A633.1.2.RB - Leadership Gap

Chapter 1 of the Obolensky text begins with a reflective exercise. Create a reflection blog that responds to the questions asked in this exercise. Has your own attitude to leaders changed in your life, and if so how? If we take as a starting point the attitude to those in authority/leaders as held by your grandparents, and then look at those attitudes held by your parents, and then by you, and then by the younger generation, is there a changing trend? If so, what is it? Why do you think that this has occurred? Additionally, while we live in a world with more information about leadership and leadership practices why is it that we have an apparent gap in the quality of our leaders and how do you think we can close this gap? The old way of leading by command, control, direction and charisma from superior knowledge and personality is not really applicable anymore because increasingly better educated followers know faster than leaders what is happening and often what needs to be done. The harder leaders try to keep up, the less credibility they get. And in today's business environment, if an organization has employees lacking the knowledge, skills and abilities, it will not last long, "even if Moses himself were in charge." For example, I worked for McDonnell Douglas (former aerospace giant) for 10 years and unfortunately, the downfall and failure was it was lead by command, control and did not have a supportive culture (along with a weak and reactive strategy). The culture was weak and there were many "silos" of so called leaders trying to create their own empires "competing" against other silos and not "working together." In addition, there were labor and union issues. MDC needed to get out of the Dark Ages as to how employees were managed. They were stuck in the "command-and-control era" which was typical of US factory management when supervisors gave orders on high and workers "checked their minds at the gate." After the Boeing merger in 1997, in an effort to shake up the hierachical company culture, Boeing leadership benchmarked successful organizations including Toyota, Nissan, Honda and John Deere. This encouraged employees to take ownership of their jobs and also the company adopted a team-based management model. The secret to success: it all comes down to culture, people and teams. (Obolensky, 2010) Traditional approaches to strategy, for example, standard sequence process flow models, frameworks and diagrams include several assumptions including a stable world and little if no change (all things held constant). The goal is to develop and build a sustained competitive advantage by achieving dominance in either production or services, a market niche, or specific capabilities and resources in processes and methods. However, globalization, world events, technology and the speed of change have combined and integrated a "synergy" and created turbulence in the business environment. Today, sustained competitive advantage comes from four organizational capabilities that promote rapid adaptation and include the ability (with speed) to: 1. read and act on signals of change, 2. experiment rapidly and frequently with products, services, business models and strategies, 3. manage complex and interconnected systems of multiple stakeholders, 4. motivate employees and partners. This sparks creativity, innovation, ideas and enhanced products and services with processes. (Reeves and Deimler, 2011) So many of the world’s problems, and the issues that businesses and people face every day, can seem intractable and unsolvable. Leadership consultants Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky propose a new way to lead the charge to change: “Adaptive leadership” calls for shedding outdated approaches and embracing new skills and attitudes to guide organizations in the 21st century. Adaptive leadership combines established ways of managing with new skills and perspectives for dealing with unprecedented challenges. Adaptive leaders: 1. think experimentally to enable discovery and corrective action, 2. harness conflict as an engine of creativity and innovation, 3. respect the organization’s cultural DNA as they challenge the culture to innovate. (Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky, 2009) For example, I am a big sports enthusiast and my sports heroes and teams (organizations) in my life are: 1. the Dallas Cowboys including the former legendary coach Tom Landry and quarterbacks Roger Staubach "Captain America" and Troy Aikman, 2. John Wooden "The Wizard of Westwood" the former legendary college basketball coach at Indiana State University and UCLA and 3. Larry Bird "Mr Basketball" from Indiana State University and the Boston Celtics. What makes these leaders different from sports figures today? The led by example, role models, action, character, integrity, smart, intelligent, and fun passion of the game. Unfortunately, today, so much of sports is wrapped up in money, publicity, ego and performance enhancing drugs. I had the opportunity to hear John Wooden speak several times in Southern California. Wooden created the "Pyramid of Success." In 2009, Wooden was named The Sporting News "Greatest Coach of All Time." (Fellowship of Christian Athletes, 2010) Why is it that we have an apparent gap in the quality of our leaders and how do I think we can close the gap? Unfortunately, there has been an explosion in ethics scandals cases including leadership. For example, Enron, WorldCom etc. Unfortunately, Boeing has also had several ethics cases. Ethics should be embedded in culture and leadership should "talk the talk" and "walk the talk." Ethics courses are also included in many MBA and university college curriculum today. Organizations also have ethics training and some have "ethics codes" in which employees are required to sign. Joel Barker, futurist, author and lecturer, states that the role of leadership is to find, recognize, and secure the future. He states that paradigms (ways of thinking) and mental models, patterns and examples effect the quality of leadership. This includes strategic leadership, innovation and vision. For example, Watching for the Future The Future is where our greatest leverage is outlines how the Swiss, watch makers supreme, did not anticipate the demise of mainsprings and such for the battery and electronics as espoused by the Japanese. This is Paradigm Shift. The irony is that the Swiss were the ones who introduced electronic quartz and let it go. Hopefully we learn from the past, the present is too slim in which to act, it is with the future we must prepare. We all know the rules for success in our business or professions, yet we also know that these rules—paradigms—can change at any time. Managers must allow and be willing to hear from their employees who step outside the box to solve a problem. Managers must facilitate and encourage cross talk means people of diverse backgrounds from diverse opinions sit together and talk. Especially people from different paradigm can be particularly good at helping get past another person's paradigm. By listening to all those screwy ideas, managers gain a special leverage for innovation because many screwy ideas may produce one good idea. Everything in 21st century will be hyphenated. Always be receptive, no one says you have to adopt the idea. Put idea 66 together with 48 and 3 and bingo a hyphenated idea. Managers are in a unique position because they hear all the ideas and can make connections. (Barker, 1993) References Barker, Joel A. (1993). Paradigms: Business of Discovering the Future. New York City: HarperCollins. Fellowship of Christian Athletes (2010). The Greatest Coach Ever: Timeless Wisdom and Insights from John Wooden. Escondido, CA: Christianaudio. Heifetz, Ronald, Grashow, Alexander and Linsky, Marty (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press. Obolensky, Nick (2010). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing Paradox and Uncertainty. Farnham (Surrey), England: Gower Publishing Limited. Reeves, Martin and Deimler, Mike (2011). Adaptability: The New Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Review, Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.db.erau.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=84bcad46-a179-4bc4-9295-cf6f3a0b6d9d@sessionmgr4001&hid=4204&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbG12zQ