“Leadership building is an organization-wide ongoing activity. Leaders need to stay invested in the idea, provide needed resources, be a role model and not just provide lip-service or just come and speak at Annual Conferences or an Induction Program. They must actively participate in the process and provide the necessary support by being there physically and being the sponsor in the effort,” emphasizes Aparna Sharma, HR Practitioner & Independent Director on Corporate Board.
Aparna Sharma
Leadership is needed at all levels and across an organization and its network of relationships. Directors and Boards need to know what types of leadership to exercise and/or delegate, also when and where. Those for whom they are responsible should be clear about what is expected of them and properly supported. The potential to make a significant difference can exist throughout a company. Good ideas and promising initiatives can arise in many places. The leadership template needs to be customized as it varies from one to another organization. In my view, age has nothing to do with leadership or maturity. It comes with experience, persistence, it comes with setbacks and learning from those mistakes.
Effective leadership involves mutual respect and trust, and good relationships between key players and important stakeholders. While issues remain unresolved, leadership voices may need to exhibit a degree of alignment and a united front to the external world until a consensus is reached and a common position can be shared. This can require listening leadership that is sensitive to changing stakeholder concerns and priorities and relational leadership or taking the initiative and being responsive in building relationships with them.
The manager or the leader is usually uncomfortable with someone who is smarter than them. That’s what makes people highly insecure. Your success lies in the fact that you identify and help groom someone who is smarter than you. One must not wait to be nominated when they sense an opportunity to grow. You might not have ready answers to the challenges that come your way, but that’s how you get an opportunity to mitigate them and clear the path to success while being on the job.
ESTABLISHING LIMITS
People can be over-led. They may need space to grow and do what they feel is best. The cult of personality that sometimes accompanies individualistic leaders can overshadow others and lead them to withdraw into darker corners. More collectivist and democratic forms of leadership can be better at widening participation and encouraging discussion and debate. To work well, it requires secure personalities who are open to ideas and invite challenge rather than seek to avoid it or stifle questioning.
At a time of discontinuity and uncertainty, new ideas and initiatives may be sought. More democratic approaches may be required to encourage engagement, involvement and participation, and enlist interest, commitment and support. It may be necessary to build a shared purpose and consensus for moving forward. For best results, such an approach should include key customers, important suppliers and business partners whose active contributions are likely to be essential for success.
The adoption of such approaches might need to be accompanied by a review of governance arrangements and mechanisms for ensuring alignment, raising of issues and settlement of disputes. There may also be implications for the management and distribution of intellectual property and the sharing of financial rewards.
INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP
Charismatic leadership can sometimes be attractive to those who like to be led but may not be everyone’s cup of tea. In certain cases, charismatic leaders can serve their purpose, but it may become difficult to remove them. Independent Directors should be alert to leaders who overstay their welcome, keep rivals down, block challenges and begin to exhibit the attributes of a tyrant.
Authoritarian, dominant and exploitative forms of leadership are often not in tune with contemporary requirements for caring commitment, environmental awareness and concern, agility, flexibility and sensitivity. People tend to resent being used and either taken advantage of or taken for granted. They are less likely to go the extra mile when required, but more likely to jump ship as and when a better opportunity appears, or an escape route arises.
More consensual forms of leadership may be better at holding people together, but when a window of opportunity to act is rapidly diminishing, this should not be at the expense of decisive leadership. Servant, Supportive and Enabling Leadership can work well in more stable situations, when the people of an organization know what is required to succeed. During a period of instability and flux, more than monitoring, reacting to requests for help and taking pride in not interfering may be required.
Collective leadership that embraces a competent executive team and to which they contribute can be particularly effective at encouraging ownership and commitment. Leadership that is imposed, or to which people are subjected, can cause more passive responses. The active involvement of others can result in a more participative form of leadership. Co-operation with other entities and co-creation can stimulate a requirement for more collaborative or shared leadership.
ADAPTING AND EVOLVING LEADERSHIP
Leaders must know when to change gear and put more emphasis upon becoming a catalyst and a trigger of change. People may have to be challenged, inspired and encouraged rather than largely left alone because of what they have collectively achieved in the past. Untapped potential may need to be released and new elements introduced. A more entrepreneurial approach to leadership may be required. May be the corporate culture has to change to match a technological revolution or rapidly changing customer requirements.
Sometimes, an approach to leadership may need to be better aligned to that of joint venture or consortium partners. A change of style may be required to match that of a key customer with which a company wishes to become a longer-term strategic partner and work more closely. Legal and regulatory changes, Government policy changes and international agreements sometimes have implications for how business leaders have to behave.
During discussion of what approach or approaches to leadership to adopt, directors must revisit the company’s mission and purpose and also what they are collectively trying to achieve. The approach that is selected might be more appropriate if it is viewed as a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
LEADERSHIP TRENDS
As organizations become more fluid, open, flexible and responsive, opportunities are shared and more mutually beneficial relationships are forged, some forms of leadership are in decline. Top down and centrally controlled leadership has been challenged by more consensual and shared approaches, especially where people are critical elements of corporate success. However, tight control by small groups may still exist as more business models are adopted where activities are contracted out and/or automated. When key tasks are undertaken by algorithms, these and those who create them can become critical resources.
Command and control approaches to leadership may still exist in more stable contexts where routine activities and prescribed standards persist. However, other approaches more suited to contemporary requirements may continue to emerge as situations change. Further approaches may be latent. Leadership has traditionally been viewed as the leadership of people. It may evolve as more activities are undertaken by digital and other technologies. Many of the people involved may be undertaking support and maintenance tasks.
In fluid situations, such as when there is a change of status or business model, or during a transition or transformation journey, permanent, fixed and inherited leadership arrangements and personnel may require review. Owners and other stakeholders may step in to trigger and force changes. Interim or temporary leadership arrangements may be needed to ensure the agility and flexibility to cope with a succession of stages, challenges or opportunities.
HORSES FOR COURSES
Availability, succession issues and divisions over longer-term direction are among the circumstances that can give rise to rotating leadership. Events such as a takeover or insolvency can result in the replacement of some or all members of a leadership team. Some changes might trigger a search for different leadership approaches, experience and qualities. For example, a leader of a major and mission critical transformation project on tight timescales might have experience and qualities that the head of a stable business might lack.
Crisis leadership may demand a particular skill set. Some companies face so many inter-related challenges that someone with program management experience covering a portfolio of projects may be more suitable than a person who has led a homogenous entity on what has been closer to a single corporate project.
In certain occasions, aspects of subversive or revolutionary leadership might be practiced by some members of a leadership group. A promising venture may need to be protected. Revisionists might wish to advance an initiative that is opposed by vested interests and supporters of the status quo. Liberating leadership could endeavor to release pent-up forces to change.
PROBLEMATIC APPROACHES
Absent, ineffective or weak leadership can lead to drift and delay. Sometimes when leadership decisions are taken, those on nomination and remuneration committees over-react. They overcompensate. By trying to address what they feel has been lacking, they go too far in a different direction. Account must also be taken of emerging developments, future requirements and longer-term aspirations.
There may be few business advocates of the delusional leadership that is sometimes found in the political environment. While determined and focused leadership might have more appeal, directors need to think through what the determination and focus should be applied to. Directors who advocate responsible and responsive leadership should clarify to whom a board should be responsible and accountable and what they should be responsive to.
Certain companies seem to recruit a succession of people with similar attributes and educational and/or social backgrounds. When assembling candidates to be considered and short-listed, those who desire more inclusive and diverse leadership should cause the net to be cast more widely.
Some family members accustomed to family leadership of a family-owned company exert their power of patronage to limit selection to older close relatives rather than look more broadly. The future success of the company concerned may depend upon whether a family uses governance arrangements to ensure continuing control rather than open up possibilities.
LEADERSHIP CHANGES
Those who trigger and/or enforce changes at the top should think through their implications for the people of an organization and its stakeholders. Changing the allegiances of those who are led, their perspectives and approaches, and an organization’s values and culture may take longer. Leadership changes can be unsettling. Maintaining confidence may require careful communication.
In uncertain times, leaders who in the past endeavored to provide physical support and safe and healthy working environments might also turn their attention to mental illness and the provision of emotional support. Some approaches of leadership are complimentary. Others could represent alternatives that are in different positions on a spectrum. A balance might need to be struck, for example between proactive and reactive leadership.
Climate change and environmental, pandemic and sustainability challenges might necessitate a review of corporate purpose. The value of purposeful leadership for engaging and securing commitment can depend upon the nature of the purpose articulated. It might benefit from involving key stakeholders in the formulation or selection of a corporate purpose. It can be particularly relevant when there is a significant change of direction, purpose and priorities.
INNOVATION AND PRAGMATISM
Innovative leadership might be an approach that is different, distinctive or novel for some companies. It might be essential for a particular business, or a certain stage in the development of an enterprise. It could be an ad hoc change to address a challenge or seize an opportunity, or a more lasting requirement for coping with an altered situation, a significant shift of circumstances, requirements or resources, or a transition or transformation.
Categories
