Tag Archives: Leadership Types

What makes a company great?

Posted on October 2, 2009 | 3 Comments

My book commentary continues this week. You may be wondering what is going on with this… Well, after years of not living close to a public library I discovered one right next to my veterinarian. It’s not that convenient, but its not that far either. I picked up 5 books that I thought I could finish before their due date. It seems that I bit off a little more than I can chew, but never being one to give up – and refusing to succumb to “online renewal” I am plowing through. I am finally reading some classic business books (and some new ones too) that I just haven’t had the time for. This installment features “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. goodtogreat

This book gets my dander up for a lot of different reasons. Some are logical and some are a little irrational. My first issue with the book is that the world has changed so much since it was published. (2001) I like the concepts and all, but when I am reading about Fannie Mae, Nucor, and Wells Fargo as great companies there’s this little voice in the back of my mind saying “these guys all *screwed* up – does this research make ANY sense anymore???” Funny thing is that in the Epilogue the author addresses questions about his research. This was one of the questions – what about the companies that aren’t so great anymore? He acknowledges that it never is easy for companies to stay great and sometimes leaders let their egos get involved to cause this. I wish he would have put this in an introduction instead. That would have made reading this book a lot more pleasurable for me.

This book is also going to make me revisit my “Are you a hedgehog or a fox” post at some time. Clearly I need to do more research in this area because when it comes to leading a great company, being a hedgehog (albeit in a slightly different context than my previous post) is a GOOD thing. Companies who are singlemindedly driven toward a goal they are passionate about and that they can be the best at in the world are successful. None of that namby pamby running from idea to idea trying to jump start success happens in great companies. This hit home for me and it made me really angry. I’ve worked for those companies (more than one!) that tried to buy success in this way. What they ended up doing was frittering away millions of dollars of money that could have been used to build what they were really strong at and had people that were passionate about(and actually could be very successful selling). Instead, their leadership went on a huge ego trip and there was a flavor of the week idea that had to be implemented “now”! Talk about crazy.

The final thing that I appreciated is the concept of a Level 5 leader. We surely could use more of them running our companies in this country. Humble, modest, “we” focused, not “I” focused, has a goal of being the best, driven to succeed. This leader is not your charismatic leader. They don’t have to be. Their job isn’t to motivate their staff, but to make sure that they have the right people in the company who are willing to confront the circumstances – “the brutal facts” – and work to be successful despite of them.

“Now, you might be wondering, “How do you motivate people with brutal facts? Doesn’t motivation flow chiefly from a compelling vision?” The answer, surprisingly, is, “No.” Not because vision is unimportant, but because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time. One of the dominant themes that runs throughout this book is that if you successfully implement its findings, you will not need to spend time and energy “motivating” people. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated. The real question then becomes: How do you manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people? And one of the single most de-motivating actions you can take is to hold out false hopes, soon to be swept away by events.” Amen brother.

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Posted in Book Reviews, Corporate Strategy

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Different Leadership Styles

Posted on September 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

I just finished the revised and expanded edition of “The Extraordinary Leader – Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders” by John Zenger & Joseph Folkman. extraordinaryleader I found it to be a very worthwhile read and enjoyed it very much. For once I’ve found a management book that really doesn’t push one leadership style or behavior over others. What they found is that there is a set of competencies that are important. However, strangely enough, no one competency is more important than any of the others. Additionally a great leader doesn’t have to be good at all of them. A good leader just has to be exceptional at a few in order to be considered great. This determination wasn’t come about through “gut feeling” or their experiences, but through a very large study.

There were a number of takeaways for me. The first is that sometimes an organization will attempt to force fit leaders into a mold. If you don’t lead a certain way, no matter how good of a leader you are, you won’t be successful there. That is really a shame. “Rigidly defined competencies also may have the unintended consequence of creating cookie-cutter people inside the organization. If the competency system was implemented, would everyone appear to be cut from the same mold? How, then, does the organization attract and retain the maverick who is so valuable in challenging the status quo? Are the wild ducks killed just after they hatch? The concern is that, over time, sameness creates a homogeneity that becomes mind-numbing, and the culture devolves into one of anti-innovation.”

One organization that was studied that allowed leaders to find their own strengths and not be forced into a mold is one that most people would not expect to exhibit those characteristics. That organization was the US Marine Corp. I was completely impressed by the ways that the Marines cultivate leadership throughout their organization. Leadership training is something that everyone receives and it is ongoing. This is not an 8 hour seminar or a one week class like the corporate world provides. “Rather than being rigid and insisting that everyone perform in a similar style or process, the Marines understand that there are many effective leadership patterns. The Marines have discovered that some of their leaders succeed because of their technical expertise. Others are powerful team builders. Still others excel in their organizational skills. Some are extraordinary in their ability to see the potential in people and their ability to bring it out. Rather than force-fit their leaders ino any one mold, those responsible for leadership development observe the natural strengths and encourage the leader to magnify that quality.”

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Best to be B-O-R-I-N-G?

Posted on May 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

I love it. The New York Times article “In Praise of Dullness” talks about the skills needed to be a successful CEO. (thanks to the lead to this article from Bill Warner at http://www.paladinandassociates.com/)

They relied on detailed personality assessments of 316 C.E.O.’s and measured their companies’ performances. They found that strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good C.E.O. Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies.

What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours.

In other words, warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as C.E.O.’s. Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive.

These results are consistent with a lot of work that’s been done over the past few decades. In 2001, Jim Collins published a best-selling study called “Good to Great.” He found that the best C.E.O.’s were not the flamboyant visionaries. They were humble, self-effacing, diligent and resolute souls who found one thing they were really good at and did it over and over again.

That same year Murray Barrick, Michael Mount and Timothy Judge surveyed a century’s worth of research into business leadership. They, too, found that extroversion, agreeableness and openness to new experience did not correlate well with C.E.O. success. Instead, what mattered was emotional stability and, most of all, conscientiousness — which means being dependable, making plans and following through on them.

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The Changing Nature of Leadership

Posted on March 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

This Forbes article is almost 2 years old, but it is still worth reading.

“You see, as the more heroic, charismatic styles of leadership were grabbing the headlines over the past decades, another more silently effective leader has been taking hold. Jim Collins in Good to Great calls these individuals “Level 5″ leaders, and he once referred to them as “tofu leaders”–executives who are somewhat bland, mix really well with everything around them, and still provide necessary sustenance. Sure, a more heroic, Welch-esque approach is still needed in some circles and business environments, but in a by-gone era, results aren’t enough.”

I think that we’ve all been taught that a good leader has to be really charismatic and results oriented to be effective. I think that in some instances it can help, but in others it really doesn’t. In today’s environment caring only about the results and not the relationships will really hurt a leader. Right now employees are not feeling particularly loyal to their employers in this age of downsizing, outsourcing, and paycheck and benefits reductions. If their leaders just continue to push hard for results and maintain their larger than life personas without any regard to how it is impacting their teams there will eventually be mutiny in one form or another. Productivity will go down. Morale will be affected. When the job market opens up people will leave.

The corporate leaders that I found to be most effective were the ones that were pragmatic and open. They expected results – no doubt, but I would not say that they had a movie star super high energy personality. They engaged the companies that I worked at by sharing almost everything that was going on, allowing all the employees to contribute to solving the problems in their own unique ways. By fostering this openness in the entire organization it helped forge stronger relationships across the various teams. When employees knew exactly what the sales pipeline and revenue numbers looked liked and what the corporate burn rate was on a month to month basis it helped them make much better decisions when it came to spending money. Knowing what problems the sales team was running into in the field informed the product management and engineering teams as well. Being open about the strengths and weaknesses of the product helped marketing and sales do their jobs better. In these companies the silos were limited, and communication was good. There was a distinct sense of “we’re all in this together” and we all know what the company priorities are. We didn’t need a ra-ra leader to spin tall tales full of hype. In fact, the times that I worked for companies with those kinds of leaders it seemed that the organization as a whole recoiled from slick messaging as if touched by a hot poker.

My advice is that leaders should reward and promote the quiet influencers and relationship builders. They can get so much done without leaving as much as a ripple in their wake. They aren’t noisy, they aren’t polarizing. What they are is effective and their people will generally do whatever it takes to be successful because of the relationships that they have within and across their teams.

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