Developing leaders in a business…. The Will to Lead(2)
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. PART 2 IS GIVEN BELOW
Sensitivity
to situations
Situations are created by people and
must be dealt with by people. Any company leader who is called on to resolve a
dispute or disagreement must combine a careful analysis of the facts with an
acute sensitivity to the feelings and attitudes of the people involved.
Consider the case of a food
manufacturing conglomerate that developed a strategy of acquiring other food
companies to increase its share of market and profits. A small taskforce
scoured the country looking for acquisition candidates. Eventually, a fast-food
chain became available. The taskforce studied it carefully and recommended to
the president and chief operating officer that it be acquired.
The acquisition was made. After
several years, however, poor results created a drag on the conglomerate’s
profits. On closer examination, its chief executive realized that a fast-food
chain was an entirely different type of business from a food manufacturer. Key
factors for success were proper selection of sites and the selection and
training of people to make and serve the products—as contrasted with
manufacturing products in volume and packaging, distributing, advertising, and
promoting them effectively. The conglomerate sold the fast-food chain
(ironically, to another food manufacturer) and took a large charge against
earnings. The president was fired.
This disaster could have been
avoided if the people involved had conducted a more searching, sensitive, and
intuitive investigation. In that conglomerate, managed by command and control,
members of the taskforce expected a successful outcome to mean advancement for
them—and the president expected the acquisition to clinch his promotion to
chairman. Thus the objectivity of the taskforce and the president were
undermined by personal ambition. And poor judgment by the president cost him
his job. He failed to sense intuitively that he should have challenged the taskforce’s
objectivity more rigorously before authorizing the acquisition. But the chief
executive was really the one at fault.
Initiative,
initiative, initiative
Initiative is one of the most
important attributes of any leader. It is also easy to learn. Just think a bit,
use judgment, and act. The important thing is to keep alert for
opportunities.
American chief executives seldom
lack initiative; their boards wouldn’t have elected them if they did. Every
board knows that the chief executive has responsibility for getting things
going and keeping them going. Even so, command-and-control managing inhibits
initiative, especially down the line.
But consider the dynamics of a
leadership company run with a network of leaders. All leaders stationed
strategically throughout the company are alert to taking initiatives at every
opportunity. And constituents as well as leaders can suggest initiatives.
My late friend Bob Greenleaf once
said “Nothing in this world happens except at the initiative of a single
person.” His observation points up the opportunities for action that are open
to every leader and constituent in a leadership company. These can make an
important contribution to competitive advantage.
Good
judgment
John Gardner gives this definition
of judgment, of which every leader would do well to memorize the first
sentence:
“Judgment is the ability to combine
hard data, questionable data, and intuitive guesses to arrive at a conclusion
that events prove to be correct. Judgment-in-action includes effective problem
solving, the design of strategies, the setting of priorities, and intuitive as
well as rational judgments. Most important, perhaps, it includes the capacity
to appraise the potentialities of co-workers and opponents.”
Following fads in running companies
often reflects bad judgment. Adopting Japanese manufacturing ideas provides an
example. Some American manufacturers have found that this approach is nowhere
near as effective at lifting productivity in their own plants as it seems to be
in Japan. I can also think of many cases of bad judgment in making acquisitions
of new types of business to shore up weak earnings (and weak management) in the
core business. Too many acquisitions are based simply on the chief executive’s
wish to make the company larger, a prime cause of bad judgment.
In my opinion, the chief executive
of a leadership company is more likely to make good judgments than the chief of
a command-and-control company, simply because constituents—recognizing the
leader’s open-mindedness and willingness to listen—will be more willing to
volunteer their candid opinions. I also believe that multiple
first-among-equals leaders in a leadership company will make decisions of a
consistently higher quality because many leaders and constituents will be
involved in much of the decision making.
People whose judgments have been
tested and usually found to be sound are an invaluable resource. Any company
can strengthen the quality of its decision making by seeking out people with
good judgment among its network of leaders. Moreover, in a leadership company
where constituents can speak up, their judgments, too, can make important
contributions.
Broad-mindedness
My dictionary defines the term
“broad-minded” as “tolerant of varied views” and “inclined to condone minor departures
from conventional behavior.” This attribute is closely related to being
open-minded, adaptable, and flexible. Other aspects of broad-mindedness are
being undisturbed by little things, willing to overlook small errors, and easy
to talk with.
This is probably as good a place as
any to bring up sense of humor. It’s hardly an attribute, but it can serve
everybody well. A leader with a sense of humor will certainly get along better
with everyone, and he or she should nourish it constantly and be thankful for
having it.
Flexibility
and adaptability
Flexibility and adaptability go hand
in hand with open-minded listening. The chief executive and other leaders
thereby show their readiness to consider change and their willingness to make
changes when most agree they are needed.
When competitive circumstances call
for change, I’m convinced a leadership company will always be more ready for
it. From the chief executive down, all leaders will keep their minds open and
alert to the need for continuous improvement in all segments of the enterprise.
In doing so, they will learn how to spot the need for change faster, how to
initiate change, and how to adapt to it.
The
capacity to make sound and timely decisions
A sound decision by an individual
chief executive in a command company depends largely on his or her ability to
think and to seek advice from others. In a leadership company, there will be
fewer individual decisions, even by the chief executive. Most decisions will be
checked by others, at the CEO’s request or at the initiative of others. In
fact, all decisions should be of higher quality because so many people are free
to speak up and to disagree.
The late Charles Mortimer, chairman
of General Foods, was unusual in that he was openly trying to improve his own
performance. In one of our sessions, he gave me a pamphlet by Robert Rawly
entitled Time Out for Mental Digestion. He told me that he followed the
message faithfully and found that his decision making improved substantially.
Ever since then, I’ve followed it too, and with surprising success. Perhaps it
will work for others.
The key to the approach is “mental
digestion”; these words have more meaning for me than the old phrase “mulling
it over.” “Mulling” connotes turning over the same thought, whereas “mental
digestion” implies putting the original thought out of mind for a time. Mental
digestion, at least overnight, almost always brings new options from which to
choose. For something of real importance, however, one night will usually not
be long enough for new options to emerge. Then I may wait a week or two; again,
I put the thought out of mind, and again, new options suggest themselves each
time I go back to it. That’s the “mental digestion.”
All leaders—particularly the chief
executive—must recognize that the speed as well as the quality of their
decisions will set an example for others. I’ve observed a number of busy chief
executives who appear to be indecisive, but are not. They can make up their
minds all right, but they simply do not realize that delaying a decision (or
failing to communicate it) not only erodes effective performance, but also
irritates those waiting for the decision. They could correct this simply by
setting priorities and asking their assistants to remind them to follow up.
Some make decisions too quickly. One
chief executive I worked with surprised me with his rapid-fire decision making.
It turned out that he had been a baseball umpire in college and had carried the
habit over into business. Once he was aware of the reason, it was easy for him
to slow down—and the quality of his decisions went up.
In a leadership company, it might
not have taken an outsider (me) to help that executive improve his decision
making. In such a culture, people are more likely to help each other learn how
to decide. Competition among individuals to get ahead will likely be replaced
by mutual support among people helping each other to improve company
performance.
The
capacity to motivate
John Gardner puts it well: “More
than any other attribute, this is close to the heart of the popular conception
of leadership—the capacity to move people to action, to communicate
persuasively, to strengthen the confidence of followers.”
Too often, in so-called modern
managing, motivations take the form of monetary rewards for the individual, or
promises of advancement within the company. Both are characteristic of
command-and-control managing and should not be carried over into a leadership
company. In a leadership company, people will be motivated by example and the
daily satisfaction they get from making valuable contributions to the company,
and from being treated fairly, with dignity and consideration. These are
motivations they can take home every day. And since everyone should participate
in profit sharing and be owners of stock, they will have financial incentives
as well.
In the longer term, people in a
leadership company derive satisfaction from being involved in work that
produces products or services that customers buy with increasing satisfaction.
And for everyone, simply belonging to a leadership company will be satisfying
in itself.
A
sense of urgency
One of the ways currently advocated
for improving the command system is to use time (that is, speed) to provide a
competitive edge. Bring new products out on time, deliver orders promptly, get
things done faster than competitors. All are useful practices if carried out
without harming quality.
Early in my McKinsey career, I
observed that many outstanding companies had a sense of urgency underlying
everything they did—a refreshing difference from companies where every response
is either slow or erratic. I also noticed that the chief executive invariably
set the pace, which was promptly followed throughout the company.
When a sense of urgency has spread
right through a company, it can make a substantial difference in both
effectiveness and efficiency, and also makes it easier to speed up activities
further when necessary. Moreover, people like to work in a company where
“things happen.” A sense of urgency is a useful ingredient in a leadership
culture.
And a sense of urgency is easy to
establish in a leadership company. With the chief executive setting an example,
every leader throughout the company can, in turn, set an example for his or her
constituents.
Getting
started
Whether or not the ultimate plan is
to convert the business from a command-and-control company to a leadership
company, I suggest that the CEO take immediate steps to become a leader. No
matter how the company is run now, this change—from managing to leading—will, I
am sure, increase the CEO’s effectiveness in running the business.
The CEO will already have the trust
of the board—and probably of his or her direct reports. The challenge will be
to convince bosses throughout the company that they can trust the CEO. To
achieve this trust and become leaders, some CEOs may need only to become more
consistent in the way they currently behave; others may find that they will
have to undergo a major behavioral overhaul, a prospect that may prove too
daunting for them to undertake.
My experience has been that most
CEOs will fall between these two extremes. They will be natural learners and
eager to try what works. I’m convinced they should expend effort in three
areas: learning to listen to people actively with an open mind, demonstrating
high-precision truthfulness in all dealings, and becoming unassuming and
approachable in behavior. Combined, these basic changes are likely to be so
surprising to constituents that they will respond favorably almost immediately.
And as the CEO makes these changes, he or she will be able to judge the
difficulties that others may have in changing their behavior to become leaders
in their turn.
byMarvin Bower
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/leading_in_the_21st_century/developing_leaders_in_a_business?cid=other-eml-cls-mip-mck-oth-1403
