Thought
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Leadership in Knowledge Organizations
| Soft Skills That Are Hard As Nails. | |
| posted 01-31-2009 |
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First, what is leadership? There are as many definitions of leadership as there are authors. That is an unfortunate consequence of the lack of agreement about whether leadership is a position, a person, a behavioral act, a style or a relationship, as much as it is due to the lack of agreement about exactly who or what we are actually referring to. Obviously, if it can mean anything, it means nothing. In the American cultural mindset, leadership is often thought of as a heroic act and a singular achievement; a definition created in part by the media that shapes their impression of the conventional organizational world. The business press is varied in its approach to leadership but in the vast majority of cases usually focuses on the larger than life accomplishments of individual organizational cowboys and, to a much lesser extent, cowgirls who seem to single-handedly reshape the contours of the business world. According to them leadership is all about individual brilliance and panache. But the icons we so frequently read about such as Youtube’s Chad Hurley and Steve Chen; Jim McNerney at Boeing, or Eric Schmidt at Google are really only a shorthand for a description of the work of innumerable individuals who create organizational success. There are after all 150,000 employees at Boeing, and even relatively small Google, Inc. has over 4,900 people on payroll. Individual leaders are seen as victors in a struggle to reach the top of the organization. Some are tough taskmasters with a no-nonsense approach, others are more people-oriented; but the press describes the self-determination, intelligence, foresight, and strategic brilliance of these individuals who virtually alone created or transformed their organization. From this perspective, a leader first makes a lot of money, uses the organization as an instrument of his will, and creates a well-oiled machine that gets the work done flawlessly. Real World Leadership The real world isn’t quite so dependent on the exploits of heroic CEOs, but the truth is sometimes harder to accept because their successes are intimately tied to the cooperation and hard work of a small army of colleagues, subordinates, mentors, and customers – and good fortune. Most people simply believe leadership means being in charge. Peter Drucker, considered the father of modern management thinking, put it simply: “A leader is the person who has responsibility and who has followers.” As such, leadership is a formal role played by anyone with authority. Leadership can and should and does occur at all levels in the organization not just by the CEO. Leadership is the tireless belief in the possible and the persistent broadening of the arena in which more and more people can participate in sharing their concerns and shaping their destiny. Leadership is about much more than mobilizing a workforce to achieve output objectives. It is also about creating joy, efficacy and a shared purpose – in short, a positive workplace culture. Changing Context of Organizational Leadership Many readers might find the idea of “leadership as everyone” a bit far fetched, perhaps a utopian wish. But a dramatic shift has been taking place in a sizable portion of the economy that indeed spells the death of the old way of being including the ego-centered, hierarchical, power driven conception of leadership. Many organizations that are described as knowledge-based organizations are experiencing this shift. These organizations depend on the acquisition, manipulation, packaging and selling of concepts, abstractions, insights and ideas. Leadership in this kind of environment requires new skills; and, the full participation and creative talents of each person must be utilized. Leadership in Practice Accepting Drucker’s definition, anyone who has the responsibility for the work of a group must develop the following skills. First, behavioral versatility. The act of leadership requires people to become more open – seeing more, hearing more, understanding more, in order to work with others to understand and effectively meet the changing needs of customers and colleagues alike. It is about intelligence - about pushing back personal limitations and being open to new ideas and points of view. Versatility helps a leader mobilize the creative talent and energy of other people. Ultimately it is possible relationship building and honing the collective energy toward definable objectives. Through a positive contribution of personal energy and commitment to success, each employee makes the organization viable. The innovation and creativity of the workforce, when unleashed, can do remarkable things. We see this every day in the products and services that fill the marketplace. And it takes the power of positive leadership to make this happen. Second, interpersonal relationship building. Instead of concentrating on directing and controlling, leaders should learn to coordinate, coach, support, teach, motivate, and facilitate those they work with and help develop these skills in them. Leaders will need to develop intentional systems run in an overtly conscious way. Bureaucracy, tradition and habit will be insufficient reasons for doing things. Because of this, interpersonal communications will need to be at a very intimate level to build personal capabilities and alignment with organizational goals; individual understanding about the tasks to be completed, and; among and between each person to develop the commitment to each person’s responsibilities. Indeed, because of the diffusion of leadership abilities, the idea of a single leader or the expectation that only one or a few people will assume the leadership role is inefficient and ineffective. Respect. Show appreciation for the contributions each person makes to the success of the organization. Honor differences in capabilities, talents, and type of work. Understand how to help each person to do his or her best. Inclusivity. The organization needs everyone and each is expected to contribute fully. Creating unnecessary personal barriers and “in” groups and “out” groups immediately inhibits the personal contribution of the “out” groups and resistance to “in” group initiatives. Inclusivity builds commitment, participation, innovation, and service to peers. For all of this to work, a standard of excellence must be known and communicated. This helps to reduce or eliminate arbitrariness and capriciousness. Strong commitment to principles, values, vision. The success of “everyone a leader” is anchored in a clear picture of the purpose and direction of the organization. Clear principles, and values, and a strong vision set the stage for constructive personal contributions. Fearless communication. In virtually every best practice organization there is an attempt to encourage fearless communication. A leader must be clear and honest in communicating and encourage everyone else to communicate fearlessly – truthfully and directly – with him or her. Yet, the fear of speaking the truth to power is almost universal, so this will require tremendous effort on everyone’s part. This is achieved in large part by establishing a relationship among colleagues, wherever they are in the chain of command, that lets them know they can speak freely, can be open, can trust that their communication will never be used against them, and that their confidences will not be violated. A leader must be known as a person of high integrity who will listen and understand. Encouragement and acceptance of authentic feedback. In a fully communicative environment everyone must be able to accept the opinions and criticism of others. The act of giving and accepting feedback needs to become routine. Feedback has become so stereotyped that the act of giving positive or negative feedback clearly seems to be an elaborate charade, a formulaic expression of the so-called sandwich approach: first give positive feedback, then negative, then close on a positive note. Communicating has been one of the most troublesome aspects of life at work and we have come to suppress what we really think in an intricate dance of caution and distancing behavior. Authentic feedback means to express oneself directly to people regarding the impact of their actions and their specific behavior. Because of open communication and intense interpersonal relationships, leaders must be able to suspend the ego-oriented impulse to judge another person before understanding their point of view. Leaders – each worker – must be open to the possibility that in some situations they, too, may be part of the problem. This means they must concentrate on, and give due respect to, the views of others. Interpersonal barriers created by status or hierarchical differences will have to be removed or neutralized to facilitate this kind of open communication. Capacity for self-reflection. To acquire the skills mentioned here, and especially to follow through on a good feedback process, leaders must have the ability to be critical of their own behavior, to learn from experience, and to evaluate their effect on others. Mindfulness about work and relationships plus ease in truthful communications is a large part of personal success as a leader. Trust. Trust is knowing that others accept you for who you are, that people communicate with you face to face. That people keep their agreements or tell you directly why they will not. It is knowing that you will be considered when decisions are made in your absence. It is also being trustworthy; conveying to others, as you would expect them to convey to you, that you will keep confidences and will not abuse the information you have about others or the company. Resourcefulness. Because of all of the above, people are expansive in their approach to their work. Being resourceful opens people to new possibilities. The personal impulse to explore and to integrate new knowledge and experience into your work creates eventualities that are impossible to anticipate or develop in other ways. This is truly what personal learning is about and is most effective when the above conditions are met. It is resourcefulness combined with communications that makes leadership attempts and leadership development programs successful. Implications For Learning Obviously the “everyone as leader” organizational world suggests some changes in learning philosophy and processes, and in the nature of supervision. Today, leadership development is about expanding personal capacity to respond to whatever demands emerge during uncertain times and in complex environments. Today, it is unreasonable to expect that others will simply comply or obey orders. Leadership today requires individuals to be comfortable with much more ambiguity than ever. Leadership requires new ways of thinking and being – a shift to new mental models of how relationships create organizational effectiveness. Thus, leadership development, needs to focus on the behavioral aspects of relationship building as identified above. Because leadership is not likely to be a permanent role one plays but a fluid give and take where one will lead in one context and follow in the next, leadership practice and development must be a part of everyone’s capability. And the learning opportunity will need to be experiential and intense to enable people to explore the full impact of their interpersonal relationships, their motives and aspirations on organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, personal leadership development should become part of a continuous career-long learning process that prepares participants for a variety of contingencies at increasingly higher levels in the organization. Corporate “universities” are now replacing training departments to reflect the new emphasis on learning, creative problem solving, intellectual adaptability and resourcefulness in exercising one’s new role in the knowledge era. There is an exciting future ahead for organizations developing a leadership culture as they move from focusing on a hero to focusing on the process of leading. It is in the realm of building leadership capacity and helping each individual develop his or her full potential that corporate educators can make the most significant personal contributions to the success of their organizations for years to come.
3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved." |
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