Leadership has become an oxymoron, a meaningless word in the corporate world.
We attempt here to ‘redefine’ it with the specific purpose of making it ‘practical’ and useful’ for developing leadership qualities in corporate executives. The purpose is to extract its implicit meaning we have in our minds and articulate it as precisely as we can so that we can not only practice it but ‘develop’ it when we see its absence.
Section I: Why another definition of leadership
Section II: Towards a new definition of leadership
Section III: Organisation-relevant definition of leadership and its implications
Section IV: What is needed to develop leadership in corporate world
Section I: Why another definition of leadership?
Leadership is a much misunderstood concept in corporate world because it exists in many versions.
Trainers 'label' many of their programs as 'leadership development programs', even when they are not meant to develop leadership. They go a step further by claiming that leadership can be practiced at any level and by anyone. This is the Western view of human development: you can do anything if you have the willingness and drive to achieve it. This propagates leaders who take charge from the front, ignoring the leaders who lead from behind.
Versions also proliferate because of reluctance of researchers in defining leadership. Researchers interview and study CEO's and political leaders, decipher common traits and behavior (such as integrity, customer focus, result focus etc) and claim it as a common denominator of a leader. They do all this without ‘defining’ leadership. In their quest to identify leadership traits, they may even forget that many of the CEO's and leaders they interviewed may have been 'administrators'.
Some argue that we should not define leadership because we may fall in the pit of claiming that there is only 'one' definition of leadership. On the other hand knowledge cannot be built until one defines something 'precisely'. Not defining precisely makes it easier to claim 'anything and everything' as leadership, which is happening right now.
Without precise definition of leadership, what do companies currently do about ‘skilling’ their leaders? Because they need capable leaders, they have taken an inside-out approach of developing leadership traits. They define five, six or seven leadership traits as being ‘absolute’ and then proceed to inculcate those ‘traits’ in their top executives. Assessment centers are designed to assess and evaluate these traits.
Psychologists are today convinced that absolute traits ‘alone’ do not explain the behaviour of an individual. Equally powerful determinant of behaviour is the ‘context’ of the situation. ( This is why we may be ‘honest’ with friends, but not be honest with others. ) Some even argue that there is very little difference ‘of traits’ between the leaders and non-leaders; the difference lies in how the leaders use their ‘traits’ in a given ‘context’. Because the second half - the competency to deal with the context - is not understood well, it is neither ‘taught’ nor ‘enabled’.
Because of the above, corporate leaders today are developed through luck and chance, rather by any design or plan. With a precise definition of leadership, HR can provide the potential leaders the right 'practice ground' to develop leadership. HR will know which positions are not good for practicing leadership. It will also know what it needs to do help executives practice leadership. It will enable HR set realistic expectations from itself. HR will invest more carefully in training and developing the right people, instead of trying to practice it all levels. This will mean getting more returns from the efforts, better grooming of leaders and better succession planning
Section II: Towards a new definition of leadership
Rudolph Giuliani's resurrection of New York after 9/11 is one example of leadership development which is often quoted. Reviving a city/institution after such a tragedy requires extraordinary capabilities to bring together all stakeholders, chalk out an action plan and execute it. But is this leadership?
Is 'removing terrorism' same as 'removing terrorist'?
Is countering the practice of anti dowry same as passing the 'anti-dowry' law in the parliament?
Is instituting 'secured transport' in a city after 11 pm same as instituting anti-criminal police practices in the city?
If you observe closely the difference in the first and second act, you will get the glimpse of leadership concept. The first act requires understanding of 'interrelated systems', while the second requires understanding of 'linear systems'. The first act requires a far difficult juxtaposition of initiatives and stakeholders, while the second requires a 'one dimension action' against the dissidents. The first act requires dealing with ‘dynamic complexity’ (complexity created because of interrelationship of variables) while the second act is dealing with ‘static complexity’ (complexity created due to number of variables).
In short, the first act requires the ability to deal with Open ‘systems'. It is a word which has precise definition, derived from Systems theory. For more details see Frijtof Capra’s book The Web of Life.
This is where we have a first definition of leadership: the kernel
Leadership practice is an ability to influence large open system(s) in a sustained manner.
What is the essence of leadership practice?
Is it managing an open system? Every operating system ( be it business unit, geography, or a function) is an open system because it is influenced by multiple systems. But even a relationship with spouse, influenced by multiple systems like finance, kids, and friends and so on, is an open system. However we do not wish to term 'managing relationship' as leadership practice.
Is it managing a ‘large’ system? Largeness can be defined by physical boundary, such as eco system. Eco systems are difficult to influence simply because of their largeness. A virtual system in an organization however can also be large. But largeness alone does not differentiate leadership practice of say a freelance entrepreneur (such as a doctor working in a clinic, or a photographer working in entertainment industry) visavis a corporate executive? Both must understand the large open system - of which their operating system is part of - to find how they can influence. So what differentiates the two?
The corporate executive has to influence the 'internal open' system to execute the 'strategy' that he/she has deciphered from understanding the 'external open' system, while the freelance entrepreneur only has to influence the external open system to discover a sustainable strategy.
In other words, essence of corporate leadership practice involves management of two kinds of open systems: one, to understand the 'external open' system to 'decide' strategically the requirement of influencing it, and two, to 'execute' that decision by influencing the 'internal open' system ( which is nothing but the operating system).
'Execution' requires consensus of the direction to take. Imagine what Gandhiji could have gone through to develop a consensus that ‘Independence to India should be pursued by following the path of non-violence' amongst other contending alternatives. Consensus is also required to create 'enough variety' in the system. 'Variety' is the ability to understand the requisite variables in the environment and respond appropriately. If variety is not enough, each person in an organisation may follow different path, halting the progress of the organisation in a specific direction. If too much time is required to generate the consensus though, the opportunity window may close. In other words, influencing internal open system is a big challenge.
Lastly, corporate leadership practice is also about taking actions that will sustain the initial trigger. Executives are often seen to take one-off actions that can be sustained only by sheer willpower and/or a 60-week schedule. Sustained manner means taking an action which can be sustained by the ‘system’ after the initial trigger is off.
Section III: New organisation-relevant definition of leadership
Leadership practice, in short, requires two criteria to be met
Part I: Understand large open system (of which the operating system, say the business units, is a part) to chose the 'mountain' to climb (that will enable the operating system to influence the open system in a sustained manner).
Part II: Enable the 'large operating system' to scale the mountain so that elements of operating system follow appropriate course/path in a self-sustained manner (which includes the ability to course-correct) irrespective of the changing circumstances (which may therefore include the decision to change the mountain).
In non-systems language, we can call part I as ‘developing a sustainable strategy’, while Part II as ‘executing the given strategy in a sustainable manner’. We are however using the language of ‘systems’ because HR has to understand the ‘theory of leadership’ to apply it anywhere. They have to diagnose a given position for its leadership potential, or a leader in a given situation.
This definition tells us what leadership practice is and what is not.
One, a CEO of a company selling ball bearing, exclusively to automobile industry, has to understand a large open system involved, as well as a CEO working in a General Motors. The difference is in scope of the largeness of the open system. Part I and Part II actions are required by both CEOs.
Pressurised by stock options, shareholders and boards, CEOs develop strategies/plans to show that they are at helms. In the process they develop 'me-too' strategies that are unsustainable. They look good on paper but fail to pass the test of ‘sustaining’ the advantage. Or they just believe that 'hard work' alone can help them scale the mountain. These CEOs find it convenient to blame 'people' for poor 'execution'. Execution therefore has become a buzz word of corporate success.
Two, a senior executive heading a support department like HR, Training or Finance faces a different set of open systems to ‘decide’ the mountain than a senior executive of a SBU facing a customer. The difference is in the dependency: one is dependent on truly external open system (customer); another is dependent on the business unit’s view of external open system.
Because of this dependency, if business executives in their organization lack the skill of first part, an executive in support department may ‘lead’ his/her function in a ‘wrong direction’. Fortunately, as we shall see later, other options are open to this executive which may still enable him/her to practice leadership.
Three, Part II actions seem to be a bigger differentiator than Part I actions in defining a leader due to two reasons.
One, ability to self-sustain the course requires one to develop a team which can function without the leader. We have seen many well intentioned initiatives suffer when the 'hero' leader leaves the team without developing his/her team sufficiently. Many small companies remain 'small' because of this lack of ability. Part I executives will remain as entrepreneurs and innovators.
Further, lack of Part II understanding also reflects in wrong choice of strategies, which is a Part I action. Many strategies (arrived after understanding the open system) are impractical to implement because they require many system elements to converge with the 'goal'. Part II-unaware leaders are completely ignorant of how to achieve this. For instance, very few executives know how 'vision and values' can help system elements to converge.
The difficulty in managing Part II actions seems to be arising due to dual nature of an organisation: on the one hand an organisation is a ‘mechanical system’ meant to achieve a given purpose in a predetermined way, while on the other hand it is a ‘living system’ of people which provides the required ‘variety’ to the system to bring in flexibility and innovative solutions. Both are needed. But MBA executives learn to manage the first, miss the second. For MBA executives, execution is about 'controlling' everything, which is the model of an Army commander. Organisational leaders learn to manage the living system, and more importantly, how to make the ‘living system’ coexist with the ‘mechanical system’.
Four, this definition of leadership also shows that leadership can be practiced in certain positions and in certain situations.
For instance, in difficult times, one may need a different set of actions, such as Louis Gestener did when he was brought to revive IBM. At such difficult times, stopping the hemorrhaging is more important than developing a sustainable strategy. Moreover, as organisational elements converge on the ‘to-do actions’ more readily due to crisis, Part II challenge is minimal. ( Louis Gestener also had the insight to leave IBM in time because he knew that it needed a man who understood the ‘internal system’ of IBM! )
Similarly, at a junior position, when sufficient options are not available in the ‘operating system’ of which the junior person is in charge, one cannot practice leadership. Neither Part-I is an open system or Part II is an open system at a junior level. Part II internal system can be made ‘open’ in certain situations. For instance, small project in a software company is not a sufficiently open system to practice leadership, but organizations can create a much larger open system if the project size is large and multi dimensional.
High variety situations, where lots of options seem to exist, are often confused with ‘open systems’. For instance, customer-facing positions of delivery in airlines, hotels, or banks ‘generate’ lot of variety. Such high variety positions can create ‘conflicting’ demands on HR! For instance, these positions demand initiative and flexibility on the one hand, and compliance with processes and system on the other.
But, it is my suggestion, that we should restrict leadership positions to mean those positions where both internal and external systems are sufficiently open (which in turn would necessitate both Part I and Part II actions). Whenever a system is relatively closed, it has a potential of being manned with an able manager or administrator.
Five, this definition also makes it easy to understand why leadership practice is more prevalent in ‘open system’ social arena than in relatively ‘close system’ organizational arena. We intuitively knew that there is a parallel we corporate executives can use, but we never knew the limitations of drawing that parallel. This definition brings out the limitations starkly.
Section IV: What is needed to develop leadership in corporate world?
Part I skills are taught by B schools. A MBA definitely learns how to develop a strategy. He knows the elements involved in developing the strategy and can find out quite easily what every competitor is doing and why. This is a big step in learning Part I skills.
The second step is however quite difficult: finding a strategy (it is also called developing business model) that will help company sustain it’s competitiveness over a long period of time. Because nothing is difficult to replicate over a long period, it is about gaining the lead that is difficult to catch. For a fashion industry, lead of 6 months is difficult to catch. For an old industry it could be 6 years.
The difficulty of second step is apparent when you see two companies bashing each other with similar strategy. Pepsi and Coca Cola is a good example in India. They have been following similar me-too strategies and bleeding profusely in India. But no one is backing out. Jim Collins reports in his book ( Good to Great) that the 12 leaders, who achieved constant growth over 75 years, took a very long time (about 6-8 years) to get the business models of their company right. So although the first step can be learnt, the second step requires understanding of the deeper dynamics of an industry to evolve a sustainable strategy.
Part II skills are currently taught in bits and pieces.
Generating dialogue amongst the senior management team has been well researched and understood. Performance appraisal systems to align individual goals to organisational goals are understood well but they are too static to deal with the challenges faced on the ground.
Work on rewards and incentives – based on Pavalovian model – unfortunately do not help us in influencing today’s individuals who want something ‘more’ from their jobs. It is therefore not surprising to find that jobs in social system, based on voluntary commitment, are more easier to ‘man’ than a job in corporate world.
The biggest knowledge bottleneck in Part II is in designing the ‘whole’. We have understood a lot about individual part elements, about vision, values, and organization structural options, MBO, Balance Score card and others. But our knowledge of putting these parts together into a whole is still an art, not yet developed into a science. This is where largest efforts shall be required in developing learning material that can help executives learn ‘Part-II’ actions.
Part II is about understanding internal open system requires understanding of the recursive effects of actions, the interdependencies inherent in the sequencing of actions, the realistic understanding of the current situation without the bias, and using symbolic effect of an action. (A subset of this is called 'change management'.) One can use countless examples happening around us to develop this Part II competency. For instance, asking ‘how should BCCI have responded to the Harbhajan controversy’ will help us evaluate the understanding of the managers in this arena.
However the more difficult part in developing Part II competency is knowing that Part II is not just 'understanding' content, but being able to 'act on it'. It is accompanied with behavioral component. This therefore requires 'simulation of a situation'.
Learning any competency is also related with measuring it so that corrective actions can be taken by measuring the as-is status. Consequences of Part II competency are visible in the 'reportees', 'colleagues' and above all the family members of the aspiring leader. Taking advantage of this impact, one can do a 360 degree feedback and indirectly measure this leadership competency. Other visible but indirect indicators like work-life balance, ability to react under stress, active sense-making can also be used as a substitute.
To summarise, leadership development would need
o Preparing Learning material ( that should include case studies, role plays
and simulation ) on
- Part I: ‘Dynamic’ strategy development both for BU heads and functional
heads ( normal strategy development is pick and apply
- Part II: How to generate the competency of influencing the ‘operating
system’ to deliver the outcome of Part I. (Larger and widespread teams
require different expertise and tools.)
o How to develop the above two competencies by using multiple channels
(using multiple channels will help produce results in shorter time) like
- Organisational interactions such as meetings, mentoring and others
- Parenting
- Automatic sense-making in social interactions and media
- Development and pursuit of hobbies
- Fulfilling other responsibilities such as living with old parents,
developing friends, building social network
o Preparing diagnostics on
- How to diagnose ‘positions’ in an organisation for their absence/presence
of leadership potential (We do not need a leader if the same position can be
manned by a manager or administrator)
- Measuring Part I/Part II competencies ( continuously) in an individual to
identify and rectify the gaps
Post Script
The above definition of leadership has deeper insights for a leader in social arena, because a NGO executive, unlike a corporate executive, is forced to engage with open systems all the time. Because social initiatives are high on ‘passion and commitment’, but low on ‘practicality and results’ leadership development offers them a high leverage option. However, we shall not deal with it, because it will divert our attention from developing leaders in ‘organisational situations’.
References
James March, the researcher who conducted a course on Leadership for Stanford University for 14 years, writes after his experience that ‘Major Issues of leadership are indistinguishable from the issues of life”.
Having identified the challenges of development in a human being through my 5-year long research on career building ( the book of which has been published by Macmillan), I took this leap to define leadership.
Systems theory has been my primary vehicle of both understanding leadership and now, as I see it, developing leadership. Systems theory has also got very evolved and crystallized since 1990s. In contrast to earlier days, we can now use it to build and develop practical leadership skills.
We attempt here to ‘redefine’ it with the specific purpose of making it ‘practical’ and useful’ for developing leadership qualities in corporate executives. The purpose is to extract its implicit meaning we have in our minds and articulate it as precisely as we can so that we can not only practice it but ‘develop’ it when we see its absence.
Section I: Why another definition of leadership
Section II: Towards a new definition of leadership
Section III: Organisation-relevant definition of leadership and its implications
Section IV: What is needed to develop leadership in corporate world
Section I: Why another definition of leadership?
Leadership is a much misunderstood concept in corporate world because it exists in many versions.
Trainers 'label' many of their programs as 'leadership development programs', even when they are not meant to develop leadership. They go a step further by claiming that leadership can be practiced at any level and by anyone. This is the Western view of human development: you can do anything if you have the willingness and drive to achieve it. This propagates leaders who take charge from the front, ignoring the leaders who lead from behind.
Versions also proliferate because of reluctance of researchers in defining leadership. Researchers interview and study CEO's and political leaders, decipher common traits and behavior (such as integrity, customer focus, result focus etc) and claim it as a common denominator of a leader. They do all this without ‘defining’ leadership. In their quest to identify leadership traits, they may even forget that many of the CEO's and leaders they interviewed may have been 'administrators'.
Some argue that we should not define leadership because we may fall in the pit of claiming that there is only 'one' definition of leadership. On the other hand knowledge cannot be built until one defines something 'precisely'. Not defining precisely makes it easier to claim 'anything and everything' as leadership, which is happening right now.
Without precise definition of leadership, what do companies currently do about ‘skilling’ their leaders? Because they need capable leaders, they have taken an inside-out approach of developing leadership traits. They define five, six or seven leadership traits as being ‘absolute’ and then proceed to inculcate those ‘traits’ in their top executives. Assessment centers are designed to assess and evaluate these traits.
Psychologists are today convinced that absolute traits ‘alone’ do not explain the behaviour of an individual. Equally powerful determinant of behaviour is the ‘context’ of the situation. ( This is why we may be ‘honest’ with friends, but not be honest with others. ) Some even argue that there is very little difference ‘of traits’ between the leaders and non-leaders; the difference lies in how the leaders use their ‘traits’ in a given ‘context’. Because the second half - the competency to deal with the context - is not understood well, it is neither ‘taught’ nor ‘enabled’.
Because of the above, corporate leaders today are developed through luck and chance, rather by any design or plan. With a precise definition of leadership, HR can provide the potential leaders the right 'practice ground' to develop leadership. HR will know which positions are not good for practicing leadership. It will also know what it needs to do help executives practice leadership. It will enable HR set realistic expectations from itself. HR will invest more carefully in training and developing the right people, instead of trying to practice it all levels. This will mean getting more returns from the efforts, better grooming of leaders and better succession planning
Section II: Towards a new definition of leadership
Rudolph Giuliani's resurrection of New York after 9/11 is one example of leadership development which is often quoted. Reviving a city/institution after such a tragedy requires extraordinary capabilities to bring together all stakeholders, chalk out an action plan and execute it. But is this leadership?
Is 'removing terrorism' same as 'removing terrorist'?
Is countering the practice of anti dowry same as passing the 'anti-dowry' law in the parliament?
Is instituting 'secured transport' in a city after 11 pm same as instituting anti-criminal police practices in the city?
If you observe closely the difference in the first and second act, you will get the glimpse of leadership concept. The first act requires understanding of 'interrelated systems', while the second requires understanding of 'linear systems'. The first act requires a far difficult juxtaposition of initiatives and stakeholders, while the second requires a 'one dimension action' against the dissidents. The first act requires dealing with ‘dynamic complexity’ (complexity created because of interrelationship of variables) while the second act is dealing with ‘static complexity’ (complexity created due to number of variables).
In short, the first act requires the ability to deal with Open ‘systems'. It is a word which has precise definition, derived from Systems theory. For more details see Frijtof Capra’s book The Web of Life.
This is where we have a first definition of leadership: the kernel
Leadership practice is an ability to influence large open system(s) in a sustained manner.
What is the essence of leadership practice?
Is it managing an open system? Every operating system ( be it business unit, geography, or a function) is an open system because it is influenced by multiple systems. But even a relationship with spouse, influenced by multiple systems like finance, kids, and friends and so on, is an open system. However we do not wish to term 'managing relationship' as leadership practice.
Is it managing a ‘large’ system? Largeness can be defined by physical boundary, such as eco system. Eco systems are difficult to influence simply because of their largeness. A virtual system in an organization however can also be large. But largeness alone does not differentiate leadership practice of say a freelance entrepreneur (such as a doctor working in a clinic, or a photographer working in entertainment industry) visavis a corporate executive? Both must understand the large open system - of which their operating system is part of - to find how they can influence. So what differentiates the two?
The corporate executive has to influence the 'internal open' system to execute the 'strategy' that he/she has deciphered from understanding the 'external open' system, while the freelance entrepreneur only has to influence the external open system to discover a sustainable strategy.
In other words, essence of corporate leadership practice involves management of two kinds of open systems: one, to understand the 'external open' system to 'decide' strategically the requirement of influencing it, and two, to 'execute' that decision by influencing the 'internal open' system ( which is nothing but the operating system).
'Execution' requires consensus of the direction to take. Imagine what Gandhiji could have gone through to develop a consensus that ‘Independence to India should be pursued by following the path of non-violence' amongst other contending alternatives. Consensus is also required to create 'enough variety' in the system. 'Variety' is the ability to understand the requisite variables in the environment and respond appropriately. If variety is not enough, each person in an organisation may follow different path, halting the progress of the organisation in a specific direction. If too much time is required to generate the consensus though, the opportunity window may close. In other words, influencing internal open system is a big challenge.
Lastly, corporate leadership practice is also about taking actions that will sustain the initial trigger. Executives are often seen to take one-off actions that can be sustained only by sheer willpower and/or a 60-week schedule. Sustained manner means taking an action which can be sustained by the ‘system’ after the initial trigger is off.
Section III: New organisation-relevant definition of leadership
Leadership practice, in short, requires two criteria to be met
Part I: Understand large open system (of which the operating system, say the business units, is a part) to chose the 'mountain' to climb (that will enable the operating system to influence the open system in a sustained manner).
Part II: Enable the 'large operating system' to scale the mountain so that elements of operating system follow appropriate course/path in a self-sustained manner (which includes the ability to course-correct) irrespective of the changing circumstances (which may therefore include the decision to change the mountain).
In non-systems language, we can call part I as ‘developing a sustainable strategy’, while Part II as ‘executing the given strategy in a sustainable manner’. We are however using the language of ‘systems’ because HR has to understand the ‘theory of leadership’ to apply it anywhere. They have to diagnose a given position for its leadership potential, or a leader in a given situation.
This definition tells us what leadership practice is and what is not.
One, a CEO of a company selling ball bearing, exclusively to automobile industry, has to understand a large open system involved, as well as a CEO working in a General Motors. The difference is in scope of the largeness of the open system. Part I and Part II actions are required by both CEOs.
Pressurised by stock options, shareholders and boards, CEOs develop strategies/plans to show that they are at helms. In the process they develop 'me-too' strategies that are unsustainable. They look good on paper but fail to pass the test of ‘sustaining’ the advantage. Or they just believe that 'hard work' alone can help them scale the mountain. These CEOs find it convenient to blame 'people' for poor 'execution'. Execution therefore has become a buzz word of corporate success.
Two, a senior executive heading a support department like HR, Training or Finance faces a different set of open systems to ‘decide’ the mountain than a senior executive of a SBU facing a customer. The difference is in the dependency: one is dependent on truly external open system (customer); another is dependent on the business unit’s view of external open system.
Because of this dependency, if business executives in their organization lack the skill of first part, an executive in support department may ‘lead’ his/her function in a ‘wrong direction’. Fortunately, as we shall see later, other options are open to this executive which may still enable him/her to practice leadership.
Three, Part II actions seem to be a bigger differentiator than Part I actions in defining a leader due to two reasons.
One, ability to self-sustain the course requires one to develop a team which can function without the leader. We have seen many well intentioned initiatives suffer when the 'hero' leader leaves the team without developing his/her team sufficiently. Many small companies remain 'small' because of this lack of ability. Part I executives will remain as entrepreneurs and innovators.
Further, lack of Part II understanding also reflects in wrong choice of strategies, which is a Part I action. Many strategies (arrived after understanding the open system) are impractical to implement because they require many system elements to converge with the 'goal'. Part II-unaware leaders are completely ignorant of how to achieve this. For instance, very few executives know how 'vision and values' can help system elements to converge.
The difficulty in managing Part II actions seems to be arising due to dual nature of an organisation: on the one hand an organisation is a ‘mechanical system’ meant to achieve a given purpose in a predetermined way, while on the other hand it is a ‘living system’ of people which provides the required ‘variety’ to the system to bring in flexibility and innovative solutions. Both are needed. But MBA executives learn to manage the first, miss the second. For MBA executives, execution is about 'controlling' everything, which is the model of an Army commander. Organisational leaders learn to manage the living system, and more importantly, how to make the ‘living system’ coexist with the ‘mechanical system’.
Four, this definition of leadership also shows that leadership can be practiced in certain positions and in certain situations.
For instance, in difficult times, one may need a different set of actions, such as Louis Gestener did when he was brought to revive IBM. At such difficult times, stopping the hemorrhaging is more important than developing a sustainable strategy. Moreover, as organisational elements converge on the ‘to-do actions’ more readily due to crisis, Part II challenge is minimal. ( Louis Gestener also had the insight to leave IBM in time because he knew that it needed a man who understood the ‘internal system’ of IBM! )
Similarly, at a junior position, when sufficient options are not available in the ‘operating system’ of which the junior person is in charge, one cannot practice leadership. Neither Part-I is an open system or Part II is an open system at a junior level. Part II internal system can be made ‘open’ in certain situations. For instance, small project in a software company is not a sufficiently open system to practice leadership, but organizations can create a much larger open system if the project size is large and multi dimensional.
High variety situations, where lots of options seem to exist, are often confused with ‘open systems’. For instance, customer-facing positions of delivery in airlines, hotels, or banks ‘generate’ lot of variety. Such high variety positions can create ‘conflicting’ demands on HR! For instance, these positions demand initiative and flexibility on the one hand, and compliance with processes and system on the other.
But, it is my suggestion, that we should restrict leadership positions to mean those positions where both internal and external systems are sufficiently open (which in turn would necessitate both Part I and Part II actions). Whenever a system is relatively closed, it has a potential of being manned with an able manager or administrator.
Five, this definition also makes it easy to understand why leadership practice is more prevalent in ‘open system’ social arena than in relatively ‘close system’ organizational arena. We intuitively knew that there is a parallel we corporate executives can use, but we never knew the limitations of drawing that parallel. This definition brings out the limitations starkly.
Section IV: What is needed to develop leadership in corporate world?
Part I skills are taught by B schools. A MBA definitely learns how to develop a strategy. He knows the elements involved in developing the strategy and can find out quite easily what every competitor is doing and why. This is a big step in learning Part I skills.
The second step is however quite difficult: finding a strategy (it is also called developing business model) that will help company sustain it’s competitiveness over a long period of time. Because nothing is difficult to replicate over a long period, it is about gaining the lead that is difficult to catch. For a fashion industry, lead of 6 months is difficult to catch. For an old industry it could be 6 years.
The difficulty of second step is apparent when you see two companies bashing each other with similar strategy. Pepsi and Coca Cola is a good example in India. They have been following similar me-too strategies and bleeding profusely in India. But no one is backing out. Jim Collins reports in his book ( Good to Great) that the 12 leaders, who achieved constant growth over 75 years, took a very long time (about 6-8 years) to get the business models of their company right. So although the first step can be learnt, the second step requires understanding of the deeper dynamics of an industry to evolve a sustainable strategy.
Part II skills are currently taught in bits and pieces.
Generating dialogue amongst the senior management team has been well researched and understood. Performance appraisal systems to align individual goals to organisational goals are understood well but they are too static to deal with the challenges faced on the ground.
Work on rewards and incentives – based on Pavalovian model – unfortunately do not help us in influencing today’s individuals who want something ‘more’ from their jobs. It is therefore not surprising to find that jobs in social system, based on voluntary commitment, are more easier to ‘man’ than a job in corporate world.
The biggest knowledge bottleneck in Part II is in designing the ‘whole’. We have understood a lot about individual part elements, about vision, values, and organization structural options, MBO, Balance Score card and others. But our knowledge of putting these parts together into a whole is still an art, not yet developed into a science. This is where largest efforts shall be required in developing learning material that can help executives learn ‘Part-II’ actions.
Part II is about understanding internal open system requires understanding of the recursive effects of actions, the interdependencies inherent in the sequencing of actions, the realistic understanding of the current situation without the bias, and using symbolic effect of an action. (A subset of this is called 'change management'.) One can use countless examples happening around us to develop this Part II competency. For instance, asking ‘how should BCCI have responded to the Harbhajan controversy’ will help us evaluate the understanding of the managers in this arena.
However the more difficult part in developing Part II competency is knowing that Part II is not just 'understanding' content, but being able to 'act on it'. It is accompanied with behavioral component. This therefore requires 'simulation of a situation'.
Learning any competency is also related with measuring it so that corrective actions can be taken by measuring the as-is status. Consequences of Part II competency are visible in the 'reportees', 'colleagues' and above all the family members of the aspiring leader. Taking advantage of this impact, one can do a 360 degree feedback and indirectly measure this leadership competency. Other visible but indirect indicators like work-life balance, ability to react under stress, active sense-making can also be used as a substitute.
To summarise, leadership development would need
o Preparing Learning material ( that should include case studies, role plays
and simulation ) on
- Part I: ‘Dynamic’ strategy development both for BU heads and functional
heads ( normal strategy development is pick and apply
- Part II: How to generate the competency of influencing the ‘operating
system’ to deliver the outcome of Part I. (Larger and widespread teams
require different expertise and tools.)
o How to develop the above two competencies by using multiple channels
(using multiple channels will help produce results in shorter time) like
- Organisational interactions such as meetings, mentoring and others
- Parenting
- Automatic sense-making in social interactions and media
- Development and pursuit of hobbies
- Fulfilling other responsibilities such as living with old parents,
developing friends, building social network
o Preparing diagnostics on
- How to diagnose ‘positions’ in an organisation for their absence/presence
of leadership potential (We do not need a leader if the same position can be
manned by a manager or administrator)
- Measuring Part I/Part II competencies ( continuously) in an individual to
identify and rectify the gaps
Post Script
The above definition of leadership has deeper insights for a leader in social arena, because a NGO executive, unlike a corporate executive, is forced to engage with open systems all the time. Because social initiatives are high on ‘passion and commitment’, but low on ‘practicality and results’ leadership development offers them a high leverage option. However, we shall not deal with it, because it will divert our attention from developing leaders in ‘organisational situations’.
References
James March, the researcher who conducted a course on Leadership for Stanford University for 14 years, writes after his experience that ‘Major Issues of leadership are indistinguishable from the issues of life”.
Having identified the challenges of development in a human being through my 5-year long research on career building ( the book of which has been published by Macmillan), I took this leap to define leadership.
Systems theory has been my primary vehicle of both understanding leadership and now, as I see it, developing leadership. Systems theory has also got very evolved and crystallized since 1990s. In contrast to earlier days, we can now use it to build and develop practical leadership skills.
