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team leadership

Seven Leadership Styles

Alchemist

Alchemist

I’ve often thought of leadership as the ability to motivate people to work together toward a common goal. My definition is not far from Dwight Eisenhower’s quote: “Leadership is getting people to do something because they want to do it.”

Of course, there are different tactics to use in different situations. I study rhetoric – the art and science of persuasion – because I find it very helpful in convincing people that they want to do something. I also like to lay out goals and make them clear as possible. I’m not much of a yeller but I can understand (intellectually at least) how yelling might be a good leadership tactic in some situations – like an emergency.

I hadn’t thought much beyond that, so it was good to rediscover a 2005 Harvard Business Review article titled “Seven Transformations of Leadership”.  The authors, David Rooke and William Torbert, identify seven “action logics” that can help us understand what kind of leader we already are.

I’ll summarize the seven here – using Rooke and Torbert’s terminology – partially because I think they’re important but also because I want to refer back to them in future posts.

Opportunists – “characterized by mistrust, egocentrism, and manipulativeness”, their goal is to win in any way possible. Only 5% of leaders are deemed to be opportunists (thankfully).

Diplomats – “seeks to please higher-level colleagues while avoiding conflict.” They rarely rock the boat and comprise about 12% of leaders.

Experts – “try to exercise control by perfecting their knowledge … watertight thinking is extremely important.” Experts comprise the largest single group of leaders, about 38%.

Achievers —  “create a positive work environment and focus … on deliverables, the downside is that their style often inhibits thinking outside the box.” About 30% of leaders are achievers.

Individualists – often seen as “wild cards” with “unique and unconventional ways of operating”.  Yet they also “contribute unique practical value” and “communicate well with people who have other action logics.” They make up about 10% of leaders.

Strategists – “focus on organizational constraints and perceptions, which they treat as discussable and transformable.” They are “highly effective change agents” but account for only 4% of leaders.

Alchemists – are able to “renew or reinvent themselves in historically significant ways.” They have “an extraordinary capacity to deal simultaneously with many situations at multiple levels.”  Rooke and Torbert identify Nelson Mandela as an exemplar of the alchemist, which may help explain why only 1% of leaders fit the category.

Leadership: Why Decisions Succeed

train tracksIn my critical thinking class, we’ve been using Paul Nutt’s book, Why Decisions Fail. It’s an interesting look at debacles … “botched decision[s] that attract attention and get a public airing.” In the coming weeks, I’ll draw some examples from Nutt’s database of famously bad decisions.

While I like the book in many regards, I think it’s a mistake to study only failures. Hopefully, business is about more than avoiding something negative. It’s also about attaining something positive. So I’ve been looking for a counterpoint — a study of why decisions succeed. I haven’t found a comprehensive study, but I did find an intriguing article from Boston Consulting Group, “Winning Practices of Adaptive Leadership Teams.” The BCG researchers interviewed 93 executives and identified five traits of successful executive teams. Here they are:

One voice — effective leadership teams “take the time to get completely aligned about the organization’s vision, values, and vital priorities, while respecting individual differences of opinion and experience.” While this implies good communication and mutual respect, it also implies that each team member has an enterprise-wide sense of responsibility. As one executive put it, “If my division is successful, but another division is not, I would not regard that as a victory.”

Sense-and-respond capacity — the most effective teams spend a lot of time surveying the environment, identifying trends, and synthesizing information. Among other things, they make heavy investments in information technology and pattern seeking software. The goal is to successfully “… monitor the external forces that drive change in their business environment.”

Information processing — the investment in IT often generates a large volume of data. The adaptive team then has to process it to create useful information. The team needs to share the data effectively and debate it transparently. Several teams developed “…highly disciplined meeting designs and agenda formats to ensure that they routinely exchange key information through a streamlined process that breaks down silos of communication.” Many teams also emphasize “overcommunication”.

Freedom within a framework — several teams spoke of “guardrails”. Within those guardrails, executives have a lot of room to maneuver; they can make their own decisions on how to get things done. As they prove themselves, the team widens the guardrails. Within the guardrails, “…failure [is] seen as a possible and an acceptable outcome. Failure is debilitating only if the lessons learned are not disseminated and applied quickly.”

Boundary fluidity — executives move both horizontally and vertically. There’s a sense that successful executives are “utility players” — any executive could fill in for any other executive if need be. There’s also a sense that silos are self-defeating. As one executive put it: “We always try to move people around so that their perspectives evolve and things don’t get stale.”

So does it work? BCG has developed an Adaptive Advantage Index and applied it to over 2,200 public companies in the U.S. The index is strongly correlated to growth in market capitalization.

Why Decisions Fail can tell you what not to do. That’s an important perspective. On the other hand, the BCG study (and others like it) can tell you how to succeed. In my opinion, that’s more important. I’d rather focus on succeeding than not failing.

 

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