recognize that your risk appetite is quite low and that your internal voice is very selfcritical and very loud but, because you have an unswerving belief in the grand ambition you hold, you nevertheless commit to pressing on. A final stage therefore is to create what might be called memories of the future. This is a way of imagining in fine detail what might occur during the execution of your ambition. The reason for doing this is to engage with particular eventualities before they arise so that if and when they do you are less taken by surprise, more prepared, spend less time thinking about what to do, and spend more time progressing your ambition. All of this helps to boost your confidence and makes you more courageous in your efforts to moving forward. How this can be done will vary. It is easier to approach this with others (although perfectly possible to do it alone). You might for example want to engage your management team in this activity. What it involves is a process of moving from an impressionistic (or even very clear) vision of the future to a full description of what will happen as the vision is approached and eventually reached. You engage in thinking that requires you to picture how things would be if you had magically leapt forward in time and solved your problems as planned. The organizational structure


that constrains the operation so much disappears overnight, and what you thought was needed is up and running. The incentives scheme to improve retention for which so many have strived to fix is suddenly well established. The leadership team that workers so wish could be out there, walking the corridors every day, in front of us all. The visibility that we want of our leaders is staring us straight in the face. With our solutions living and breathing in front of us we can consider what they really offer. We can chart the impact elsewhere in the system. We can make a direct comparison to where we are now and evaluate the benefit. And we can build a memory of the future. In adopting this approach we paint a vivid and detailed picture of the ambition we hold. Leaders and experts in the field of organizational development always talk about the need for a compelling vision; a picture of the future toward which the organization can move. The strength of many organizational visions is that they possess a degree of fluidity and ambiguity. They provide enough shape and meaning to point us in a particular direction but aren’t so explicit as to restrict adjustments to the course as factors in the environment inevitably change. Creating memories of the future does not afford us the same degree of flexibility. Where, for example, the leaders of an organization determine that the culture should shift to an internally more collegiate approach to business, this method replies, “ok, you’ve got it, now how is this affecting the organization?” You can ask – how are we rewarding this behavior to keep it alive? What is happening to our more competitive and productive staff? How is this collaborative spirit changing our products? How is corporate knowledge being shared more effectively? What is frustrating us about this new culture? All of this builds your confidence in your convictions by describing the future as fully and vividly as you could describe how the organization has operated over the past year. An added benefit of this approach is that it allows you to really know whether your vision and your ambition are right. I very clearly remember when I was young the rich variety of children’s stories that I read or were read to me. Whether they were fairy tales, fables or reworkings of classic stories, they all played out a similar pattern of events. In the beginning, the main characters always seemed to experience some kind of hardship that caused them to go on a quest. We can see this in Puss in Boots – the cat that left his poverty-stricken master to find his fortunes in the land of the Marquis of Carabas (or London town in one version). The journey that the main characters undertook always seemed to be beset by trials, such as the unwanted attentions of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood or the wicked enchantress in Rapunzel.


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As the stories progressed, the perils always seemed to step-up, and in the more gruesome tales our main characters would have to fight off Pirates (Peter Pan), sea witches (The Little Mermaid) and even in the truly disturbing tale of Hansel and Gretel, we find the very parents of these two young children tricking them into danger. In many of these stories what is always striking as an interesting moral is the conclusion often reached by our journeymen that what they searched for did not in fact deliver all that was promised. Where wealth and fortune was pursued, the lesson was that family and they way of life already enjoyed at the outset was of far greater value. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is reminded that all she really wanted was to return to Kansas. Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk realizes that happiness doesn’t lie in magic beans. Even in the modern Disney story of Tigger from A.A. Milne’s original Winnie the Pooh, Tigger realizes that his true family are his friends and he has no need to continue his perilous expedition to find other Tiggers. Many of these wonderful stories teach us that what we hold as our ambitions are not always as we imagine. The excitement and thrill of getting there, in fairy tale land at least, may be worth the arduous voyage. But in real life, whether in business or at home, we often can’t afford the time and rarely have the resources to speculate on the outcome. Life may be less interesting as a result, but there is only so many times you can put boiling water under a chimney for a wolf to fall into. For leaders, and particularly ambitious leaders, risk appetite, confidence, one’s internal voice, courage and clarity of ambition are key considerations. Diagnosis in relation to each of these headings should be a first port of call for you and the development of strategies where appropriate should follow. Some of the consequences of setting your analytic pitch at a very high level and committing to a bold set of priorities for your leadership are the personal pressures, strains and demands that this can place on you. It is for this reason that self-care, explored in the next section, should also be on your agenda.

Grand leadership ambition: Exercising self-care The dashboard strategy for leadership explored in Chapter 1 is relevant to the issue of self-care. The dashboard has three components and three sets of indicators: • Dashboard Indicator 1: How you are being seen by the people around you


• Dashboard Indicator 2: How you are feeling at the time • Dashboard Indicator 3: How you are apprehending the situation you face It is dashboard indicator 2 “how you are feeling at the time” that offers a vital source of information that can help you ensure that you are exercising care over yourself. It can sound rather indulgent to talk about the importance of looking after yourself and for this reason some leaders blithely ignore their physical state, their energy levels, their emotional state and just keep on keeping on until something gives way. But as a leader you are what you need to rely on most. The sum total of the resources you have is you. You are the instrument of leadership and you need to be in tip top condition to execute your responsibilities. Where your strategy is stretching and ambitious it will, by definition, push you into territory where your skills and resilience are being tested. You will encounter dilemmas and conundrums that will break new ground for you. You will become exhausted. You will become disillusioned. You will suffer all of the side effects of leadership listed in Chapter 1, but at the more intense end of the spectrum. The first question that you should ask of yourself therefore is, “what strategy do I have for exercising care over myself?” This is not a rhetorical question. Pick up a pen now and write down a description of your self-care strategy. If this is not something you have thought of or you find it hard to articulate you may find the questions in Figure 3.6 a useful starting point. In looking at Figure 3.6 you should be able to answer “yes” to the great majority of questions asked in each of the two sections. If this is not the case, then I suggest you use the list as a study guide to now help you fill in the missing data and help shape a strategy. The premise is simple; this is that your well-being matters to you as a leader because of the scale and intensity of personal challenges you inevitably face. To look after yourself you need to understand how you process your experiences, particularly those that put you under pressure. Once you understand your habits, your routines, your weak spots and your emotional profile, you can then construct a managing strategy, one that minimizes the negative impact on your performance, and amplifies the enablers of a positive mental and physical state. A factor related to your ability to take care of your own well-being is the people that you have around you on which you must rely. This might be the management team, your personal assistant, administrative or secretarial staff or anyone else that is there for you. It is important that you understand that your role as a leader is not to sink to

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Yes/No?

1. Do you know what specific circumstances trigger exhaustion in you? 2. Do you know what specific circumstances cause you to be emotionally drained? 3. Do you know what specific circumstances trigger a lack of self-confidence within you? 4. Do you know in which specific circumstances you feel most energized? 5. Do you know how you contribute to your own stress levels? 6. Do you know how much energy you will need to commit to other areas of your life? 7. Do you know how to switch off? 8. Do you know the signs that indicate that you are close to becoming exhausted or emotionally drained?

Strategy considerations 1. Do you have people to whom you can regularly turn who help you to cope with the pressures you experience? 2. Do you routinely build time into your schedule for reflection? 3. Do you have a routine for relaxation or decompression? 4. Do you have a routine for maintaining physical health and well-being? 5. Do you have outside interests, hobbies or pastimes? 6. Do you have a healthy diet? 7. Do you have strategies that prevent you from repeatedly revisiting problems, worries or things that haven’t gone well?

Figure 3.6 Some questions to help you build a self-care strategy

levels of detail or operations that should be the responsibility of others. This is a common problem in leadership and is another potential drain on your energies. It can occur in many circumstances, but may include times when • there are underperforming/weaker members of the top team which require others, including yourself, to compensate for;


• leaders are new to their roles following promotion/recruitment (and they continue to do much of what they did before rather than stepping up); and • personal assistants and secretarial support are not sufficiently skilled in what is a difficult, unusual and critical support role. In all of these examples and other instances too there is only one way for you to respond, and that is to grasp the nettle and deal with the issues. For example, if any of your team members are underperforming you need to have the tough and honest conversation with them. You need to let them know clearly that they are underperforming and then agree a plan for resolving the problem. Few people like having these conversations particularly with colleagues with whom a personal as well as a professional relationship has been built. But if your ambition as a leader is on a grand scale you are only storing up problems for the future if you do not act now. Of course the benefits will be felt not only in terms of your own well-being and that of others, but also the chances of success in delivering on your vision. The broader principle being applied here is that of long-term gain for short-term pain. It might just be the case that to the question in Figure 3.6 “Do you know what specific circumstances cause you to be emotionally drained?” your answer is “yes,” and having tough conversations is an example of when this occurs. This is why a strategy for self-care is necessary, because you can determine in advance how you will approach these possibilities should they arrive, for example, will you grasp the nettle or allow problems to linger? The second component of this is the need for honesty with team members. This again brings advantages in terms of self-care, as it enables issues to be exposed and dealt with early so that they do not fester and cause greater damage. If you and your team can get into the habit of taking conversations along a path of honest and straight discussion you will benefit enormously. The operative word though is routine. If honest dialogue takes place infrequently the reaction by team members when it does happen will be to protect themselves against the prospect of criticism or attack. A useful means of routinely holding more honest discussions is to engage team members on the level of feelings, emotions and “gut reactions.” Use the language of feelings and emotions. Ask how they are getting on? If the work keeps them interested? Excited? Ask if they are hopeful about the prospects of success. What is getting them down? What is bugging them? What’s worrying them? Why are they going the extra mile? What does their gut instinct tell


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them about how the team is working? And when needed don’t be afraid to offer and ask for help. The single most important message in relation to self-care is that you recognize that it is a necessary part of your job as a leader and you do something about it. It is not a nice-to-have, providing there is time available to give it attention. It is not an indication of weakness or selfindulgence. It is not something that bad leaders need to do and good leaders don’t. It is what the very best leaders understand and take as a priority. Ask yourself now, what will you do differently from tomorrow to take better care of yourself?

Grand leadership ambition: Nurturing strategic alliances If at any point in your career you have participated in corporate management training and have been asked to solve a team challenge or simulation, you will probably recognize what follows. I recall one particular development program that I attended that involved what was a somewhat bizarre test of a team’s ability to put together a jigsaw. I think it was a jigsaw of a map of the world although it might as well have been a picture of a lump of coal in a dark room in a blackout for all the sense it seemed to make at the time. The design of the challenge involved four different groups of six people each who were encouraged to complete the task of constructing the jigsaw. That was it in terms of instructions – “complete the jigsaw! And now go into your rooms to commence the challenge.” We returned to our rooms with people we barely knew, to a challenge we didn’t understand, and to a table in the center of the room with 300 jigsaw pieces on it that looked like they had been sneezed from the nose of a giant. The usual mayhem then ensued. The competitive types launched themselves at the table grabbing at pieces, while the reflective learners stood back looking puzzled and pained. The self-professed leaders clumsily tried to take over and the pessimists pointed out that it could never be done. As the morning wore on, the trainers would periodically enter the room one by one and smugly hover at the back of the room causing the tension to build and bitter resentment to rise. Putting aside the increasingly problematic group dynamics it slowly became clear that there were not enough pieces in the room to complete the jigsaw, and oddly there were some duplicates. The task could not be done. Or at least it could not be done alone. The answer of course, which eluded us for many hours, lay not in ferocious competition


working in splendid isolation as we all had imagined, but in collaboration. To complete the jigsaw and be successful we needed to hold negotiations with other teams to secure the missing pieces in exchange for the duplicates we held. Those smug trainers momentarily appeared smarter than we had thought. As the scenario unfolded we muddled our way through the task flitting from room to room with designated negotiators. On this occasion I forget which team or teams finished the task first, but with a few points thrown in about communication and harmonious group working this was more or less where the learning took us for the day. What fascinated me most of all about this exercise was not so much the lesson about collaboration or the other add-ons, but instead the realization that once teams and individual members knew they needed to collaborate, some groups did it quicker, more effectively and more impressively than others. What I wanted to know above all was what the distinguishing qualities of these more successful teams were. What were they doing that others weren’t? The answer to this question was that the successful teams were reaping the benefits of preexisting alliances with people they knew. The alliances that made the greatest difference were not those that were created solely because the task turned into one of collaboration. These transactional relationships clearly helped, but they were clunky and impetuous and easily broke down. They were highly inefficient too because they didn’t have a foundation of trust or understanding on which to build. The alliances that made the greatest difference were those that had clearly been the product of prolonged relationship-building that predated the course. They were relationships that were manifestly deeper and closer than the transactional kind. But they were unmistakably professionally orientated (and not to be confused with friendships), which served to make them clearer and more focused. In short, the key to success in this exercise was not only to collaborate but to do so within a framework of preexisting strategic alliances. If you are a leader with bold ambitions the mountain you have chosen to climb will be steep and the journey will be arduous. To do this entirely by relying on your own strength, ideas and resources is to do it the hard way. Put simply, you will need help, and high on your agenda should be a commitment to build strategic alliances. The people and organizations that you forge alliances with will be for you to determine. However, to help you think about the universe of potential allies please look to Figure 3.7 for ideas and fill in the column on the right with some possibilities.

YOUR SECOND DECISION – HOW GRAND IS MY PLAN? Organizations or people that can

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Provide some examples in relation to your leadership ambition

1. Carry your message 2. Invest in your operation 3. Offer you ideas 4. Block your progress 5. Help your reputation/brand 6. Open doors for you 7. Comment publicly on your progress

Figure 3.7 Ideas to help you identify potential strategic allies

The basis of the alliances that you form needs, from the beginning, to involve an attitude of giving on your part. There is a wonderful and lesser-known short book called “The Book of Yo!” written by Simon Woodroffe, the founder of a chain of international sushi restaurants, Japanese style pod hotels and more besides. One of Simon’s sayings is, Tell people about your ideas especially those that might get stolen (The Book of Yo! Page 7)3 Simon’s approach is characteristically open and engaging and as a result people feel part of his endeavors, all of which have had a golden thread of innovation running through them. In building strategic alliances you have, for most part, to lay down the transactional dimension to the relationship. Sure, both parties are in it for the benefits they can ultimately receive, but in terms of sequencing the relationship and the dialogue comes first and the business comes later, possibly days, months or years later. The specific set of skills needed to successfully establish and operate strategic alliances centers on engagement and all that goes with it, such as networking, extroversion, dialogue, emotional intelligence and confidence. They call upon you to get out there, to get your name out there and to be known as someone that can be trusted. Consider now where you are strong in these skills and where you might need to be doing more. Consider also what can help you in this task. What can


your communications people do for you and to your reputation to be consistent with these aims? How can your existing network plug you into other potential allies? And finally, consider this last question and write down now your answer to it: Your answers:

Final question: What is it about you – the way you operate, the ideas you bring, the type of person you are – that would inspire other leaders to want to forge strategic alliances with you? Put yourself in their shoes. What do they see that attracts them? For what reasons would they feel good about partnering with you? What is going to excite them about engaging with you? These are strength-based questions, so no self-critical internal voices please. Just understand why you personally are a good prospect as an ally. Find a piece of paper, scribble in the box provided, whatever it takes, but make sure you take five minutes to capture the answers to these questions. Your final answer:


Knowledge review and reminders 1.

From all that you know of yourself, what would you say is your appetite for different levels of leadership ambition (for example, modest and grand ambition)?

2.

In your current leadership role how much freedom to operate do you have, and how might this affect the pitch of your ambition?

3.

To what extent is your inheritance (organizational well-being, top team, mission, workers, etc.) an influence on the level at which you pitch your ambition?

4.

Taking all of these factors together, at what level would you pitch your leadership ambition (think of a scale of 1–5, with 1 ⫽ little ambition and 5 ⫽ highly ambitious).

5.

Based on the level of ambition for your leadership, have you pinpointed the key skills and qualities that you will need to be effective?

6.

Have you conducted a self-audit of the skills and qualities you currently possess?

7.

What would you say are the top 3 top priorities for you in terms of building your capabilities?

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4

Your Third Decision – How Broadly Will I Lead?

Some years ago I undertook some evaluative work looking at the challenges of government programs designed to tackle deprivation around the world. The places examined included Harlem and the Bronx in New York, inner city London and the slums of central India around Hyderabad. All of the locations examined were undergoing some sort of turnaround, and the purpose of the exercise was to understand what seemed to work best. The models in each country were very different and this in itself was fascinating. In Harlem and the Bronx, the central strategy to tackle the problems of the area was to hothouse new businesses through preferential loans, grants and other forms of business funding. This followed the infamous zero-tolerance to the crime clean up of Manhattan which started with Times Square and moved to areas such as Harlem and elsewhere. Up until the late 1980s and early 1990s Harlem was regarded by many tourists as a “no go” area, and local tour operators would provide what was known as drive-by tourism where visitors would remain on the tour bus and only allowed to view the local sights through the windows. Things have changed dramatically over the last two decades to the extent that house prices are rising in the area and more and more retail brands have set up shop in the heart of Harlem. Harlem and increasingly the Bronx have become turnaround successes. In the slums of central India the model is different from that in the States. Efforts to combat poverty are based on an alliance between the local government and the slum residents who proactively take ownership of their issues and set about physically improving their situation. In some slums the local authority representatives visit with what looks like a large sign detailing a skeleton street plan of the slum residence. Through dialogue between residents and local officials agreement is reached on how the skeleton will be filled out. The sign is drawn on showing the site of new sanitation channels, water pumps, fresh roads, 124

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housing, etc. The sign is planted at the entrance to the slum representing a contract between the residents (who will undertake much of the work) and the local government (who will play their part). The result is a powerful symbol of two-way accountability. In inner city London, the approach adopted is highly eclectic. Local businesses will set up shop incentivized by favorable rates; local governments backed by central government will plow in funding to areas of identifiable need. Residents in the area will work with Local Strategic Partnerships, Housing Associations, local Non Government Organizations/charities, etc. – all with the aim of tackling the problems of the area. Why is this relevant to this third question of “how widely should I cast my net?” If you take the issue of deprivation and break it down to its constituent parts then, regardless of which country or place you look to, the complexity of the situation quickly floats to the surface. In order to deal with deprivation and its causes you need to consider multiple factors such as the role of unemployment in the area and its surrounds, the quality of education, the prevalence of crime, the physical environment itself, the physical and mental health of residents, the family environment, the rate and ages of pregnancy, the housing stock, the presence of drugs, the degree of migration into and out of the area, the economic conditions that relate to the region, the type and degree of business that is attracted to the area, the demographics of the population, etc. The challenges are clearly interconnected and as a leader of your slice of the system, let’s say a leader of the health services in the area, it is questionable whether a narrow approach focusing on one service/activity alone would make a dent in the broader question of reducing deprivation. Furthermore, your ability to improve the health of people in the locality – where your responsibility undoubtedly lies – is limited, constrained and is effectively sabotaged by these other factors. You could argue therefore that success, no matter how you cut the cake, is dependent upon your engagement with the issues, people and institutions that stand outside of your formal locus of influence. The question is, how far into these other domains will you travel? How widely will you cast your net? This question, like our previous first-order questions, is partly about personal preference and partly about your judgment of what is required for the job. One example of the role your personal preferences play in this context is the degree to which you might regard yourself as an extrovert or an introvert. One well-reported difference between these personality types is that introverts tend to favor a small number of deep


relationships with people, while extroverts prefer a greater number of shallower relationships. While we are of course dealing in generalities and the labels may not work for you, there is no doubt that we all have fairly well-worn habits and default preferences. I suspect you will know which side of this polarity that you fall on. As a consequence broader engagement with the system can fit more easily with extroversion as it relies to some degree on personal preferences for networking, quick relationship-building and a fluency in social situations – many of the qualities that extroverts typically possess. Narrower engagement with the system keeps relationships focused and closer to home and can work well alongside a preference for introversion. This is but one of many personal considerations likely to affect how much you will seek to influence different parts of the system. Other personal dimensions to your decision-making might include: • The sheer complexity of systems thinking can leave you feeling bemused, deskilled and like a fish out of water. You may or may not want to usher in still greater degrees of complexity to your role as a leader. • The time investment required if you are to engage across the system can be considerable. You may or may not feel that you can afford the time for this kind of activity. • The “pay off” may not occur for quite some time and you may feel that you are expending a lot of nugatory effort. You may or may not have the patience for this approach. • The attention that you inevitably must direct externally is energy that you direct internally within your organization. You may or may not be comfortable with the trade-off required in systems leadership. • Previous decisions relating to your time ambition and the scale of your leadership ambition may suggest a particular approach to systems leadership. You will find it helpful to understand your own preferences, tolerances and temperament when you engage in systems leadership. This is because it calls upon you to articulate your wishes and intentions in domains where your authority may at best be challenged and at worst disregarded. It is a form of leadership where many of the usual rules don’t apply. The levers to which you can usually refer have magically disappeared and the power you seemed to hold unquestionably within your organization must be negotiated outside. Before we explore this any further let’s dig a little deeper into how we might picture the system into which you may choose to plunge.


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Mapping your system Systems are messy things. They are comprised of the organizations, individuals and forces that operate in the environment. Each of these entities has different histories, objectives, resources, needs and powers. They constantly interact with each other both directly and indirectly and as a consequence shape one another. The scene looks like one of children in a playground running around, bumping into one another, joining arms, making friends, fighting, competing and making lots of noise. As in the school playground, fashions and trends take over from time to time. Sayings suddenly crop up and are repeated ad infinitum. Gangs form and as the school years advance members move in and out of different groups. The bullied in the first few years become the bullies in later years. The clever kids, the sporty boys and girls and the cool crowd all gain and exert power in different ways. The actors in the system through their interactions come to create the system in which they live. No one individual or group of children or teacher or school rules govern the way the system is developed. It is the product of the complex relations between all these players. The universe around which we draw a circle delineates what we will pay attention to and what we will decide to leave alone. This doesn’t of course mean that the system is truly bounded in this way. A butterfly flapping its wings in Japan may cause an earthquake in California, but we may simply choose not to include butterfly behavior in our analysis of seismic activity. It is a choice and therefore only ever a partial reflection of the fullness of the system. Figure 4.1 provides an appropriately messy representation of a system in which business leaders might operate. As the example above suggests, it is a partial view of the system as if it was an inset to a larger diagram. As you look at this map please focus your thoughts on two questions, from your perspective what are the specific names of the people and the organizations that correspond to the generic headings provided? And what is missing from the diagram in your world? In this diagram, if you were able to scroll outside of the box using the arrows shown, you would see an even larger map of interdependent variables. From your own perspective these variables might appear increasingly remote and potentially less relevant the further you wander from the center. It is this stretch, and at times a leap of faith, that is required if you are to acknowledge and traverse the wider terrain of the system. Returning to this miniature version of the diagram for the moment and focusing attention on the shaded area in the map, you can start to describe the system at a greater level of granularity.


Investors

Government / regulating bodies

Audit institutions

Industry bodies Commentators and opinionmakers

Political figures/ parties

Shareholders

Labor supply universities, colleges, business schools, etc. Banking institutions

International competitor/similar organizations

Suppliers to your suppliers

Suppliers to your organization

Press and the media

Management consultancies

your organization YOU

Customer / citizen representation groups Lobby groups

Domestic competitor / similar organizations

Think tanks and research establishments

The unions Commercial property companies

Non Government Organizations

Figure 4.1 A representation of a system in which business leaders operate

The questions that you need to ask, for example, are, who are the suppliers with whom my organization has relationships and who personally do I engage within these companies? Who are the political figures that can extend influence over my organization and with whom do I have good working relations? Which parts of the media take an interest in my organization and who are the journalists, writers and editors with whom I have established links? What do I know of the customer representation groups and with which figures do I meet? The levels at which you connect to these entities within the system will need to make sense in relation to your own level, and the types of conversation you hold will vary accordingly. The point in all of this is about holding a picture in your head of the system in which you operate and in having a position on how you will engage with it.


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Authority, perspective and flux There are three more flies in the ointment when it comes to exercising leadership across a system. The first is the rather unpleasant realization for leaders that the further you move away from the epicenter of the system the more your authority diminishes. What this talks to is the authority to which you have become accustomed within your own organization where you fit within a hierarchical structure, where you have direct reports and access to resources. You may of course have a natural authority, gravitas or way about you that tends to make people listen in any situation, but most of the very useful organizational paraphernalia associated with your leadership “at home” fades to white. You suddenly become a lone wolf separated from the pack, thrown back on your own resources and skills of survival. This is not a problem but a call for you to consider how you will lead beyond organizationally underwritten authority. The second intricacy relates to the fascinating question of perspective. Actors across the system simply see the same issues differently. It is like swimming in a clear turquoise sea and below you there is a moray eel with its devilish head poking out of a coral block. To the swimmer the moray looks like it will attack in the blink of an eye and drag you down kicking and spluttering to the murky depths. Conversely, the moray is of course petrified by what appears to be a six-feet long, oddly shaped pink creature splashing ungracefully on the surface. Many of the smaller reef fish swim blithely by just a few inches away from the mouth of the moray totally unaware of its existence or its intention to snap up its breakfast when the opportunity arises. Ironically, inside the moray’s mouth sits a busy cleaner shrimp feeling safer than any other creature in the sea. It would provide a great snack for the moray, but it is a treasured guest allowed to roam in and out of the moray’s fearsome, razor-sharp teeth. Perspective serves to define what is going on in the scene but it quickly becomes clear to those that wander around the system that descriptions of what is occurring and what matters can differ widely. The leadership challenge comes in treating different perspectives with equanimity and seeking to understand others rather than covert them to your way of seeing. Quite a conundrum if your motivation for entering the further reaches of the system is to do just that. Adding further to the complexity of the question of perspective is the diversity of allegiances that individuals hold. It is helpful to the think of a rainbow with all the colors it contains running from red through to violet. Each color carefully delineated from the next represents an anchoring perspective. The first might be the organization that you work for (situated in your part of the system). The second might be the


level at which you operate. The third might be a profession to which you belong, such as Accountancy or Human Resources. The fourth might be your personal values, and so on. These perspectives, which are unlikely to match yours, will go some way to helping you understand how the world looks from the other end of the telescope. The system in which you conduct your business also undulates and changes shape as the constituent parts shift their positions; two companies merge while two others de-merge. One banking institution drops its interest rate and others follows suit. The government launches an initiative in the sector and competitors fight over large new contracts. Prominent Chief Executive Officers retire and move to other organizations taking their knowledge with them. Nonexecutive directors do the rounds carrying learning and different practices throughout the system. A few dot-com companies go under and others get nervous and begin to shed workers. As accounting regulations become more stringent and IT continues to grow in importance, accountants and IT experts negotiate higher salaries. Wage bills rise and cuts are sought in other parts of companies across the system. Your task in navigating the system needs to adapt all the time along with the system itself. The maps need to be updated to reflect changes, and because your relationships will practically be with individuals rather than entities you need to revise your black book of contacts at least every few weeks depending on how widely you have cast your net. All of this leads to four important conclusions that provide a final indication of the complexity that systems leadership offers: 1. Because different forces in the system depend upon, shape and feed off one another, the success of your organization (as one of the entities within it) is as much a product of the system as it is an influence on it. 2. The system is bigger than any single one of the forces in it to the extent that if you, as a leader, want to fashion the system (perhaps to improve your organization’s prospects of success) you necessarily have a tough job on your hands. 3. Like the ocean, the system ebbs and flows shifting its form as changes occur within it. This raises the level of difficulty of engaging with a moving target. 4. A fourth notion of which you should be aware is that you do not stand outside the system looking in. You are not like a visitor to the zoo staring through the bars into the monkey cage fascinated by how they live, feed, mate and interact. You are in there with the rest of the animals making sense of what occurs while also living with what occurs.


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Leadership, breadth of ambition and the tools for the job Different skills and qualities are required depending on how broadly you choose to lead across the system. As with other first-order questions, the breadth of your leadership will reflect your appetite for a systems approach, your personal preferences and your sense of what the job requires. Narrower leadership ambition is about a deliberate strategy of focusing your efforts on those organizations and people that are closer to you. This is not a lesser form of ambition; in fact it may fit better with grand leadership ambition (discussed in the previous chapter) than a broader engagement strategy. This is because as you cast your net widely this disburses your energy and attention and the pay off may take a long time to come. Broader leadership ambition is about a managed approach to connecting to and influencing actors widely across the system. In both sorts of leadership the outcomes you are seeking to achieve are similar. Both approaches will be focused on getting other parts of the system: • • • • • •

to understand and be understanding of your leadership campaign to be persuaded of their connection to you and your organization to see you and your operation as a force for good to support your cause when the opportunity arises to take opportunities to work together for mutual benefit to align activities where possible and not to act in opposition to one another • to share resources, people, risks, facilities, governance, insights or information when it makes sense to do so • to help you see their perspective so that your cause is as well informed as it can be Figure 4.2 provides an illustration of some of the skills and attributes needed for success according to the breadth of leadership ambition.

Narrower leadership ambition The highly focused approach synonymous with narrower leadership ambition involves understanding who needs to be on your radar, how best to secure meaningful relationships with them, how to keep the relationships alive and how to get to action that delivers benefits to all parties.


NARROWER LEADERSHIP AMBITION

BROADER LEADERSHIP AMBITION



✓ Identifying truly key influencers

✓ Demonstrating presence and impact

✓ Building deeper relationships

✓ Building networks and publicity channels

✓ Sustaining engagement by demonstrating progress

✓ Creating distributive leadership

✓ Searching for win/wins

✓ Searching for win/wins

Figure 4.2 Skills and qualities that have particular value according to the breadth of leadership ambition

Narrower leadership ambition: Identifying truly key influencers Picking out from a very busy map of organizations and people who best to spend your time on is not as easy as it sounds. The selection process needs to feature some important criteria and your efforts, at least initially, need to be directed at capturing the data to answer these questions: 1. Who in the system can extend the greatest influence (positive or negative) over the success of you and your organization (identify 3–4 people/entities, overlaps with other answers are fine)? This is a deceptively difficult question to answer. The first point to note is that this refers to both you and your organization and there may in fact be different answers to each. An aggressive journalist may have little interest in your organization but might be dead set on tackling you personally. Secondly, this question is about the capability of other parts of the system to extend their influence over you but also about the likelihood that this will occur. Your attention should be focused therefore on those people and organizations that possess the motivation, the capability and the opportunity to impact upon you and they should be at the top of your list. 2. Which organizations in the system have the best fit (share the greatest similarities) with the vision and mission of your organization (identify 3–4 people entities, overlaps with other answers are fine)? To respond to this you need to have done the research on what other operations are attempting to do. It will pay to take the effort to learn about the motives, business model, aspirations, values, financials, recruitment strategy, etc. of nearby parts of the system. The advice here is to do your


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homework and then you can confidently decide where the best fits exist between your and other organizations. 3. Where do the greatest opportunities lie for collaboration (identify 3–4 people/entities, overlaps with other answers are fine)? Collaboration can come in many forms ranging from information sharing through to shared projects and to part/full mergers. In searching for the answer to this question you should look not only to other organizations at the transactional level, for example in seeing the opportunity to jointly share the financing of a project, but to a deeper level of culture, values and norms. It is the latter that will truly determine the chances of success and the sustainability of the partnership. 4. Which organizations could you simply not afford to be closely connected to (list 3–4 people/entities, overlaps with other answers are fine)? You will most likely already be engaging regularly with organizations such as these. However, it is interesting how easily we take for granted some of the relationships we hold and forget how critical they are to us. The list might include loyal, dependable and trustworthy suppliers, longstanding professional support firms such as legal services or Human Resources, or technology infrastructure partners. The reason why this activity is so critical is that there will be very few, if any other people, in your organization who are able to take this bird’s eye view of the system and act accordingly. It is truly a job of leadership which connects the analysis of the system at a suitably high level with the personal action that will follow. There are equally few people who will be judged credible enough to step out of their own organization to shape others in the system. As you answer these questions and follow the process through to its conclusion you can create a map of perhaps 3–8 islands that are currently separated by blue sea and now form your priority relationships. You may find it useful to draw this picture on a piece of paper showing in annotated form the nature of the relationship that currently exists. Figure 4.3 shows one way that you might do this. This example assumes you are a professional services organization in the field of accountancy and audit. In your own case, try to make the picture as lively and meaningful as possible so that it tells you a story about what is going on in the scene. This pictorial sketch approach works very well as it helps you to bring to the surface the issues that are sitting within your head but you may not have articulated before. The picture implicitly communicates the distance between the entities in your map and it helps too to capture


Your principle competitor A

Excellent links

Top universities providing graduate entrants

Weak links Excellent links

Traditionally poor relations but very similar size, shape and visions

Your principle competitor B Shared governance

Very influential on the sector but poor at engaging and stringent changes expected

Government regulator of your services

Your organization

Chartered accountancy profession and training body Ideal relations, organizationally and CEO to CEO

Figure 4.3 Pictorial map showing relationships with key influencers (example of audit and accountancy professional services firm)

the strength of connections. It can be used to reveal your dominating thoughts about particular actors such as the government regulator in the example depicted as a storm cloud. It also provides a point of access to key questions such as those in the example: • What would need to happen in order for your competitor A to be as close to you as competitor B? • How could the close relationship you enjoy with the professional body be used to still greater effect? • What would be needed to turn the weak links you have with key universities into strong links?


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• What stands in the way of the government regulator being on receive as well as transmit? • What can you do to turn the storm cloud into bright sunshine? As a priority you should keep up to date with changes in the operations and the personnel of the key influencers as they will change often. Once however you have a clear view of who you should engage with, there are then questions, considered in the next section, about what form this should take.

Narrower leadership ambition: Building deeper relationships The undeniable advantage of a narrower engagement strategy over a broader approach is the opportunity to devote more time and effort to the key influencers you have identified. The risk, to be considered later, of casting your net too widely is that a lot of interesting dialogue can take place across the system but very little action follows. Having personally worked in an international environment where Memorandums of Understanding are ceremonially signed on a daily basis between organizations in different countries, I have seen once glorious documents duly stamped, signed and accompanied by expensive gifts quickly gather dust through lack of use and inaction. Relationships of course can only be labeled as such if they involve active liaison, a rapport and something to direct energies toward. This is not though about becoming wholly transactional as discussed earlier. A transactional or contractual element may emerge but if this is the only dimension of the engagement then this falls more into the category of everyday business and will not require your leadership intervention. The skills required in establishing strong relationships are similar to those that you would use in other situations drawing on emotional intelligence, focusing on common issues and a being concerned with the interests of the other parties. However it is worth highlighting a few features that move relationships to a deeper level. An aspect worthy of attention is what I call the keystone virtues which comprise: • • • • •

Trust Understanding Respect Honesty Warmth


The duality of these virtues is that they are very easily said and rarely demonstrated. In the field of executive education individuals from corporate backgrounds come together to learn about everything from strategy to innovation to team building. At the start of these engagements experienced tutors will ask of the participants what ground rules they would like to observe as they work and learn together over the following days. The list that is produced always contains the statement of keystone virtues, and perhaps a few more, and then during the course of each program they are systematically ignored, forgotten or trampled all over. This is because when times are tough and people are under pressure trust rapidly evaporates, honesty flies out of the window, warmth gets squeezed out by competition, understanding takes a back seat and respect barely hangs on by its fingertips. The missing word therefore that needs to be added before each and every one of these keystone virtues is • • • • •

Demonstrating trust, Demonstrating understanding, Demonstrating respect, Demonstrating honesty and Demonstrating warmth.

Keeping this at the front of your mind serves to slightly, but significantly, reposition your leadership in relation to the key influencers on your map. It turns each type of virtue from something you possess to something you must do. On average people are not psychic and in the absence of information or evidence to the contrary most people will hold back on the trust they have in others, how honest they are with others, the understanding they seek, etc. Relationships cannot be established at a deeper level if reservations of this sort are circulating. The question then follows – how can you demonstrate these virtues and not just assume others will know you possess them by the glint in your eyes? It is important that you undertake the thinking to answer these questions and in doing so that you get into the habit of practicing what you believe rather than just believing it. You will find that some of the following themes emerge: • Discussions that focus on feelings, hopes and motivations help to demonstrate understanding, warmth and respect. • Honesty can be demonstrated by freely giving information without also giving an impression that you expect something in return.


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• By proactively giving genuine compliments and showing appreciation you can build respect and demonstrate warmth. • Get into the habit of saying what you mean and people will trust in you.

Narrower leadership ambition: Sustaining engagement by demonstrating progress Continuing with the example at the beginning of this chapter of the regeneration work undertaken in Harlem, the Bronx, inner city London and Hyderabad, one of the secrets of success in each case was the way in which progress was demonstrated as the programs developed. This took many forms, whether it was publicity, word of mouth, technical evaluations, or proclamations from senior figures, for example by President Clinton in the case of Harlem. This undeniably kept the momentum going and caused others, including businesses, to have and convey confidence to their investors. This is not a trifling issue for areas that have been in depression for so long. The first surge of activity has to be incredibly powerful almost like trying to push an enormous boulder downhill. When people stand by and watch others straining and sweating as they struggle to move the rock just one inch the task looks impossible. Areas that have suffered from a lack of investment, high crime, low employment, poor housing and low educational achievements for many years resemble the rock wedged in the mud, and for good reason. But when the critics see the evidence of the boulder moving with their own eyes or hear the cries of jubilation then, and only then, will they start to put their backs behind the effort. Everyone likes to back a winner, but they have to believe first. Successful and enduring relationships are the same particularly where a relationship does not need to exist such as those across the system. The job for you as a leader is to consider how you will sustain the relationship by highlighting the progress and value that arises as a result. A theme that this introduces to leadership is that of the social construction of reality, known also as a constructivist approach. In the field of the social sciences there are two dominant perspectives on the way the social world might be apprehended. The Positivist approach is borrowed principally from the natural sciences and it argues that there are observable and measurable events and facts that exist in the world “out there.” This is a world that we can look at like a scientist might examine bacteria under a microscope. The Positivist school of


thought implies a separation between observers and observed, which allows an objective analysis of the social event under analysis. The Constructivist approach is anchored in the belief that the process that leads us to understand what is occurring in the world “out there” is far from independent or objective, it is instead the result of discourse that serves to construct the reality we see. In the context of leadership because leaders possess power, influence and voice, their ability to shape the construction of reality can, at times, be much greater than others. A very specific example of this point relates to the justification for declaring war on Iraq in 2003. The position taken most notably by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair just before the invasion was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction deployable within 45 minutes. The precise piecing together of the various messages about the threat is quite a task in itself as the “data” came in at different times, from different quarters and under increasingly tense circumstances. Nevertheless, one of the most publicly stated reasons for the conflict that then ensued was the weapons of mass destruction argument. The subsequent attack on Baghdad and other sites around the country did not reveal the weapons that were reported and this was consistent with the UN weapons inspection program that commenced in 1991 finally spearheaded by Hans Blix. We cannot know what information was received by the UK and the US about the weapons that Saddam Hussein’s army held and therefore it is hard to judge whether the leadership responded “correctly.” We cannot fully understand the pressures that the leadership were put under in allied countries and whether therefore the leadership were in fact responding to the wishes of the electorate. We cannot tell whether in fact there were weapons of mass destruction secreted around the country and the searches have not yet revealed what was there. These, however, are not the points on which I want to focus. The point of this example is that leaders, working together, were able to convincingly construct a reality about a threat that then justified the action that followed. The construction in this example has rather negative connotations to it that are not necessarily found in all instances of social construction. In fact the constructivist concept talks about how a plethora of actors contest how situations are seen and there is rarely comprehensive agreement on the “truth” of any event or social occurrence. Furthermore, the concept does not imply any deception or falsehood as this example may be understood to mean. This could of course not be born from the constructivist concept as it does not recognize truth as an objective reality and therefore misrepresenting it would be impossible. However, power does have its part to play in the


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act of social construction and the voices that are heard most audibly tend to be the most powerful. Social construction and leadership therefore go hand in hand whether or not leaders see it in these terms or use these words to describe what is going on. So whether we are talking about the war in Iraq, the success of programs to tackle social deprivation or the progress made between leaders of different organizations across the system, attention needs to be paid to how “the reality” of the situation will be forged and then how it will be experienced. In the case of this last example we are interested in how the reality will be perceived by those looking in at the relationship from outside, but particularly the parties that are directly involved. If you, as a leader, engage with a small number of other leaders in the system, you will want to feel, as others will want to, that the relationship possesses some form of synergy, that it feels positive, that it feels nourishing. Your role in helping to create this reality is not just important, but essential for its sustainability. The ways to do this are for you to decide but could include regular acknowledgements of the usefulness of the relationship, messages internally within your organization highlighting the benefits arising from inter-organizational relations, involvement of key influencers in your organization’s activities (awards, conferences, training and development), etc. Above all, the questions you need to ask of yourself as a leader are “what reality do I want to help construct with regard to my relationships with key influencers?” and “what steps will I take to achieve these objectives?”

Narrower leadership ambition: Searching for win/wins Success in working across the system no matter how narrowly or broadly depends on the delivery of desirable outcomes to those that agree to cooperate. In terms of your leadership, your added contribution to the system should increase the value delivered to yourself and each of the parties with whom you work. This can be expressed as an equation as follows: c ⫽ vy ⫹ vd ⫹ ve ⫹ vf ........ (where c represents your contribution, v represents the value delivered, y represents yourself/your organization and d, e, f, etc. represent the parties with whom you collaborate) The equation can also be seen from the perspective of each of the other parties with whom you work who should, in turn, add to the total


value created. Looking at the proposition in this way invites you to consider the benefit you receive as part of the same equation as the benefit that others receive from the engagement. At a practical level this introduces the mindset of looking for win/wins; always searching for opportunities to create gains for both sides; thinking not in either/or terms, which would suggest that one party wins and the other loses, but in both/and terms, where success is when both parties profit. This approach can require you to adjust your mindset because it calls upon you to divide your attention between your organizational needs and the needs of others. You have to take a much more proactive, empathetic and curious stance in relation to your competitors, your suppliers and other key influencers. They come to matter to you in ways they didn’t before and, in a strange sense, you become a leader not only of your organization but you use your leadership as a resource in the interests of other organizations. Another way of looking at this is shown in the diagram in Figure 4.4. Finding win/wins is not easy. It requires a creative mind to reframe a given dilemma facing one, both or more parties and come up with ideas that are mutually advantageous and implementable. Some interesting examples spring to mind. One example is of supermarket stores that at the end of each day distribute food that has not been sold from the shelves to local community centers providing food and accommodation to the homeless. This delivers a “win” to local people while at

Locus of positive Influence of Leader A

Locus of positive Influence of Leader B

Locus of positive Influence of Leader C

Locus of positive Influence of Leader D

Locus of positive Influence of Leader E

Locus of positive Influence of Leader F

Figure 4.4 A representation of how a win-win mindset causes leaders to lead positively in the interests of other organizations


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the same time enabling the supermarket chain to “win” by honoring its corporate social responsibility. Another example is the parking lot companies that invite car wash operations to provide services on their sites. This helps to make these parking lots more attractive and more competitive as car owners make better use of the “dead time” while their cars are parked. Another is that of the fire and rescue service where chief fire officers have forged links with community leaders and senior police officers to capitalize on the trusted brand of the service. This has meant that support and education has been provided to “at risk” teenagers at fire stations keeping them from crime and antisocial behavior. This delivers a win to community and police leaders, a win to the teenagers and a win to the fire and rescue service that add in their own education about fire prevention and benefit from increased applications to join the service. Innovations such as these can of course be discovered by workers at the front line, although they are typically endorsed or made possible by the leadership and the relationships they have fostered. Think for yourself about your two closest key influencers and consider the win/wins that have yet to be realized. Imagine for a moment that you do not lead your own organization but, taking each of the other two organizations in turn, suppose instead that you were at the helm. Visualize from the perspective of each organization what would need to be in place for you to be successful. Describe what a win for you would look like. After you have done this switch to the next key influencer and after you have done it return to your own organization. Once you have a list of a few key outcomes for each organization, pose yourself the following questions: 1. What would need to happen in order for all of these goals to be met? 2. What can you personally do to assist this? At this point, we will leave the subject as you contemplate these questions and return later.

Broader leadership ambition Coral reefs are a fantastic illustration of interconnectedness and constant change. At first glance they appear chaotic, teeming with brightly colored underwater life, oddly shaped soft and hard corals, prowling predators and shifting currents. It isn’t until you get in there with the fish and spend time in the coral world as a diver or snorkeler that the


chaos begins to fall into order. The coral blocks under which larger fish hang for no apparent reason reveal themselves as cleaning stations. The cleaner wrasse, like black and blue stripped barbers, work along the queue of fish, darting in and out of their mouths removing debris and barnacles. The plankton that fills the sea like a thick dirty fog serving only to cloud the visibility divulges its purpose at night when the feathery corals open like hands to be nourished by the plankton. In the sand at the bottom of the reef occurs an unlikely partnership between shrimp and fish. The shrimp with poor eyesight lives alongside a small goby fish. The shrimp digs the burrow for them both to live and when danger approaches the goby with much better eyesight flicks its tail against the shrimp and escapes into the burrow with the shrimp following close behind. As a leader hoping to exercise leadership broadly across the system you have to don your mask, fins and snorkel and dive into the system. You have to get in there among the weird looking, curiously lead, strangely funded entities and swim alongside. As a leader with broad ambition you see a map such as the example in Figure 4.5 more as a jumping off point for wider engagement across the system. In doing so of course you make some serious commitments to how your time will be used. From a skills and attitudinal perspective you need to be focused on the following: • • • •

Demonstrating presence and impact Building networks and publicity channels Creating distributive leadership Searching for win/wins

Broader leadership ambition: Demonstrating presence and impact Building presence and impact for all leaders is necessary but more so if you choose to lead well beyond the boundaries of your own organization, sector or even country. Your position, background and credentials may well get you through the door. But after you have walked over the doormat what will make the difference is the impression that you make personally. Peter Block, the US management thinker known for his challenging ideas on leadership, approaches the subject of change in a very interesting way. Rather than viewing organizational change as an orchestrated approach involving visioning, strategizing, action planning and implementation. He calls upon leaders to think instead about the brief moments of time that they have to personally transform


Investors

Government / regulating bodies

Audit institutions

Industry bodies Commentators and opinionmakers

Political figures / parties

Labor supply universities, colleges, business schools, etc. Banking institutions

Management consultancies

Shareholders

International competitor / similar organizations

Suppliers to your suppliers

Suppliers to your organization

Press and the media

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your organization YOU

Customer / citizen representation groups Lobby groups The unions Commercial property companies

Domestic competitor / similar organizations

Think tanks and research establishments Non Government Organizations

Figure 4.5 The gray areas of this map provide the starting point for leaders with broader ambition

the thinking of others. These bubbles of time might appear as the 30 minutes a leader has to address an audience or the conversation over dinner with colleagues. The perspective that Peter Block offers is that change doesn’t occur somewhere else, for other people, at some other time. He argues that change happens right now, in front of us and this is what leaders should achieve mastery in – moving the way others think and feel through dialogue and engagement. Of course this focuses leaders back on themselves and invites them to audit their own skills in demonstrating presence, impact and engagement. How therefore can you be impactful as you talk with people across the system? What can you personally call upon that will persuade others that you are worth listening to?


The first point to make about this is that there are two dimensions to this that should not be forgotten. The first component is the generic skill, which can be learned on a thousand training courses in the market, of engaging with others powerfully and with impact. The second component is that it is personal; it is you that is behind the skill and for this reason there needs to be alignment between how you make an impact and who you are. This may sound like an odd point to emphasize, but it relates to the issue of authenticity examined in the first chapter of this book. When you speak with others it has to be your voice that they hear. You have to connect to others using your own style. You have to be you. Not only does it strike the listener as more convincing if there is consistency between the person you appear to be and the message that you give, but when there is a union of the two, it releases incredible energy. What you can sometimes find with people hoping to make an impact on others is that they can fall into one of two traps. The first is what I call the dilution trap, where in an attempt to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and avoid offense at all costs they make what can only be described as a thoroughly ordinary impact: balanced, even-handed, of broad appeal but banal. This, unfortunately, won’t leave your audience lifted, altered or moved in any way and won’t help you extend your reach across the wider system. The second trap is the great man (or woman) trap where in trying to give the impression of gravitas, power and weight the speaker imagines they are someone else – a great politician, a newsreader or perhaps a movie actor – and the result sounds more like a ventriloquists dummy, a projected voice that just doesn’t seem to belong to the person moving their lips. Without doubt, you can learn a lot from the style of such people, but to copy them, to seek to copy their greatness and not create your own is always going to be a poor substitute and it will be seen as such. Finding your own voice is such a vital discovery to make. There is such a diversity of qualities that we each bring and different levels of self-awareness that this book could not adequately cover the ground in describing the journey you personally should go on. However, the principle is exactly the same that you would apply to identifying and articulating the Unique Selling Point (USP) that your organization possesses, the key qualities that differentiates your business from others. Try then to stand outside of yourself, perhaps using the dashboard notion used in Chapter 1 of a video camera trained on you, and describe your unique characteristics. You might have a powerfully forensic style of analysis, a creative approach to problems, a very quick mind, a knack for seeing to the heart of issues, a natural empathy,


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a striking honesty, an inclusive and empowering style, etc. It might be some, many or none of these, but you will without doubt have unique talents that you should identify, use and hone. Even with an authentic voice you will want to ensure that what you say to people hits the right buttons. You should ask of yourself the following questions whenever you plan to engage with others as a speaker on a stage, a contributor to a meeting or in any personal interaction, large or small. To make these real, think now about a recent presentation that you have given to people beyond the walls of your organization, and on a scale of 1–10 (where 1 ⫽ “not at all,” 5 ⫽ “quite” and 10 ⫽ “extremely”), answer the following: 1. 2. 3. 4.

How important to my audience is/was what I say/said? How interesting to my audience is/was what I say/said? How helpful to my audience is/was what I say/said? How different to what my audience have heard before is/was what I say/said?

As a rule of thumb you should hope to score above 25 in total (or score 9 or above in any single question) to be confident that you are demonstrating presence and achieving impact. You won’t always be able to control the environment or your message in the same way that you might when giving a presentation, but the same four principles will apply regardless of the situation. A final and important word on the subject of presence and impact is confidence. People with self-confidence have the power to build the confidence of others. The opposite, however, is usually not true. People (and particularly leaders) that are demonstrably nervous, insecure or doubtful often trigger the same reactions in others. Statements come to sound like questions. Rhetorical questions lose their selfassuredness. Words sound hollow. At the other extreme, too much self-confidence or confidence that is not matched pound for pound with humility can leave people feeling excluded, disbelieving and even intimidated. So, possessing self-confidence that you use sensitively is the final piece of the puzzle if you want to have presence and impact. Rather than accepting, if this is the case for you, that your confidence or lack thereof is a straightforward consequence of how you feel about yourself, you need to externalize the quality of self-confidence and treat it as much an objective as you would treat any other business objective. Write down on a piece of paper the question “how can I build my self-confidence?” Do this now on a scrap of paper and then start to sketch out some strategies and actions that get you to the level


you desire. This is a job you may need to work on, but sooner than you think you will hear your own self-confidence in the tone of your voice and see a different set of reactions from the people you talk to. If you as a leader can exude rather than bellow confidence, if you can engage authentically and if you can deliver words that are important, interesting, helpful and different you will bring your light to corners of the system that have been out of your reach for a long time.

Broader leadership ambition: Building networks and publicity channels Imagine that one day you are walking down the street and as you pound along the sidewalk your attention is taken by a shiny object on the ground. Just as you are about to crush it underfoot you stop yourself in your tracks, bend down and pick it up. It is a watch, a gentleman’s watch that has somehow found its way to the center of the path. You conclude that it must have accidentally fallen off someone’s wrist or dropped out of a bag, but whatever the explanation, there it is, right in front of you. As you examine it further you can see that it is expensive. It feels weighty and the face and strap are beautifully crafted and tastefully ornate. You momentarily look around to see if anyone has noticed your interesting discovery and they haven’t. Focusing again on the face of the watch you discern that in the center are two marks. You squint and bring the watch closer and you can see that the marks are in fact letters and the letters are the initials “J. R.” As if you were in any doubt before this point you are reminded that it belongs to someone. It is not only a device for telling the time but a gift of sentimental value that once had an owner. You understand this as the watch left to you by your own father circles your wrist. Your purpose reveals itself to you in a flash – you must reunite the watch with its true owner! Your purpose quickly turns into a question of method. “How can I get the message out to the owner or someone who knows them that I have their watch?” Pausing for a moment you consider the possibilities: 1. You might decide to knock on the front doors of neighbors in the street, but what if some of the neighbors are out or more importantly what if the watch owner lives in the next street along, or the next, or the next, or the next? 2. You might decide to advertise the watch in the local newspaper, but how can you be sure that the watch owner will see the article or that they even read the newspaper?


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3. You might decide to put posters in the windows of local shops, but who really takes notice of the cards, posters and signs vying for your attention? 4. You might decide to take it to the local community center where there is a lost property box, but how can you be sure that the watch owner lives in the area? They may have just been passing through when they lost their watch. At this point you may feel that you have run out of options. Your ideas and your network of communication channels may just have dried up. But unfortunately the watch remains in your hand and the owner, perhaps some miles away, looks at their wrist to check the time and gets the shock of their life. Leaders operating across the system and with a message to give need networks to carry their message. There are different beacons through which your ideas can be conveyed. They might be people, organizations, the media (print, radio, broadcast), the physical environment, conferences, training courses, other products and more. And your priority in this context is to think tactically about where you need to be seen and heard. I once worked with an excellent leader called Stephen Bubb who was responsible for representing the Chief Executives of Nongovernmental Organizations (charities, voluntary service providers, community organizations, etc.) and giving the sector a voice. He was a master networker and understood his role in this sense. He set himself the explicit objective of taking every opportunity to grow his network of powerful and influential people. He shared some of his many tricks with me. One of the lesser-known strategies that he would use when at conferences was to ensure he did three things. The first was that he would always sit at the front closest to the stage. The second was to always ask the first question after the speaker had finished and to commence this by introducing himself and his organization, so the speaker along with the audience would register his presence. The third part of this ballet would involve our networker standing up from his seat with the rest of the audience, but critically as the speaker left the stage. Because of his proximity to the stage and the speaker’s exit he would, nine times out of ten, naturally “bump” into the speaker and engage him or her in conversation. Because of his earlier question to the speaker he could dispense with the preliminaries and start the conversation almost as if they were continuing a conversation they had struck up earlier. The description of this approach may make some people feel a little uncomfortable, perhaps because it appears false or


over-engineered. However, if your aim is to lead across the system and therefore to connect to the right people, why on earth would you leave this to chance? Another very useful way of establishing a presence and your voice elsewhere in the system is to contribute to journals, magazines or publications for the sector you want to be in. You might be in central government trying to have a presence in local government. You might be in the oil industry trying to get a foothold in new energies. You might work in HR hoping to be recognized in the field of leadership development. In each case there will be well-established sectorfocused publications that are crying out for contributors. But don’t stop at sending out the odd article for print. Get out there and meet the editor. Meet the writing team. Become known in a way that they too, as they talk to other people in their part of the system, pass on the good news of you and your message. A major challenge, though, of running networks across the system that will allow you to grow your reputation and influence behavior elsewhere is the investment of time involved to keep the relationships on the boil, to keep many plates spinning at the same time without any coming crashing to the ground. The cost of broader leadership ambition can be to place externally focused leadership in direct competition with leadership that is directed inward toward your own organization. This is a judgment call for you to make and you may find that the strategy proposed in the next session may help with this dilemma.

Broader leadership ambition: Creating distributive leadership Borrowing from the light bulb changing series of jokes, there are two questions that I find are useful provocations for leaders. The first is, “how many leaders does it take for an organization to be well lead?” The second question which is subtly different is, “how many leaders does it take for a campaign to be well lead?” Although there is more to these questions than numbers, look to the options that follow as if you were thinking about a medium-sized organization or campaign and place a tick against the answer that is right. a) b) c) d)

1 2–4 5–9 10–49


149

e) 50–99 f) 100 or more I like asking this question because it tends to annoy people who would much rather have options such as “it depends.” The answers to these questions have changed over time. Years ago when the hero or charismatic leader notions prevailed, the answers would have been either “1” or numbers close to it. When command and control models of organizing ruled and were synonymous with leadership, to suggest a number in double or even triple figures would have been thought as subversive; to deliberately introduce multiple leaders when a single, directive and authoritative voice was needed would be to invite chaos through the doors. Order good, chaos bad; predictability good, uncertainty bad; uniformity good, diversity bad. These are old associations with how organizations should be run and they are reflected in the management principles of the latter part of the twentieth century such as time and motion studies, minimum variations in processes, etc. In the period from the industrial revolution to the 1980s a leader was expected to “grip” the organization and the workforce and keep the ship from wandering off course. This was best done by a single, powerful individual rather than many leaders. In the modern world, while many of the hero characterizations of leaders have disappeared and we, of course, recognize that we live in times of change, unpredictability, pluralism, contested authority, etc. respondents still tend to pitch the numbers fairly low. We still think of leadership in an organizational sense as the preserve of one, two or three individuals. You answer to the question may be different from this and you can pat yourself on the back that you are a renaissance thinker, but you will be in a minority. When we shift our attention to the second question about the number of leaders needed to lead a campaign, the answers vary slightly but tend still to be broadly consistent with the first. Like cooks, too many leaders are thought to spoil the broth. A simple model that I use to explain the journey of a leader is worth illustrating (Figure 4.6). I picture the journey as a circle rather than a straight line only because I imagine the humility of the best leaders that reach the pinnacle of their achievement (4) and then recognize that they have more to learn and they assume the role of follower/learner. This probably isn’t how it goes very often, but it is a nice idea. Most leaders travel through stages 1, 2 and 3. But a bit like in the board game snakes and ladders, if leaders do not pass through stage 2 or only do so briefly they fairly quickly become unstuck and slide back

150 CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP 2

lead yourself 3

1

lead followers

follow

lead leaders

4

Figure 4.6 A simple journey model of leadership

to being a follower. This is because before you can successfully lead others you really need to understand how to lead, manage and use yourself as a resource. This is not just a convenient box to add into the model, it is a genuine step in the journey in which people have to exercise mastery over your emotions, your behavior, your energy and your thinking. Stage 4 is the place that you will need to visit if you intend to lead broadly across the system. It is not essential but it is invaluable if you cherish the limited time that you have to spread across the rich tapestry of influencers with whom you wish to engage. If you think of this objective as a means of buying you time it quickly becomes a more attractive option. For every leader that you can create elsewhere in the system, you can buy back your own time by a factor of two, three or even four. Moreover, for every leader you create that has bought into your ethos and your vision, the more your influence will be felt across the system. What starts as a strategy built on your own personal presence and impact becomes a leadership campaign that is vested in the hearts and minds of other leaders. Because of this you have to plan to enter and exit the scene to give the leaders you have nurtured the space to operate. Clearly this is not a strategy for leaders within an ego that is bigger than their vision. Adding all this together causes you to view your role as much as an educator or mentor as it is a leader. Like a gardener, you have to


151

prepare the ground and nurture the plants as they begin to bud. You need to teach and inspire in equal measure so that some of your followers will convert into leaders. But you need not only to build their understanding and excitement around the message but you may need to do the same in relation to their leadership skills. You teach the what and the how, which is why it is so useful to have passed through stages 2 and 3 in Figure 4.6 on how to lead yourself and how to lead others. All of this is easier said than done. It takes a lot of time and energy. It pushes your skills to the limit. It asks you to be selfless and to give much more away than you take for yourself. It leads to putting your vision and your message well before you. You may become an oldfashioned hero leader as you work across the system, or you might just become the forgotten soldier leaving others to take the glory.

Broader leadership ambition: Searching for win/wins Finding win/wins is of equal importance whether you lead narrowly or broadly across the system. But as you spread yourself inevitably more thinly and connect to greater numbers of organizations you may find that you have to be more opportunistic in your actions. This may lead you to providing smaller but important contributions to help others win. For example, this may take the form of showing support for partners in their discussions with others, publicly endorsing another organization’s actions, sharing events, space, data, personnel, ideas and more. The win on your side of the deal does not always need to occur simultaneously with the win enjoyed by a partner. As relationships grow and trust builds you will become more comfortable with delayed gratification. Your focus may too be on minimizing losses for you and your partners and not just looking to the upside. If one of your organizations is attacked in the press, you may choose to say a few words in their defense. When it comes to your turn to be on the sharp end of comments from the press you might hear one, two or many more leaders returning the favor. Subtle, low key and genuine acts of support can go a very long way. I have worked with many corporate communications experts over the years and those that have impressed me most are those that have fostered a wide spectrum of relations with key journalists. Many of the relationships have been with more critical and antagonistic members of the media. The learning for me about this has been the acceptance of the better communications experts that occasionally they will get “stung” by their journalist “friends.” The organization they represent


will get poked at in an article or misrepresented, but they recognize that this kind of behavior goes with the territory, and this is what journalists are often paid to do. Vitally these indiscretions have not caused a breakdown in relations. The odd reprimand has followed and a few stern words, but on the truly important issues the relationships have held firm. The win-win in this example takes nerve and a willingness to put your head in the lion’s mouth once or twice. The further out from the center of your system that you travel the more speculative the win-win scenario becomes. As with other aspects of broader leadership, you need to tolerate a degree of uncertainty, of false starts and nugatory effort. You will of course make assessments about likelihood of success with every step you take and this will not always be easy, but the mindset of searching for win/wins remains a key factor in your success. While there is more that could be said about the practice of finding win/wins, it is a strategy that relies on just that – practice. It is an actionorientated approach. Accepting the value of searching for mutual benefit only becomes real when you or your allies across the system see, feel and experience those benefits. My encouragement to you is to ponder the concept no further but to commit to finding win/wins, be alert to opportunities, but above all get out there and practice delivering benefits to your contacts across the system. Before we leave this topic to stand back and consider where these three high-level questions take us, I want to use the win-win notion to say a few final things about systems leadership. The win-win notion beautifully captures the essence of systemic thinking. The system survives as a consequence of the interrelationships between the different elements within it. Organizations provide for, and feed off, one another much like a biological organism: social institutions, in much the same way as organisms, have needs of survival and adaptation to their environment ... whether one is dealing with a machine, an organism or an organisation, it is fruitful to use the idea of a supply of resources (an input), a conversion process (a throughput) and the production of an object or objects (David Silverman, The Theory of Organisations, 1978, p. 27)1 In searching for win/wins you intervene within the system so that you can influence an outcome in line with your mission, but you do so in a way that is entirely in harmony with the way the system works. The system is much bigger and more powerful than any single leader. You should of course want to influence the behavior of the moving parts in


153

the system. By definition, leadership is about shifting ideas and action in a direction that you, as a leader, believe to be desirable. But in the same way that fish in a storm will be swept from rock to rock and from shelter to the big blue, the forces of the system will pull you in different directions. In this context you may choose, like a fish in an anemone, to stay close to home, or you may decide, like a dolphin, to swim in the open seas, but this, necessarily, begins with a decision, and the purpose of this chapter has been to invite you to make that decision and to prepare you for the consequences. Once you have done this and set out on a path of narrower or broader systems leadership, you need to operate with an appreciation of the way that systems work, that is, through interdependence and mutual reliance, characterized by constant change and fluidity, textured by multiple perspectives and above all operating as a place where authority, your authority, must be negotiated. As a leader in the system, you swim in each territory first as a little fish until you, or your distributed leaders, can enjoy the privileges and influence of big fish. But even then as the currents and tides shift and other creatures under the water mature or enter the territory, you need to adapt and move with it. No one said leadership was easy!


Knowledge review and reminders 1. From all that you know of yourself, do you tend to be more extrovert than introvert (or vice versa)?

2. Do you usually operate well amid complexity, ambiguity and change?

3. Do you have a clear sense of how much of your time you are willing to direct internally (within your organization) and how much you will direct externally?

4. Taking all of these factors together, your organizational mission and the answers to the previous two high-level questions, would you expect to operate more broadly or more narrowly across the system?

5. Have you mapped the system of influencers on you and your organization?

6. Have you taken the time to truly understand the perspectives of the other influencers in the system

7. Are you able to identify the interdependencies and mutual reliance of different players within the system?

8. Based on the breadth of your leadership, have you pinpointed the key skills and qualities that you will need to be effective?

9. Have you conducted a self-audit of the skills and qualities you currently possess?

10. What would you say are the top three priorities for you in terms of building your capabilities in this area?

5

Extended Moments of Clarity

When I was about the age of ten there were two main activities that took up my time. The first was playing with my friends and the second was avoiding going to bed. I excelled at both and the dark lines and bags under my eyes were not the bags of worry of a troubled precocious child, but one that was just having a good time. As most parents do, my parents looked after my accommodation, food, clothing, transportation, heating and more besides. My job was largely my own entertainment. As I continued to go through school it felt like things changed a great deal as the demands got louder about which classes I would need to attend. There was this brutal and outrageous call on my time known as homework. I imagined myself as a revolutionary battling with the oppressors that dared to take away my free time with their tests and preparations for the exams that they wanted me to take. It felt tough but in truth I knew it wasn’t. However, as the years advanced and I dressed in increasingly ridiculous clothes, I found myself having to learn more of the world. I struggled to see how simultaneous equations or glaciation figured in the real world, but I nevertheless listened and assimilated what I heard and kept it all in my head. In fact these lessons remain with me now and I could explain at the drop of a hat how to conjugate verbs in Latin or the number of pi to as many decimal places as my calculator would allow (3.141592654). I still wait patiently for a suitable opportunity to apply my learning in practice. Moving from school to work the pace picked up again. As we all have to do, I learned about the jobs I was assigned to, how to get on, how companies work, how to talk the talk, how to progress, how businesses are run, how to perform well, how to protect myself, how to write in the right style, how to handle meetings, how to speak to groups, how to manage people, how to build alliances, how to use the right words, how to cope with pressure, how to fight, how to retreat, how to work hard and more. Meanwhile news would flood through the television educating me about the soviet invasion of Afghanistan, attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina, the assassination of Indian Prime Minister 155


Indira Gandhi and the world’s worst nuclear accident in the reactor at Chernobyl. All of this filled my head to the sounds of the Clash, Blondie, the Psychedelic Furs and Nena and her 99 Luftballoons. Most of the lyrics of these bands I can recite at the sound of the first bar of each song. They are just there, seemingly hard-wired into my brain. Like me, and regardless of the path that you have taken, you will have spent your life taking on board cart loads of information and cramming it into the finite space in between your two ears. Learning is one of the very few activities that every person alive today engages in on a daily basis. In many ways it comes to define the human condition, a state of perpetual learning. If you are a leader of any description you will have had all of this, but at the same time you will have folded into the intense and unique set of experiences that characterize the work of a leader. I bet that if the world was to magically fall silent, the noise emanating from your head would be like the dull but unmistakable buzz that courses through electricity pylons. If you weren’t earthed with both of your feet on the ground, it wouldn’t surprise me if you were to suddenly burst into flames or fire sparks into the night sky. In this age of the Internet, 24:7 media reporting, global competition and a war on skills and talent, it is nothing short of a miracle that we all remain sane. But what we do suffer from, particularly those in leadership positions, is a kind of mental fug produced by this barrage of information, multiplicity of perspectives and dilemmas of the role. It would be entirely understandable if the decisions of our leaders were suboptimal. In fact it would be more accurate to describe clouded decision-making on the part of leaders as a perfectly normal state of affairs, right there smack bang in the center of the bell curve normal distribution. In my own professional experience as an executive educator in the field of leadership, if there is one thing that I have consistently heard expressed by scores and scores of CEOs, Director Generals and leaders of any hue it is that they all wish they had more time to reflect on the path they should take. As with all matters related to leadership this is a mixture of the corporate and the personal, the “we” and the “I”. The three fundamental questions visited in this book are part of the process of clearing the fog that clouds the judgment of leaders. These three questions are literally “key” considerations but not in the sense that the word “key” is commonly used to denote importance. With a turn of the key they open up and provide entry to a place where your priorities, personal preferences and ambitions can be properly examined. They too provide a meeting point between the corporate and the personal, the “we” and the “I”. They are questions that really have to

EXTENDED MOMENTS OF CLARITY

157

be answered if you want to stand a chance of having a clear pathway over the months or years that follow. Once you know, for example, that you will be on a journey of long-term, grand and broad leadership, everything else slots into place. It helps you decide where you will focus your energies, what capabilities you need and how you will spend your time. But more than this it also will inform you where you won’t need to expend your efforts, what you need to worry less about. There may even be something more enduring and predictive about your leadership ambition in relation to these three questions. While of course all people respond and adapt to the circumstances they face and act accordingly, many leaders find themselves making the same three choices time and time again. For example, short-term leaders very often remain short-term leaders moving on from position to position perhaps every year or two. Leaders with grand ambition very often find themselves biting off the biggest challenges around and taking on the toughest of appointments. Broad system leaders seem to end up connecting across the system and working externally regardless of the post they occupy. Knowing this within you is incredibly useful. It helps you to select the positions that you aim for, the limitations and strengths of your approach, the reasons why at times you feel happier or more uncomfortable where you are. It helps you to understand what makes you tick. So whether you apply these three questions expecting different answers according to the circumstances, or whether the answers to them are a readout of a more enduring profile of you as a leader, the result is one of greater clarity, better utilization of your time and much improved chances of success. Thinking about all three decisions together you can start to build a picture of your leadership and corresponding capability requirements. Figure 5.1 puts all of these levels of ambition in one place. In looking at this map of your decisions, circle the three forms of ambition to which you are closest. While this is not an exact science, it should reveal the priorities for you either over the coming period or potentially over your entire career as a leader. The clarity that this delivers to you as a leader comes from two actions: • Conducting an audit of your capabilities and current priorities against the selections you have made • Committing to addressing the gaps in capabilities and priorities you have identified

158 CUSTOM-BUILT LEADERSHIP SHORTER-TERM LEADERSHIP AMBITION

LONGER-TERM LEADERSHIP AMBITION

✓ Working through others (extending your reach)

✓ Personal resilience, self-belief and commitment

✓ Prioritization and pragmatism

✓ Self-awareness (including having critical friends)

✓ Quick, clear and regular communications

✓ Telling of a compelling story and vision

✓ Working on the “tipping points”

✓ Horizon scanning

✓ Creativity and innovation

✓ Organization design and development

MORE MODEST LEADERSHIP AMBITION

GRANDER LEADERSHIP AMBITION

✓ Consolidating change

✓ Creating a powerful vision

✓ Building and strengthening systems

✓ Acting with courage and confidence

✓ Understanding and leveraging strengths

✓ Exercising self-care

✓ Actively scanning the environment ✓ Nurturing strategic alliances NARROWER LEADERSHIP AMBITION

BROADER LEADERSHIP AMBITION

✓ Identifying truly key influencers

✓ Demonstrating presence and impact

✓ Building deeper relationships

✓ Building networks and publicity channels

✓ Sustaining engagement by demonstrating progress ✓ Searching for win/wins

✓ Creating distributive leadership ✓ Searching for win/wins

Figure 5.1 The priority capability implications of all three leadership decisions

This leads to a better utilization of your time because • You can see where your attention needs to be directed. • All that you do falls into line with your decisions. This improves your chances of success as a leader because you • Know who you are and • What you are doing.

EXTENDED MOMENTS OF CLARITY

159

Three dashboard indicators (ch. 1) Three fundamental questions for leaders (ch. 2, 3, 4) 2 lead yourself 3

1 lead followers

follow

lead leaders 4

Figure 5.2 Helping you to lead yourself and others

If you were to look at this from the perspective of the simple journey model of leadership examined in the previous chapter, you can see how the work you have already done in reading this book has added to your ability to lead yourself and therefore others. This is illustrated in Figure 5.2. This book started with a story about a failed bank robbery. The robber in question was apprehended and captured by the authorities and spent many years behind bars. He planned the job well, but not well enough. He made judgments about how long he had to complete the heist, but he got them wrong. He set his ambition at a grander level than he could rise to. He did it alone and without successfully controlling important factors outside of the walls of the bank. But it has to be said that for a short time, perhaps only a few hours, he was a millionaire. He was a free man driving his car along the road with bags of cash stashed in the trunk and most probably with a grin spreading across his face from ear to ear. If, as Buddhism teaches, life is a series of moments, he spent many moments bathing in the glory of a successful robbery. Imagine now that rather than the bank robber’s stay of execution being only a few hours, he had instead got away without being caught for a few days or perhaps even a few months. He would have


lived for a period of time in a kind of twilight world; living on borrowed time, perhaps not knowing that he would ever be captured. But, because of the way the bank job had been executed, the misjudgments the robber made about the time available and the complexity of the job, it was going to bite him on the ass sooner or later. The blue flashing lights and the sirens would come screaming around the corner and the handcuffs would come out. As a leader, you can lead people without having fully understood yourself or having answered the three fundamental questions posed in this book. You can have your own twilight period and maybe, just maybe, you will get away with it. But your prospects of success will be vastly improved and your achievements will be so much greater by taking 1 moment or 2 to answer 3 simple questions.

Notes

1 Sympathy for the Devil 1. HM Government Comprehensive Spending Review 2007–2010, page 2, 2007, The Stationery Office. 2. “Engagement equals productivity,” Personnel Today.com, October 5, 2004, http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2004/10/05/ 25904/engagement-equals-productivity.html. 3. Glaxosmithkline Global Leadership Survey 2006, http://www.gsk. com/responsibility/cr_report_2004/ep_leadership_survey.htm. 4. HM Government Senior Civil Service survey 2006, http://www. civilservice.gov.uk/iam/leadership/survey.asp. 5. HM Treasury Senior Civil Service survey 2006, http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/about/information/about_survey_index.cfm. 6. Thought Leadership: Moving Hearts and Minds, 2007, p. 75, Palgrave Macmillan. 7. Thought Leadership: Moving Hearts and Minds, 2007, p. 75, Palgrave Macmillan.

2 Your First Decision – How Long Have I Got? 1. http://thinkexist.com/quotes/lyn_yutang/ 2. www.thinkexist.com 3. The complete works of Voltaire, Voltaire, La Bégueule, 2001, p. 48, University of Toronto Press. 4. www.greenpeace.org.uk 5. http://www.shell.com/home/content/aboutshell/our_strategy/ shell_global_scenarios/dir_global_scenarios_07112006.html 6. Interview between Robin Ryde and Robert Swan, March 2008.

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162 NOTES

3 Your Second Decision – How Grand Is My Plan? 1. Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, 1988, p. 236, Puffin Books. 2. Barrett, F. and Fry, R., Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building Cooperative Capacity, 2005, Taos Institute Publications, Chagrin Falls, OH. 3. Simon Woodroffe, The Book of Yo!, 2000, p. 7, Yo Sushi.

4 Your Third Decision – How Broadly Will I Lead? 1. David Silverman, The Theory of Organisations, 1978, p. 2, Heinemann.

Index

Ambiguity 8 Amplification, of leadership 7 Analytic pitch 91 Appetite for leadership 93 Appreciative Inquiry 104 Arouet, Francois-Marie 57 Authenticity 8, 10, 13–14 Authorizing environment 94

Distributive leadership 148 Drucker, Peter F 104 Emotions 33–34, 54 Environment scanning 106 Feeling Thinking 37 Firo-B 40 Fisher, James L 50 Forensic thinking styles 55 Freedom to operate 94

Banksy 74 Belbin model 40 Block, Peter 142 Bono, Edward de 63–64 Bovee, Christian Nevell 50 Broader leadership ambition 114 Bubb, Stephen 147 Buckaroo 61

Gates, Bill 108 Gandhi, Mahatma 95 Glaxosmithkline 23 Globalization 73 Goleman, Daniel 40, 54–55 Great man (or woman) trap 144 Greenleaf, Robert 27 Greenpeace 71

Cervantes, Miguel de 57 Chapman, Lorraine 95 Charles, HRH Prince 36–37 Chinese Whispers 10 Chiumento 23 Coca Cola Company 96 Collins, James 24, 57 Commitment 66 Communications, quick, clear, regular 60 Consolidating change 99 Constructivism 138 Cooperrider, David 104 Courage and confidence 110 Cousteau, Jacques 81 Covey, Stephen 13 Creativity 51, 63

Healthcare costs 12 HM Treasury 24 Horizon scanning 72 Inheritance 95 Innovation 63 Insights 40 Interventionist leadership 76 Jones, Sir Digby 10 Kennedy, John F 50 Key influencers 132 Keystones virtues 135 Killman, Thomas 40 Kirton Adaptor-Innovator test 40 Kotter, John 50

Dashboard 35 Death of deference 74, 110 Deming, Edward 52 Demonization 9, 25 De Vries, Manfred Kets 29 Dilution trap 144

Leahy, Sir Terry 11 Legacy 45 Lens on the world 39

163

164 INDEX Lewin, Kurt 24 Loneliness 9, 20 Longer-term leadership 66 Marks and Spencer 106 Memories of the future 113 Milgram, Stanley 68–69 Mindfulness 47 Modest leadership ambition 98 Montgomery, Lucy Maud 93 Moore, Professor Mark 94 Motorola Company 52 Mozart, Amadeus 17 Myers Briggs Type Inventory 40 Narrower leadership ambition 131 Negroponte, Nicholas 108 Networks and publicity channels 146 Nohria, Nitin 50 Objectification 9 Off-duty 9, 32 Organization design and development 75 Parental expectations 9, 27 Personnel Today 23 Positivism 137 Powell, Colin 50 Pragmatism and prioritisation 57 Presence and impact 142 Prison service 15 Propaganda 31 Ratner, Gerald 10 Relationships 135 Resilience 66 Risk appetite 111 Robbery 3 Scott, Sir Peter 81 Self-awareness 68

Self-belief 66 Self-care 115 Self-criticism 113 Senior Civil Service 24 Shadowside thinking styles 55 Shell 72–73 Shorter-term leadership 49 Side effects, of leadership 6 Silverman, David 152 Six Sigma 52 Storytelling 70 Strategic alliances 119 Strengths, understanding and leveraging 104 Swan, Robert OBE 21, 44, 66, 78 Systems leadership 76, 101, 127 360 Degree Thinking 37 2041 45, 80 Tenure 44 Thought Leadership 55 Time ambition 44 Time poverty 9, 18 Tipping points 61 Transference 29 Trust 56 UK spending plans 12 Visibility 9, 22 Vision 70, 109 Voltaire 57 Weapons of mass destruction 138 Welch, Jack 11, 50 Win/win 139, 151 Woodroffe, Simon 121 Working through others 51 Yutang, Lyn 46

Custom-Built Leadership: Three Critical Decisions only You can Take

Take Me If You Can

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

They Can Only Hang You Once

Only You

only you

You Can, You Will

You Can, You Will

You Can, You Will

Executive Decisions: One Night Only

Critical decisions in periodontology

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

Take Me With You

I'll Take You There

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

Custom-Built Leadership: Three Critical Decisions only You can Take

Take Me If You Can

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

Take Three

They Can Only Hang You Once

Only You

only you

You Can, You Will

You Can, You Will

You Can, You Will

Executive Decisions: One Night Only

Critical decisions in periodontology

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

Take Me With You

I'll Take You There

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

Every Breath You Take

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