Myth
vs. Reality: Four Behaviors That Define Successful Leaders PART II
Elena
Lytkina Botelho continue to discuss the traits that define successful CEOs.
Knowledge@Wharton: That
leads to a logical transition to the third attribute that you found, which is
that people who are reliable also are great at managing relationships; in fact,
you call them masters at relationships. How does that factor into the success
of CEOs?
Botelho: Being a CEO or
being a leader of any kind is a team sport, right? You’re only a leader if you
can get others to follow and bring the whole business or the whole initiative
that you are leading to success. What we found that was really interesting was
how successful CEOs relate.
The best analogy I can offer is that of an orchestra conductor.
Good orchestra conductors obviously understand the score. They understand the
intention and they have a point of view and a vision for how they want to
interpret the music. Second, they have a keen understanding of the musical instruments
and the participants in the orchestra, both in terms of what their role is, and
how to draw out a performance that brings it to life. Good conductors also know
what motivates the musicians in the orchestra. They will know the first
violinist’s cat died that day. … It’s a really big deal for her. They’re tuned
into each individual who is sitting around and creating the music.
Then, all of that comes together — the conductor, his engagement
with the instruments, his performance and that of his musicians, who often may
be more talented. … It is all in the service of that vision, of producing a
piece of music that nobody in that room individually could have produced on
their own. That’s what we call relating for impact.
It’s easy to describe what it’s not. What it’s not is relating
for likeability, meaning I’m here to be liked, I’m here to be beloved by the
musicians or the audience. That’s much easier actually. It’s also not about
hammering away and beating … the musicians until they perform their best piece
of music. CEOs who are successful at engaging for impact always hold in mind
the purpose of what they’re here for, and they tune in to their stakeholders to
deliver that purpose.
Knowledge@Wharton: How
do they manage that balance, though, between those two extremes that you just
described?
Botelho: I think for some it
comes more naturally than for others. I find that they do two things
particularly well. One, again it’s back to clarity of purpose and clarity of
intent. It doesn’t need to be purpose with a big P. There’s a lot of dialogue
about the high-minded purpose. The purpose could be as simple as in this
business relationship here’s what our intent is. But they’re really clear about
what that is.
Secondly, they are voracious feedback consumers. So they’re
constantly watching to see the feedback that the audience gives them, the
feedback that they get from their musicians, and they are constantly evolving
and responding.
One of the CEOs that we’ve worked with is Tom Monahan. Tom led a
successful company called Corporate Executive Board, grew it to $1 billion and
he sold it to Gartner. Tom had a great way to frame the job of a CEO. He said,
“Look, I’ve got three groups of stakeholders — my shareholders, my customers,
and my employees. If I were to fully satisfy any one of the three, we would be
bankrupt. As a CEO, my job is to keep them all constructively dissatisfied in
the name of making the enterprise successful so that the enterprise can deliver
to them all.”
Knowledge@Wharton: What
does he mean by “constructively dissatisfied?”
Botelho: I found that
fascinating. He didn’t say my job is to satisfy all of them. He said my job is
to keep them all constructively dissatisfied so I can bring the whole
enterprise forward successfully, and then deliver for all of them. I think it’s
really that he’s not thinking about how do I please my audience but how do I
bring everybody forward, even if at times they’re not going to be happy with
what it feels like day to day.
Knowledge@Wharton: The
fourth attribute [is that] successful CEOs are fast learners; they adapt
quickly to changing circumstances. Why and how is that important?
Botelho: If there is any
behavior that is growing in its importance and is getting the most airtime in
the boardroom these days, it’s adaptability. You write a lot about innovation.
I don’t know a single board, company, or a single set of investors that aren’t
talking about how the world is speeding up, how there is a greater degree of
uncertainty in the world, and how important innovation is, in this environment
of change and of constant surprises. You have to be able to position the
business for success and remain vibrant and viable. Adaptability is on the rise
as a key CEO behavior.
Knowledge@Wharton: You
did this study over a long period of time, and I’m sure it was global in its
character. Were there any cultural factors in the way in which these four
behaviors played out?
Botelho: Yes. We would love
to do additional exploration of that factor; the research is still developing.
Fifteen percent of our dataset are CEOs of companies that are not U.S.
companies. A greater percentage of the data are CEOs who are not U.S.-born
CEOs. There’s certainly representation, and I think we have an opportunity to
dig into it deeper and explore it further.
Knowledge@Wharton: The
specific point that I was thinking about was if your data showed whether some
cultures are more relationship-oriented and others are more contract-oriented.
I see that conflict in leadership roles all the time. Some people will change a
contract if it preserves a key relationship, whereas others will let a
relationship go if it doesn’t stick to the contract. How did you navigate this
divide?
Botelho: If I had a
hypothesis, I would say that these behaviors hold across cultures but the way
in which they are interpreted could be determined by culture. I’ll give you one
example that’s very simple and close to home. In 1998, I was between my first
and second year at Wharton. Half my internship was at the Boston Consulting
Group in London and the other half was going to be in Russia working for a
private equity fund.
I was very conscious that when I went to Russia I shouldn’t be
smiling too much because in Russia people smile for two reasons. They’re either
flirting, or something is funny, or if not then you’re an idiot basically. In
contrast, in the U.S. the social message you are conveying by smiling is just
that, “I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re enjoying our conversation and we’re
trustworthy partners.” It’s part of the social lubricant, if you will. This is
a very trivial example but just goes to your broader point around behavior and
culture.
Also the value that a culture places on a behavior will be
different. I think in our culture adaptability is the behavior that we really
value. Many of us are first generation immigrants or have immigrant roots. It’s
often adapt or die. But in more established countries, or in countries that
have roots with a more established population, reliability might be that much
more important. This is a fertile area for further exploration.
Knowledge@Wharton: You
worked on the CEO Genome study for a decade or more. Of all of the leaders you
encountered, did any one person stick in your mind as the top person? And if
so, why?
Botelho: A lot of this
research will feed into a book that we will have coming out in the spring of
2018, The CEO Next Door. The first part of the book is about these
four CEO behaviors. We pushed ourselves to say, okay the data is nice but who
really embodies that behavior? So for each individual behavior we have our
masters or our black belts.
I’ve been very fortunate. I feel blessed to have had an
opportunity to be around several CEOs I admire and who have been very
successful. And I’ll tell you, none of them is equally good at all of these four
behaviors. Each of them will be able to shine on probably a couple of them.
What we’re finding in the data is that having strength in two
typically seems to be the sweet spot, and then having awareness around the
others. It’s very easy to think when you look at these behaviors that some
things seem on the face of it mutually exclusive, or contradictory to each
other. If I’m really decisive and I’m really fast to move, how am I also
relating for impact? If I’m really decisive, how am I also adaptable? Or if I’m
really adaptable, how am I also reliable? I’m always curious about leaders who
seem to combine behaviors that on the face of it seem to be hard to combine.
Let me talk about a CEO here in town. Madeline Bell has been
leading CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia). If you talk to folks
around Madeline, what you’ll hear is that she’s somebody who stands out for her
ability to relate for impact, and build trust in a multitude of stakeholders.
At the same time, she’s somebody who is very decisive. And obviously
reliability is a core, fundamental organizational capability for CHOP, because
they’re saving kids’ lives every day, and so reliability is really essential. I
can tell you one simple thing you can do that will help in all four behaviors.
Will that be useful?
Knowledge@Wharton: Of
course.
Botelho: If you look at the
underlying muscle building, and how you raise your game on all four, I think
the most fertile area for that is mistakes. What are we talking about? We’re
talking about who are the most successful CEOs, and what comes to mind is an
Olympic list of accomplishments. The reality is the most successful CEOs who
are really strong at these behaviors are fantastic at mining their mistakes for
learnings for themselves and for the organization.
If I had to think about an underutilized business asset, it’s
mistakes, and really digging into them and figuring out, well how do I become
more reliable? Another point on reliability that’s interesting. Every
organization that I know where reliability is a matter of life or death is
obsessive about mistakes. There is a cult of actually finding these mistakes.
Madeline at CHOP introduced a practice called ‘Great Catch’ as a way to
celebrate people and encourage them and open the doors to the fact that a mistake
is not an indictment of perfectionism. Excellent organizations often struggle
with mistakes, because we expect ourselves to be so perfect. Madeline found a
lighthearted but really profound way to say: Great catch, it’s the job of all
of us to find mistakes. So I would encourage all of us to go on a personal
‘Great Catch’ program. If you do that, that is a route to improving your
behavior on every one of the four traits.
Knowledge@Wharton: How
would the principles that you have learned be applicable to leaders who are not
CEOs?
Botelho: This is probably
one thing that makes me most excited about our research. It’s exciting to
dispel the myths about CEOs and help boards become better at picking the right
CEOs. It’s exciting to see that it can actually change lives for the better no
matter what you do, whether you happen to be a principal or you just want to
have a good family.
What we found is that it’s never too early or too late to apply
these behaviors. We have examples of struggles and examples of real victories
at any stage in one’s career, whether you’re a really successful CEO or you’re
just the kid graduating from high school or anything in between
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/myth-vs-reality-four-behaviors-define-successful-leaders/?utm_source=kw_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017-05-30
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