This month saw The Work Foundation publish the results of a two-year qualitative study of outstanding leadership. The researchers conducted over 250 interviews with leaders, their managers and their direct reports in six UK organisations. The research has uncovered clear differences between good and outstanding leadership resulting in the presentation of evidence to support a systemic, people centred approach to high performance leadership. Emerging from the analysis are nine themes and three principles which characterise outstanding leaders:
1. They think and act systemically
2. They see people as the route to performance
3. They are self-confident without being arrogant
So, can these nine themes and three principles be learnt? Yes, undoubtedly they can – the 77 leaders interviewed were not cloned, neither did they have equal measures of skill or ability. One of the common factors for the 77 is their individual recognition that they continue to learn, develop and evolve as leaders.
One of the most thought provoking points in the report executive summary is the implication in this sentence: “Some of the outstanding leaders featured in the research did not originally have a people-focused approach, but realised the impact they were having on people and therefore adjusted their style accordingly.”
Think about your own leadership approach and think about your organisation and its policies and procedures, especially performance management linked processes. Do they allow for up and coming leaders to examine their own impact, realise implications (either individually or supported by coaching) and make adjustments and re-invent themselves as outstanding future leaders?
Or in the current economic environment is this just not possible and is the zero tolerance approach to mistakes adopted by many organisations the way forward?
We are interested in your experiences and your views.....
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Surely any company that has any chance of surviving in the current harsh economic world must allow leaders the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. Has any CEO made it to that position without making a mistake?
ReplyDeleteA couple of very interesting blogs.
ReplyDeleteHow easy is it for leaders today to work systemically when they are driven to achieve short-term targets by shareholders, investors, voters etc. The very best of these can overcome this obstacle by being (no.3) self-confident without being arrogant and seeing the people as the route to performance. These two must therefore be in place first.
Relating this to your earlier blog, I believe very strongly that leaders are made and not born. We are all so influenced by the millions of 'systemic' activities/voices/actions that have occured around us since birth.
And, in my view, the cancer that is the biggest threat to effective leadership for all but the very best is .... politics! Everyone has their own agenda but when it doesn't match the leaders for whatever reason then the clear 'vision' is lost while matters of today, tomorrow and yesterday are debated.