In 10 years, will you be working for a company that does not exist today?

  • Could that company be focused on segment that is not recognized today?
  • What would make you ready for that leadership challenge?

Much of our work is with helping leaders successfully craft a career made of steps or assignment lasting 2-3 years.  Each assignment requires unique capabilities and a success methodology. Every organization talks about the need for developing “leaders” but the real challenge I see is how can executives quickly have a high impact and be ready for the next assignment in two years.

In addition, with all the mergers and acquisitions happening, companies and their culture are changing even faster than executives change companies.

This week I challenge you to look at two perspectives:

First a nice paper by Gifford Thomas below that focuses on the need for leaders to be good human beings that understand that leaders need followers and should treat them with respect and basic dignity. At the same time there are key concepts to grasp (from Jon Kotter at Harvard)… they must:

  • Establish a compelling direction, a vision for the future and the strategies for how to get there.
  • Align people, communicating the direction, building shared understanding, getting people to believe in the vision and then persuading and influencing people to follow that vision.
  • Motivating and inspiring people to enact the kind of change that you have articulated.

My work supports these characteristics as part of the foundation of any successful leader.

But, the new challenges that companies, markets and industries are changing much more rapidly indicates there are other questions to ask:

  • Where are you looking to anticipate change?
  • What is the diversity measurement of your network?
  • Are you courageous enough to abandon the past?

These questions come from the research by Roselinde Torres (Boston Consulting Group) in her TED talk:

 

Watch the video… read the article…

  • Are you ready to be a super start leader in the future?
  • Is your strength people .. or futuristic thinking?
  • Do you have the right network?
  • How are you increasing your courage?

 

The Leadership Challenge. Why 70% of Managers Fail to Become Leaders.

Published on June 19, 2018

Gifford Thomas

One week ago I read a post from Chelene Pedro about a CEO who was very nasty and disrespectful to one of his managers. The guy shouted so loudly, everyone down the corridor knew that he didn’t like the size of the font. The manager walked out of the CEO’s office and returned with a handwritten resignation letter dated “effective immediately.” Can you blame him! how in God’s green earth do you expect anyone to function in that type of environment and I am a 100% sure this manager is not the first employee to face that type of abuse from that CEO.

This story really stuck with me and I can understand why 70% of managers fail to become leaders, they fondly call themselves leaders, but their actions and behavior say something totally different. Harvard Business School scholar John Kotter has argued that there are three fundamentals processes for effective leadership that a lot of managers have failed to grasp.

  • Establishing a compelling direction, a vision for the future and the strategies for how to get there.
  • Aligning people, communicating the direction, building share understanding, getting people to believe in the vision and then persuading and influencing people to follow that vision.
  • Motivating and inspiring people to enact the kind of change that you have articulated.

Kotter further argued that finding people with leadership potential is much more difficult than finding people who are good managers. Since driving change is much more difficult than striving for efficiency and meeting near-term financial and non-financial targets.

The renowned leadership expert Warren Bennis the author of 30 leadership books and one of my favorite On Becoming a Leader indicated that ”A leader is not simply someone who experiences the personal exhilaration of being in charge. A leader is someone whose actions have the most profound consequences on other people’s lives, for better or for worse, sometimes forever and ever.”

When you are responsible for managing and leading people, you have the opportunity to make a profound impact on your employees, but it’s up to you as the CEO to recognize that your employees are your most prized asset. There’s no excuse for any so-called leader to abuse their employees. I have seen with my own two eyes, CEOs and managers taking pleasure in this kind of nasty behavior because they know and in many instances have convinced their employees that their company is the only one to work for, no other option exists.

I can remember attending a departmental meeting scheduled by the CEO and this guy was trying his best to brainwash the staff to believe that if anyone leaves the company, they will be unemployed for 4 years. The CEO was so brazen, he even asked people to raise their hands if they believe they will get a job within the 4 years; only 4 employees, myself included, out of the 35 employees raise their hands.

You have to be very careful about the people who call themselves leader, especially the ones with Pseudo – Leadership tendencies.  Many of these people are only concerned about their own well being, nothing else. Leadership is about people, it’s about inspiring people to believe that the impossible is possible, it is about developing and building people to perform at heights they never imagine and it’s about making a positive impact on your community, your company, your department, your employees and by extension the world.

Leadership is never about tearing people down and making people feel less than themselves. According to Charlene if you want to be a great leader you must first start with being better human being.