Who makes the most effective Director – and are they born or made?
Can you spot a great leader? Is there an easy way to identify the ideal Board Director? Is it the Guru – someone who is functionally sound in their role; or is it the Godfather – someone whose primary strengths lie in motivating and inspiring people? Are these two aspects even mutually exclusive? These questions formed the focus of discussions about the role of the Director at a recent meeting of the Leading Thinkers – a group of influential, incisive business minds from the manufacturing and retail sectors, moderated by the Sequoia Partnership.
The discussion kicked off with each person stating what they liked most and least about their role as company leader... Answers ranged from 'seeing others being successful', 'innovation', 'influencing', 'making a difference via policy setting', 'problem-solving' to – on the negative side – 'waste', 'politics', 'bureaucracy', 'dogma' and 'distractions'.
Many members of the group worked for companies where individuals are promoted via the functional expertise route, or senior directors are recruited in because they have previous experience of that function. Generally it was agreed that - if the choice were between a functional expert and a caretaker role - a good people manager would be the better option. Ultimately, everyone present felt that a company needs to create an environment that people like to be in, where people are valued.
The themes and questions raised on that evening have inspired a deeper investigation into current thinking on leadership styles and behaviours: just what is it that makes an effective and inspiring Director?
Before we wrestle with trying to define what the essential skills of a good leader are, let’s pan back and review some historically classic types of CEOs, managers and company directors...
Classic leadership styles
The
laissez-faire
"leave it be" form of leadership was defined by Lewin, Liippit & White in 1939. In this instance, employees are highly experienced and need little supervision to obtain the expected outcome.
The
bureaucratic
leader (Weber, 2002) is very structured and follows procedures. Universities, hospitals, banks and government usually require this type of leader to ensure quality and decrease corruption.
The
charismatic
leader (Weber, 2002) leads by infusing energy and eagerness. This type of leader poses a risk for the company if they leave, because management might attribute the success of the division or project to the leader and not to the team.
Autocratic
leadership (Lewin, Liippit & White, 1939) embodies total authority; this is good for employees who need close supervision, but innovative individuals may resent this type of leadership.
The
democratic
leader (Lewin, Liippit & White, 1939) takes the team’s ideas but makes the final decision.
The
people-oriented
leader (Fiendler, 1967) supports, trains and develops his or her personnel towards increasing job satisfaction.
Task-oriented
leaders (Fiendler, 1967) focus on specific tasks assigned to each employee to reach goals.
A
servant
leader (Greenleaf, 1977) facilitates goal accomplishment by giving his/her team members what they need in order to be productive.
A
transaction
leader (Burns, 1978) is given the power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish their team’s performance.
A
transformation
leader (Burns, 1978) focuses on the big picture and is always looking for ways or ideas that move the organisation to reach the company’s vision.
The
situation
leader (Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 2008) uses different styles depending on the situation and type of employee. Arguably, all these styles could be employed with some effectiveness, depending on public/private sector position, company culture and number of employees.
Working within Senior Management
So what happens when a group of directors – Godfathers, Gurus, Situationalists, Servants et al – become part of the bigger picture? A vital dimension of a director is the ability to function effectively within the senior management team of the Board; which, as a body, has the ultimate responsibility to embody, espouse and promote the company’s values.
If the aforementioned types of managers and leaders all feature different ways of seeing the world, then a result of those views are variances in thinking, behaviour and performance. Put a group of closed-minded directors in a boardroom, and you may recognise some of the following traits... Typically destructive boardroom behaviours include those who would rather DO-NOTHING. In the private sector, prestige is often the reward. So Do-Nothings rarely challenge or probe; nor do they venture into the field to find out how their employees feel. WHITE FLAG-ers live in fear of being tainted by any kind of controversy, so their priority is reaching a settlement, even at the cost of selling out on principle. THE CABALIST sits quietly in meetings, before taking up a personal cause behind the scenes and building constituencies to achieve another agenda. THE MEDDLER likes to butt into management and seem oblivious to the fact that board members are there for wisdom, sound counsel, and judgment; not day-to-day running of the business. THE PONTIFICATOR cannot get enough of their own voice, on almost any subject. Like Meddlers, Pontificators distract boards from the business before them and enervate their colleagues in the process.
So, without chucking babies out with bathwater, is it possible to streamline a board of directors in order to move with the rapidly changing times? It seems the key lies in standing back and asking pivotal questions about the Board’s constituent parts. What skills and experience are needed now and in the next five years, given where we are going as a company? For example, one board in the defence industry added four members when they recognised they had terrific financial expertise, but not a single director with military or government experience. The quality of board dialogue changed overnight as financial acumen was complemented by strong insights about the industry.
Indeed, one of the most important tasks for any board of directors is to understand when it is not performing adequately and must change its membership, says Ken Daly, chief executive of the National Association of Corporate Directors in Washington. ‘It’s about seeking the right skill set,’ he says. ‘For example, the great majority of boards don’t have anyone who has the skill set to oversee risks associated with IT. Older members often don't have that technology background.’
OK, so we don't want to keep dead wood in place, and we need to have regular reality checks to keep our Board up-to-speed with the here-and-now... But how did they get to that lofty directorial position in the first place?
Born or made?
Let’s rewind to the nature/nurture idea of a good leader. Is it possible to train people to achieve greatness in this field, or are they just born that way? According to Jack Welch, retired chairman and CEO of GE, and Suzy Welch, ex editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, there are five essential leadership traits. These do not include integrity, intelligence and emotional maturity; those three characteristics are givens.
These key leadership traits comprise:
positive energy
- the capacity to ‘go-go-go’ with healthy vigour and an upbeat attitude through good times and bad; the ability to
energise others
by releasing their positive energy;
edge
- the drive to make tough calls, to say yes or no, not maybe; the talent to
execute
- very simply, to get things done; and, finally, plain, old-fashioned
passion
- caring deeply, sweating and believing.
The Welches believe that positive energy and the ability to energise others are hard-wired and part of someone’s personality. Similarly, passion seems inborn - some people are naturally loaded with intensity and curiosity. Edge and the ability to execute are different; newly appointed managers rarely arrive with these two traits in polished form, and even middle managers benefit from training in both. But the best teacher is experience, which promotes confidence and trust in oneself when it comes to effective decision-making. So are leaders born or made? The answer (not surprisingly) appears to be both.
According to authors Annie McKee and Richard Boyatzis, the sum of all these parts is "resonance”. By their reckoning, President Clinton has it. Tony Blair had it – until he lost it. Reuters chairman Niall FitzGerald had it, lost it... and found it again. HSBC's John Studzinski is a master of it.
"Most people understand the 'what' of leadership," says McKee."Fewer people understand the ‘how'. How do we engage people so that we can get the best out of them? How do you inspire them, how do you drive people through engaging not only their desire to achieve a goal, but their desire for excellence beyond the goal? The challenge lies in balancing the 'what' and the 'how' – how to create a sense of excitement and enthusiasm and vibrancy."
In their book, Resonant Leadership, Dr McKee and co-author Prof. Richard Boyatzis discuss their theory of this trait and how to develop it. The authors base their work on the findings of Dr Daniel Goleman, coiner of the term "emotional intelligence". EI on its own, however, isn’t enough to foster this magical concept of resonance...
As Dr McKee explains: "Even those leaders who are emotionally intelligent seem to have difficulty sustaining it over time. What allows a leader to create resonance and a healthy, effective environment, and what allows them to stay that way?"
It seems that ‘resonance’ is more than mere surface charisma. It’s the feeling you get when a team is the sum of its parts - gelling, full of optimism and enthusiasm – an effortlessness that comes from being in a zone. "A resonant leader is going to create an environment around them that allows people to be their best," Dr McKee says.
Military leadership models
“Management is about getting everything organised properly, and leadership is about taking people further than they think they can go,” says Sir Philip Trousdell, formerly director of the multi-national Nato operations in Bosnia and commander of the operation in Northern Ireland. As far as he’s concerned, leadership boils down to three things: asking questions, listening and communication.
The first of Sir Philip's key leadership skills, 'the ability to ask good questions’, is all-important. He says: "If you have dinner in the Sergeants' Mess, you had better leave your pompousness at the door, because these guys, who may be four or five years older than you, tell you exactly how it's working.
"If you listen carefully, they often tell you things that you may otherwise miss. Particularly if you are not in a position to read their body language as well, and that's a hard lesson to learn. I think you need lots of experience."
And finally, you need to make your decisions and explain them clearly. "Communication is an absolute skill," he says. "You need to be able to articulate clearly and unambiguously to the people who are going to implement the decision, so that they have no doubts about what's going on. And then you need to go around all the levels of your organisation, explaining where they fit in."
Football management
Graham Smith, Programme Leader in PE and Coaching at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk has created a formula for one of the trickiest leadership roles that everyone seems to have an opinion on... the football manager. The magic combination (and apparently, what Sir Alex Ferguson embodies best) is encapsulated in Smith’s handy acronym, LUCKIER:
L - Long term strategy/philosophy that everyone buys into
U - Understanding players at every level
C - Communication skills
K - Knowledge of the game at a technical/tactical level
I - Innovative and inspirational
E - Experience and expectancy
R - Recognising and recruiting talent.
Sound familiar? Indeed, he believes that the best football managers (as well as having a sound functional grasp of the game!) also have individual character traits that would make them just as successful in business. ‘You’ve got your Paternalists and Disciplinarians, like Clough, whose style of management is in decline; Marketeers, charismatics such as Mourhino and Venables; then there's Tacticians, the best being Wenger, and Media Magnets like Docherty; finally, there are the Alchemists, the quick-fixers in the Redknapp mould. It takes all sorts to make a manager!"
It seems to me that truly brilliant leaders possess something unique, mercurial and nigh-on impossible to define. It’s about being much more than the sum of their parts. Call it resonance, chutzpah, the X-Factor... Sorry Gordon, but you’ve either got it, or you haven’t.
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