Focal Leadership

Leadership

Why character always matters in leadership

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characterCharacter is a much-debated aspect of leadership. There are many who consider exemplary character to be important for good leadership. There are also many who don’t care, as long as a leader is delivering results.

Let us consider the trajectory of each argument:

• Important: Leadership with an integral moral code based on integrity, honesty and transparency will develop a culture that reflects this. In fact, the whole argument concerning the importance of character is about outcomes. Leadership with these character traits requires followers to consider values, standards, and behavior as significant in the way results are achieved.

• Not important: Leadership that considers a good and upright character as optional, will encourage followers who regard the end as always justifying the means. Values, morals, or methods do not matter. By definition, this type of leadership will develop an “anything goes” type of culture.

An interesting case study is the recent scandal consuming the Australian cricket team. Leaders decided that cheating is ok in the pursuit of success. A culture of spitefulness, abuse, and aggression develops in that sort of environment, or maybe this culture spawned cheating as an acceptable strategy. Not that all other national teams are paragons of virtue – far from it! Has the need to win at all costs resulted in the death of good sporting behavior? Thankfully there are still leaders in the sporting world who maintain a virtuous character.

Politics is a murky world that I’d rather not delve into too much. But leaders who lie, deceive, and besmirch, rather than show a passion for truth, integrity, and praise, do not endear themselves to many. Maybe that’s why voting often seems to be either, (a) the lesser of evils, or (b) policy regardless of leader.

In the business world, the character of leaders has the potential to impact many. Not only members of the leadership team, but all employees, customers, and suppliers. Leaders of good character will encourage a good culture. These leaders develop a way of working and relating that has a moral foundation. Those who interact with these leaders get to know and understand their basis of operating. Recruitment of new employees requires a standard based on good character, not just competence.

Character isn’t just a moral consideration. Character is also defined by how people serve, speak, and show-up. Character can be described as personality, pedigree, or practice. It is the “whole person”, not just what a leader does or achieves. Character is rarely aligned with charisma but is often associated with caliber.

There are many examples of leadership character being excused when results are good. It takes a lot of courage to challenge character even when results are outstanding. Thankfully, there are also examples of organizations where character is paramount in the way results are achieved.

Bringing the spotlight onto character cannot simply be achieved by adopting a competency model or defining a set of organizational values. Although both are excellent. When leaders of character are promoted, honored, and rewarded, organizations and everyone connected with them benefit. Keeping the focus on character will ensure high caliber leaders in the 21st century.

Does mentoring work?

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mentoring“Companies with formal, longstanding mentoring programs claim tangible increases in productivity and efficiency”, states David Clutterbuck in his book Everyone Needs A Mentor. Clutterbuck’s definition of mentoring stem from the origins of a “master / apprentice” relationship where more experienced individuals pass their knowledge and wisdom to learners.

When evaluating Clutterbuck’s claim, there are many questions that arise. For example, “how formal and longstanding does a mentoring program need to be to deliver results?”. Or, “how can a company make direct correlation between tangible increases in productivity and efficiency, and a mentoring program?” These might seem to be somewhat cynical challenges, but they lie at the heart of a legitimate evaluation of such mentoring programs. This evaluation is necessary to test any parochial opinions that mentoring is good, bad, or indifferent.

A case study

A telecommunications company introduced a mentoring program for its first line managers in the early 2000’s, with mixed success. After the program had been running for a while, participants were surveyed for their assessment of how it was going. The major areas of feedback were:

  •  Introduce mentoring schemes with clear guidance, training, and support
  •  If the organizational context is unstable, be very critical as to whether mentoring is the right development discipline to maintain at that time
  •  Provide structure around the matching of mentors and mentees
  •  Encourage regular evaluation of mentoring relationships – if they aren’t working or producing the anticipated results, seek support to fix the relationship or move on to something different

What is interesting about this case study, is that the organization had gone through a time of intense change, numerous acquisitions, and strategic realignment. The organization was trying to establish a progressive culture and build a pipeline of leaders who would secure future growth and maturity of the organization. Fons Trompenaars says in his book Riding the Waves of Culture that, “understanding our own culture and our own assumptions and expectations about how people ‘should’ think and act is the basis for success”. His assessment suggests that developing the culture of an organization is directly linked to its success. Mentoring employees in assumptions and expectations as a means of facilitating this is one of many legitimate initiatives.

Mentoring impact

So, it can be argued that mentoring is a key element in developing organization culture, a strong leadership bench, and a continuity of expectations. Indeed, without existing leaders adopting a mentoring approach, the growth of the leadership pipeline could be stunted. There is often a valid discussion about the difference between coaching and mentoring, but both these leadership approaches involve interventions that develop someone who is benefiting from the relationship.

Ralph Stacey, in his book Strategic Management & Organizational Dynamics considers “ordinary management”, the same process as single-loop learning, as leading to more efficient performance of current primary tasks. “Extraordinary management”, the same process as complex double-loop learning, is where people change their shared mental models that drive ordinary management. With “extraordinary” management, leaders need to develop skills of using feedback to develop new paradigms, encourage self-organizing networks, build value propositions, and break free of existing boundaries to innovate and transform the business. It is in these areas that mentoring adds value as a powerful development tool in the hands of leaders.

A good mentoring program

In Everyone Needs A Mentor David Clutterbuck is very clear in stating that participants knowing what they want out of mentoring is critical to getting what they want. This lies at the core of establishing mentoring relationships that will add value. Selecting or choosing good mentors is also critical in extracting value from the relationship. Clutterbuck suggests 10 mentor competencies:

Self-awareness (understanding self), Communicating, Sense of proportion / humor, Interest in developing others, Goal clarity, Behavioral awareness (understanding others), Conceptualizing, Business / professional savvy, Committed to own learning, Relationship management.

This list of mentor competencies is helpful in two ways: first in choosing suitable mentors, and second in evaluating self-suitability to be a mentor. Organizations need to be cognizant of these elements when designing a mentoring program.

While there is are opinions that leaders and organizations grow organically, without an overlay of formal processes, there are many examples that support the notion of structured, targeted, and intentional interventions having a major impact in the pace and trajectory of growth and development. This is also the case for mentoring. Informal and self-directed mentoring relationships are very creditable, and undoubtedly add value. But structured mentoring programs have a very valid place in an overall talent development strategy, especially if they are integrated into enterprise programs as a targeted development intervention to grow leaders aligned to the organization’s culture and expectations.

Resources:

David Clutterbuck, Everyone Needs A Mentor – Fostering Talent At Work Third Edition, (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2001)

Fons Trompenaars, Riding the Waves of Culture – Understanding cultural diversity in business, (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993)

Ralph Stacey, Strategic Management & Organizational Dynamics Second Edition, (Financial Times Pitman Publishing, 1996)

Building diversity into cultures

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diversityThere are many examples of well-defined organizational cultures that bring significant clarity to brands, values, and behavioral expectations. There are also examples of organizations where the culture has been defined extremely well, but where this has in fact led to stagnation and homogeneity rather than rich diversity.

Edgar Schein points out in his book Organizational Culture and Leadership that, “culture is deep, wide and complex. Leaders should avoid the temptation to stereotype organizational phenomena in terms of one or two salient dimensions, and they should be sensitive to the power they have to influence the groups with which they work.”

This specific case study illustrates this:
A successful financial services company was facing the challenge of diversifying its products to remain competitive. The company was over 100 years old and had a deeply embedded culture of financial rigor (thankfully!), pragmatic decision-making, and pride in robust legacy products. The challenge of innovating and diversifying did not come easily to the senior leadership team. A comprehensive profiling of this senior team revealed some of the reasons why. For example, using the Myers Briggs profiling framework, everyone was an ST. For those unfamiliar with this vernacular, everyone was focused on solid facts and data, thoroughly analyzed in consistent and logical ways. Not a bad thing for a financial services company one might think! But there was very little customer understanding, creativity, interest in trends, or inspiration. The leadership group had become so consistent in their narrow cultural and behavioral alignment, that they had squeezed out diversity and innovation.

Bob Garratt, in his book The Cultural Contexts, cites Argenti when he suggests the main reasons for corporate collapse are, “too many people of the same sex, age, education, and nationality at the top, with too little authentic information about the changing environment, and few managerial information systems.” Given that this insight is now over 40 years old, shouldn’t lessons have been learned?

Organizations who narrow their focus on cultural imperatives should also be mindful that cultural diversity can expand and not threaten the success of their business. Defining a differentiating culture does not mean that diversity is jettisoned. Culture is often about behavioral norms and not the rich tapestry of a diverse workforce. A well-known insurance company conducts an employee engagement survey every year. Comments such as, “run by old white men”, should cause the company to consider deeply the demographics of the senior leadership team and the implications for its culture.

The challenge of creating inclusive cultures that are also distinctive, can also be seen in organizations such as churches. A large suburban church defined by its all white and all male senior leadership team, faces a challenge of diversity. Organizations such as this can develop over many years with leaders who tend to see things in a similar way. Just by hiring a senior leader who may have a different background, doesn’t necessarily change the culture. In fact, changes arising from an external hire can be very unauthentic if not integrated in a very careful way. It is important to grow an organization authentically, develop leaders from a diverse spectrum, and foster a risk-comfortable environment of constantly growing a culture dynamically.

Cultures that embrace diversity are more likely to lead to long-term success and fulfilment than those that hold onto a narrow set of cultural principles.

Disruptive leadership of the interim kind

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disruptiveMarshall Goldsmith famously authored a book titled, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, and disruptive leadership is a worthy application of this sentiment. The need to bring disruption to the supply, application, and performance of leadership has never been greater. Organizations need to consider who is leading, what they are leading, and how they are leading. Along with these considerations, they need to look at options for engaging the best leaders.

Why is it that many organizations still only rely on permanent leaders or consulting firms to lead major transformations? Permanent leaders are known resources, and they know the organization well – so it makes sense for them to lead. But, as John Kotter discusses in his book Accelerate, maybe a dual operating system with hierarchies and networks should be considered when considering leadership of organizational change. This is a proposed remedy to leading change and business as usual in parallel and tackling the limited supply of good change leaders. Consulting firms certainly have talented resources to help organizations through change. They also have overheads, proprietary methodologies, and scale, which may or may not be advantageous to the client. Serious consideration of interim leaders is way over due in the USA.

If the term “interim leader” is used in a conversation with many recruiters these days, it is rarely understood. It is either interpreted as a temporary job filled with a holding resource until someone good enough can be found for a permanent role. Or it is interpreted as a mere contract job or a short-term consultancy position.

Interim leaders are serious players in facilitating and leading organizational change. Hiring an interim leader is like engaging Nick Foles as a quarter back to lead the Philadelphia Eagles on a Super Bowl quest when your franchise quarter back is sidelined for the rest of the season through injury. And we know how that one turned out …! An interim leader has proven leadership skills, outstanding technical and strategic capability, a tested personality, and a focused mindset.

It’s time for recruiters to consider the option of an interim leader way more seriously. They need to get educated on what an interim leader is so that they can lead the discussion about what’s best for the organization. Recruiters need to become familiar with interim leader skillsets and capabilities. Maybe reading a few case studies of what interim leaders can deliver would be a good start. They certainly need to know how to source interim leaders.

Disrupting the way that organizational change leadership is resourced is a game changer. Hiring an interim leader can liberate the permanent leadership, inspire the workforce, and accelerate strategic goals. Hiring an interim leader to provide strategic change leadership through a major transformation, or to deliver significant projects, is a contemporary way to get the best out of the best. In Kotter’s model of hierarchy plus network, the occasional interim leader is a major asset.

Focal Leadership is now offering a 1-day workshop for senior business, HR leaders, and recruiters. This workshop is based on the upcoming book, Rise of the Gig Leaders, which defines the business case for interim leadership. If you would like to know more, please use the contact form on the Focal Leadership website www.focalleadership.com.

8 Steps to Creating a Learning & Development Strategy

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stepsCreating a Learning & Development (L&D) Strategy is a systematic process. The 8 steps below are a simple framework for working through that process. Some of the steps can be carried out in parallel, and solutions can be built over time once the over-arching strategy is established.

For many organizations the L&D framework has evolved over many years and in some instances, it is like a basement or storage locker. L&D solutions are created, have a use for a time, and then just gather dust. For some organizations the L&D curriculum has lost focus – it is a collection of solutions without a defined purpose.

Taking the opportunity to re-define and refresh an L&D strategy is a good thing.

This diagram presents a context in which an L&D strategy should be considered and defined. ALWAYS start with the organizational context!

OD framework2

 

 

For any L&D solution it doesn’t hurt to see if a Kirkpatrick Level 4 evaluation can be applied – what value will this add to the organization’s results? At the very least, any L&D solution should have a Level 3 evaluation built-in – what performance and behavior change will result and how will it be measured. Too many organizations still just use “happy sheets” (Level 1) as the evaluation method of choice.

The 8 steps listed here are a structured approach to developing or reviewing an L&D strategy. The steps might appear elementary, but many organizations’ L&D frameworks do not reflect the rigor associated with them. All L&D functions should be providing focus, strategic relevance, insight, innovation, and cost effectiveness.

  1. Define the L&D vision, goals, metrics
    Ensuring these align with the organization’s strategy and priorities, consult with all key stakeholders
  2. Inventorize all existing L&D activity:
    Name, type, objective, vendor, success measurement, occurrences
  3. Define curriculum to deliver no. 1 (consult with all key stakeholders)
    Based on organizational and role needs (not employee wish list or entitlements), innovative & applied solutions, ROI
  4. Analyze gap between no. 3 and no. 2 – rationalize curriculum
  5. Define L&D organization and process to deliver L&D strategy
    Roles, HR & business interfaces, LMS, budget, delivery, scheduling, tracking
  6. Identify priorities, design, select vendors, and schedule delivery
    “Low-hanging fruit”, local/global, leaders as teachers, blended, targeted employees
  7. Establish solutions for full curriculum
  8. Measure success and update curriculum / content as appropriate

Whether an organization uses the term curriculum, framework, or programs, L&D solutions need to fit within a strategy. Every single solution should have a relevant purpose, target group, and value.

L&D solutions should never be provided for employees because of a “how many days training per year” mindset. Far better to identify L&D solutions related to performance goals – i.e. how an L&D solution will enable more successful delivery and performance.

In addition to personal L&D solutions, there are often strategic programs defined for target groups. For example, leadership or high potential programs. These often serve a purpose to grow the capability of leaders and elevate the succession pipeline. These programs also need an evaluation rigor based on the enterprise’s needs.

Creating a meaningful and high-value L&D strategy is a contribution towards the overall organization’s strategy and value – never let it just be “something that HR does”!