LEADERSHIP SPECIAL Developing leaders in a business…. The Will to Lead(1)
In
his book The Will to Lead, Marvin Bower, McKinsey’s managing partner
from 1950 to 1967, urges senior managers to abandon command-and-control
structures and adopt a program to develop leaders, starting with themselves. In
this excerpt, he explores the attributes of leadership.
The
shortcomings of command-and-control management are becoming ever more apparent.
The hierarchy of bosses organized into ranks, with each superior exercising
authority over subordinates who do exactly what their boss wants, has long been
the dominant form of corporate organization. But recognizing that they are
handicapped by their current systems, many companies are now questioning the
way they manage themselves. They are striving for greater effectiveness and
flexibility to cope with and capitalize on the fast-moving, ever-changing
competitive conditions they see just ahead.
I believe that the old command
system must be replaced. Fixing it is not good enough. My view is that
authority should be replaced by leadership. By that, I don’t mean that a
business should be run by a single leader, but that it should be run by a
network of leaders positioned right through the organization. Leaders and
leadership teams working together will, I suggest, run a business more
effectively than a hierarchical, command-and-control structure.
What
makes a leader?
Leadership scholars define a leader
as a person who sets attractive goals and has the ability to attract followers,
or constituents, who share those goals. Above all, a leader must be trusted and
respected. Trust between a leader and constituents opens up two-way
communication, making it possible for them to realize their common goals.
Anyone who aspires to lead must
develop certain qualities and attributes. By “qualities,” I mean elements of
character or personal makeup that are typically difficult (but not impossible)
to learn. People usually bring their qualities with them when they join a
company. “Attributes,” on the other hand, are more like skills and hence easier
to learn. Fortunately, the attributes needed for leadership far outnumber the
qualities.
Trustworthiness
Leadership scholars are virtually
unanimous in putting trustworthiness at the top of the list of qualities
required by any leader. Trustworthiness is integrity in action. Pearl S. Buck,
winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, put it thus: “Integrity is
honesty carried through the fibers of the being and the whole mind, into
thought as well as into action so that the person is complete in honesty. That
kind of integrity I put above all else as an essential of leadership.”
Anyone seeking to be a leader should
always tell the truth, if for no other reason than it is simpler. Richard Heckert,
retired chairman of DuPont, put it this way: “If you always tell the truth, you
won’t have to remember what you said.”
I have observed that the executives
I trusted most were truthful about unimportant as well as important things.
They went into detail to be accurate about small things, even correcting
statements about things that did not matter. High-precision truthfulness is a
good way to gain trust, the ticket of admission to leadership.
Ralph Hart, former chairman of
Heublein and president of Colgate-Palmolive, spoke of an incident early in his
career when he was hired to sell adding machines to small stores. He was given
no training, just provided with samples and sent straight into the field. When
he began his route, he was too nervous to enter the first store. As it was late
in the day, he decided to wait until morning and begin fresh. But the next day
he was still nervous. Finally, near closing time, he approached a store owner,
who wasn’t interested:
“I asked, ‘Would you at least look
at them?’ So the store owner started asking me questions, and I kept on saying,
‘I don’t know, but I‘ll find out.’ Finally the owner agreed to purchase an
adding machine. I was mystified, and asked him why he finally relented. He
replied, ‘Anyone who has a salesman as honest as you are must have a good
product.’ That was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. It’s
something that I never forgot—be honest and tell the truth.”
Fairness
In my years as a consultant, the
most frequent complaint I heard (in confidence) about bosses has been about
some form of unfairness. To get something done, the boss had used authority
carelessly. In the eyes of subordinates, what the boss wanted done was
unnecessary, too difficult, or impossible in the time given.
In America, to be called an unfair
boss is damning, and even implies a flawed character. Conversely, a boss who is
tough but fair is to be admired. In dictionaries, “fair” is variously defined
as equitable, unprejudiced, impartial, dispassionate, and objective.
However it is defined,
Americans—possibly because of their intense involvement in sports—are quick to
recognize what’s fair and what’s unfair. They will forgive much, but seldom
unfairness. Unfairness in a chief executive is particularly serious, because he
or she sets the example for everyone else in the company.
Fairness and trust, of course, go
hand in hand. Both are essential not only in the chief executive, but in all
leaders throughout the company. Moreover, if fairness and trust become an
integral part of a company’s culture, then these qualities will flourish, to
that company’s great benefit.
Unassuming
behavior
Arrogance, haughtiness, and egotism
are poisonous to leadership. But leaders can never be hypocritically humble.
They are simply unassuming in their behavior. Unpretentiousness can be learned,
and it is well suited to the examples the chief executive should set.
Robert K. Greenleaf, former director
of management research for AT&T, coined a useful term for the unassuming
leader: “servant leadership.” In a pamphlet, and later in his book Servant
Leadership, he alludes to a German tale about a group of important men who
went on a long journey into the wilderness, accompanied by a servant. They got
lost and fell into deep trouble. The servant was particularly helpful and
became accepted as the leader of the group. His masters came to trust him
because he demonstrated attributes that helped them get out of trouble. So he,
a servant, became their leader, and they became his constituents.
Having a servant leadership
viewpoint helps any chief executive focus on company performance and on the
needs of constituents rather than on his or her own performance or image. The
chief executive knows that he or she will get credit for good corporate
performance as well as blame for poor performance. So the chief who is a leader
can plunge wholeheartedly into leading other company leaders in improving
overall company performance, knowing that chief executive performance is always
being carefully watched by everyone in the company.
Successful leaders are as unassuming
in the surroundings they create—or tolerate—as they are in their behavior.
Casualness and informality contribute to a leadership culture. In some
successful high-tech companies, everyone dresses and behaves informally; it’s
integral to the company culture.
Let me add a few more examples:
- Unassuming leaders surprise visitors and company people with their offices: pleasant, inviting, and functional, but completely unostentatious in size and decor. And they leave their desks to sit with visitors.
- General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Operation Desert Storm, was offered a villa by the Saudis, but he chose instead a small room tucked away behind his office.
- I know several executives who have “chairman” on their business cards and letterhead but not “chief executive officer,” even though they hold both titles.
- I know two chief executives who often stand in line at headquarters cafeterias and then join a group at one of the general tables.
- The McKinsey research on excellent companies, which ultimately became In Search of Excellence, found that unassuming executives walk around rather than holding meetings in their own offices.
If all company leaders have an
unassuming manner—with the casualness and informality that it produces—the
resulting behaviors of people will fit naturally into a leadership culture.
Leaders
listen
Listening may seem like an
unimportant activity, but my experience convinces me that the reverse is true.
In a survey, one of the participants said: “Frankly, I had never thought of
listening as an important subject by itself. But now that I am aware of it, I
think that perhaps 80 percent of my work depends on my listening to someone, or
on someone else listening to me.”
I have observed that a high
proportion of CEOs in command companies don’t listen very well. They may even
turn off people who have valuable information to provide; and one turn-off may
discourage the person from coming forward the next time with even more valuable
information. In fact, chief executives of command companies are generally such
poor listeners that they can signal their change to leading simply by beginning
to listen. The shift from telling to listening can be startling to
subordinates—and I guarantee they will receive it well. Indeed, at first, they
will be flattered. And emerging leaders will be surprised by how much of
importance they will learn.
In meetings, chief executives often
close off opportunities to learn by expressing their own views too early in the
discussion. I know one chief executive of a world-class overseas company who
does this constantly. His colleagues have concluded that he is subconsciously
showing off his brilliance. That habit, together with the awe in which he is
held, cuts him off from important facts and useful opinions.
Active listening helps assure the
other person that he or she is being heard and understood. That involves not
only paying close attention, but also asking brief, nonleading questions. These
convey interest and understanding without necessarily implying agreement.
But a word of caution: listening
customs vary around the world. One American executive I know went to England to
negotiate an alliance. He was successful, but the affiliation proved worthless.
His rueful afterthought: “I wish I had known then that when most Britons nod
their heads, it means ‘I understand you,’ not ‘I agree with you.’”
Listening was cited as playing an
important role in the election by Fortune in 1994 of six new members of
the National Business Hall of Fame, each of whom was “blessed as much with
forehearing as foresight”:
“Of all the skills of leadership,
listening is one of the most valuable—and one of the least understood. Most
captains of industry listen only sometimes, and they remain ordinary leaders.
But a few, the great ones, never stop listening. They are hear-aholics, ever
alert, bending their ears while they work and while they play, while they eat
and while they sleep. They listen to advisers, to customers, to inner voices,
to enemies, to the wind. That’s how they get word before anyone else of unseen
problems and opportunities.”
This seemingly simple
attribute—along with open-mindedness—can have enormous importance and contribute
to competitive advantage for any company.
A
leader is open-minded
Over the years, I have encountered
many chief executives whose minds were closed or only slightly ajar. As a
consultant, I admit to being sensitive to this failing. What’s the use of hiring
consultants if your mind is too closed to consider their findings?
I’ve thought a lot about why chief
executives are not more open-minded, and I lay much of the blame on the
command-and-control system. The all-powerful chief executive sits at the top, managing
mostly from there. People don’t question chief executives much, and they seldom
disagree with them. So CEOs become self-believers and commanders of others.
That’s pretty heady stuff, and it feeds on itself.
Self-assurance can be a plus, but
excessive self-assurance leads to egotism and even arrogance; it certainly
closes minds. I’ve seen it happen.
If a leader gets an idea—say, an
acquisition—he or she keeps an open mind about its good and bad features.
People in the organization then feel free to come forward with both positive
and negative information. By contrast, a CEO in a command company who gets an
idea about an acquisition might not want to hear any negative information about
it, and if that CEO doesn’t have a reputation for being open-minded, people are
not likely to come forward with such information. When in doubt, people in a
command company tend to keep quiet.
Any leader with an open mind makes
better judgments, learns more of what he or she needs to know, and establishes
more positive relations with subordinates and constituents. In a leadership
company where there is no hierarchy and where people are free to speak their
minds about company performance and how to improve it, people can be more
productive. Consider the great competitive advantage of having an open-minded
chief executive and other open-minded leaders throughout a company, all ready
to receive and consider ideas and put them to work if their judgments stamp
them as useful.
As constituents come to learn that
their leader does indeed listen with an open mind, they’ll gain confidence in
offering their opinions and in engaging in those full, free exchanges of
thought that can turn into useful brainstorming sessions. Even the small ideas
that emerge can be valuable, and sometimes they can be developed into ideas of
real importance. The leader can easily control the time devoted to such
sessions: constituents will sense when he or she wants to end the discussion
and get on with other business.
It isn’t hard to keep an open mind
once you accept its value. However, for anyone who is learning to be
open-minded, the following guidelines may help. Never say no immediately. Of
course, you have to give a response of some sort, and it should be “I’ll get
back to you.” After you have taken time for thought, at least overnight, your
decision in all likelihood will be better for not having been made on the spot.
Whatever you decide, don’t fail to get back to those to whom you’ve promised to
respond. Particularly, be meticulous in responding to anything submitted in
writing.
Sensitivity
to people
Most leadership scholars call this
attribute “skill in dealing with people.” To me that smacks of managing or even
manipulating people, as though the leader should develop mechanical approaches
or a studied synthetic style. Moreover, treating this attribute as a skill
focuses the mind of the leader inwardly in a self-centered way, instead of
outwardly on helping or persuading constituents.
The reality is that a leader can’t
motivate or persuade constituents or others effectively without having some
sense of what’s on their minds. So unless they are always forthcoming about
what is on their minds (which is unrealistic to expect), the leader must try to
discern what they’re thinking and feeling. That’s why I prefer to call this
important attribute “sensitivity to people.”
I believe a leader can develop
competence in guessing what’s on people’s minds. Once my late partner Zip
Reilly had convinced me to give up commanding and try persuading, I knew that I
could persuade people better if I could tell what was going on inside them. It
seemed to me, however, that I had to start paying attention to everyone I dealt
with every day. I had to stop taking them for granted and exercise insights,
intuition, perception, empathy, or some combination of these in the guesswork
of trying to find out what was on their minds. Eventually I got the hang of it;
I suggest that nearly anyone with the will to lead can do the same.
There is a stereotype that women
have more intuition than men; my own experience backs this up. At McKinsey, we
work extensively with teams. I have observed that when I have worked for some
time with an all-male team and then add a woman, the team becomes more
imaginative, has more and better ideas, and is more sensitive to what’s on the
minds of client people. It is well to keep this in mind in making up leadership
teams.
Sensitivity to people also means
that leaders are sensitive to their feelings. Leaders are polite, considerate,
understanding, and careful that what they say to someone is not dispiriting
unless criticism is intended. Leaders, especially chief executives, must also
be careful not to be overheard discussing someone’s job performance with
another person. There’s nothing new in that but it’s frequently overlooked.
