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| In this Issue ... |
IVEY BUSINESS JOURNAL
May/June 2002
Volume 66 Number 5 |
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Theme:
Leadership
Features
In Conversation: Rosabeth Moss Kanter
By Stephen Bernhut
Terms such as "empowerment", "employee participation" and "change management" so dominate the vocabulary of organization behaviour today. Not surprisingly, the person who coined those terms and championed their importance, Rosabeth Moss Kanter of the Harvard Business School, has herself become one of the highest-profile academics and respected consultants in the world. In this IBJ feature interview, Ms. Kanter discusses the changes in leadership styles during the 30 years she has researched and taught leadership, and advised many of the world's top CEOs and leading organizations. She also discusses the qualities that make a leader great in a time of uncertainty and those qualities that a leader will need to develop to inspire employees going forward.
The anything-but unremarkable lessons of the quiet leader
By Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.
Heroic leaders are always conspicuous and sometimes successful. However, more often successful but always inconspicuous are quiet leaders. In this article, Harvard Business School professor Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. profiles the quiet leader and the leadership style that he embodies. In this article, which is based on his recently published book, Leading Quietly, Professor Badaracco discusses and defines a leadership style that is deliberate and circumspect, ethical and considerate - and successful, particularly in today's complex business environment. The author also has very sound advice for managers who must make tough choices under intense pressure.
Leading in turbulent times
By Eric Beaudan
When IBM's Louis Gerstner took charge of the beleaguered computer giant ten years ago, he said that "the last thing that IBM needed was a vision." Of course, the famously successful Mr. Gerstner was not only right, but prescient. In the last few years especially, the CEO who focused on finding a vision - at the risk of managing the present - has foundered, much like the organization he was supposed to steer. Mr. Beaudan, a consultant in organization effectiveness, examines how leaders must manage - in good times and in today's tough times. The challenges for leaders may never be more intimidating than they are these days, but Mr. Beaudan's practical advice should help many managers steer the organizational ship in turbulent waters.
Individual directors evaluations: The next step in boardroom effectiveness
By Jay A. Conger and Edward E. Lawlor 111
Corporate governance practices are being scrutinized more than ever and one of the objects of that intense scrutiny is the corporate director. But reluctant to being scrutinized, many directors refuse to see the need to change both the way they behave and discharge their responsibility. In this article Messrs. Conger and Lawlor argue that effective individual director evaluations can increase a board's effectiveness and improve its relationship with the CEO. Based on their co-authored book, Corporate Boards: New strategies for adding value at the top, this article also lays down a blueprint to ensure that the evaluations will be effective and so lead to better corporate governance.
Drucker's challenge: Communication and the emotional glass ceiling
By Paul Wieand
The supreme challenge for a leader is to change human behaviour, a formidable, if not impossible task. But for the leader who is emotionally intelligent, who is aware of and comfortable with his own self, will have a far greater chance of changing the behaviour of others than a leader who is not aware of himself. Using the theories of the esteemed management thinker Peter Drucker, Mr. Wieand points out that the leaders who inspire are those who have resolved their own identity crisis. But that is much easier said than done, and the daunting nature of the task is encapsulated in Drucker's Challenge, which states that every human being has an emotional glass ceiling, a natural resistance to changing identity. This ceiling is broken only when communication is so compelling that it overcomes that resistance, and how leaders can accomplish this goal is the subject of Mr. Wieand's article.
Pension accounting: Coming to light in a bear market
By Christine A. Wiedman and Daniel Goldberg
Investors' were not the only ones to have developed high, unrealistic expectations during the last years of the nineties. Organizations and their pension managers also had high expectations. Using buoyant market evaluations as their guide, managers made extremely optimistic assumptions about pension return on assets. But in this important article, the co-authors show why a bear market and a tougher economy may force companies to revise those estimates downward, reducing operating income and so, profits. It is a challenge that must be addressed immediately if companies are to avoid the wrath of employees and other stakeholders.
Top leadership: Taking the inner journey
By Rick Lash
Recent history tells us that leaders can be developed but even before development begins, leaders must become self- aware and take the road to inner growth. Mr. Lash is the National Expertise Director for Managament Development at the Haygroup, and in this article he argues that the effective leaders of tomorrow are individuals who have a better understanding of themselves and their own identity. These leaders recognize that their own unique capabilities and passions are an essential part of responding to the call of leadership. People need to feel special and the leader who recognizes and meets that need will create the means for their organization to succeed.
Leaders as strategic communicators
By Phillip G. Clampitt, Laurey Berk and M. Lee Williams
When it comes to communicating effectively, leaders must not only be mindful that less is more but that strategy trumps tactics. These co-authors, professors and communications consultants, argue that leaders are more than willing to communicate, but that they too often approach the task on a tactical rather than strategic level. Moreover, these same leaders may use every medium and format available, but they rarely co-ordinate their use and deploy them selectively. Four steps taken - assessing the context, crafting the strategy, implementing the strategy and provoking the dialogue - will enable leaders to deliver messages that are clear, effective and achieve their goals.
Global fatalities: When international executives derail
By Morgan W. McCall Jr. and George P. Hollenbeck
Developing global executives is an expensive proposition that can produce a significant return - provided that the corporation uses the knowledge and expertise it gained from earlier experiences effectively. These co-authors interviewed 101 individuals who succeeded in their international postings and concluded that poor management of three factors contribute to the international failure of international executives: the individual, the cultural context, and organizational mistakes. Based on their book, Developing global executives: The lessons of international experience, the authors outline and discuss the steps an organization can take to ensure that executives posted abroad will be succeed.
Departments
Leader's Edge
By Stephen Bernhut
Primal leadership, with Daniel Goleman
In this interview, the author of Emotional Intelligence, one of the most influential books on organizational behaviour, Mr.Goleman discusses what he calls primal leadership, the emotional dimension of leadership. A leader's primal task is an emotional one, to articulate a message that resonates with their followers' emotional reality and so moves people in a positive direction.
Headstart
A contrarian approach to decision making
By Steven B. Sample
Never make a decision yourself that can be reasonably delegated to a lieutenant and never make a decision today that can be reasonably put off to tomorrow. If these observations fly in the face of conventional wisdom, it is because they are meant to. Mr. Sample, who is the president of the University of Southern California, may be a conventional man, but his thoughts about what make a leader effective are original and offer sound - albeit unconventional - advice for success.
Train dogs, develop leaders
By Jeffrey Gandz
Leaders can be trained, but highly successful leaders, this Ivey professor writes, can be developed. The burden is on the organization to develop leaders - to actively involve leaders in recruitment and selection, development, career-move decisions and other leadership activities. These executives also recruit the best prospects, challenge them constantly and manage them. Leadership, Mr. Gandz notes, may be the only sustainable advantage today, which is why it should never be left to chance.
A new look at succession management
By William C. Byham
Organizations today have never had a more difficult time filling positions, but as this author suggests, they will be much more successful if they develop pools of high-potential candidates who will be tracked by senior management. How to fill and manage those pools is the subject of this helpful article and readers will gain valuable insights into the succession management dilemma and how acceleration pools can be an answer to one of the most challenging questions for organizations today.
Viewpoint
Good judgment hunting
John S. McCallum
Research, analysis and strategy may be the indispensable tools for today's executives, but in the end, argues this regular IBJ contributor, making the right decisions often comes down to judgment. Quite simply, good executives have good judgments and bad executives have bad judgments. And like leaders, good judgment can be developed or at least improved. Leaders hoping to improve their judgment would do well to read this article by Mr. McCallum.
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