Epic Think Tank
Leadership for the Top Team
Cometh the hour, cometh the… MBA?
It's tough at the top: nightmare scenarios and stark
choices; ever-tightening time-frames... The ability to lead, in
these circumstances, requires an unusual level of decisiveness,
and the confidence to state complex challenges in often quite simple
terms.
Something of this starkness must have rubbed off on
our discussion, because for the first time in an Epic Think Tank
we found that there was a very simple answer to our initial question.
Yes: leaders are different.
For a start, one of the most discussed issues in our
think tanks, motivating learners, simply isn't an issue here. Leaders
are almost by definition highly motivated individuals. They will
get the knowledge and skills they need in order to perform the job
they have to do. If they don't have these themselves, they will
surround themselves with people who do.
And this holds true despite the important distinction
that must be made between 'leaders' and 'leadership'.
Transformational, inspirational leaders like Branson
and Jack Welch of GE are probably born and not made. MBA courses
do not necessarily equip people to make the sort of imaginative
leaps called for at this level of operation. But in the tier below,
among the people who surround and support such a leader, you will
find a different type of leadership. These are not necessarily 'natural
leaders', although they may possess many leadership attributes and
qualities. They might never become number ones; but they have the
professional, managerial capability that mediates (and often mitigates)
the transformative energy moving and shaking the organisation from
above.
According to our delegates, of these two categories
it is (perhaps surprisingly) among the second that you will find
more examples of leadership as a transferable skill. Inspirational,
transformational leaders are often the product of a highly particular
'time and place', and if you took them out of their sector and even
particular organisation would not necessarily perform with the same
effectiveness - a case of 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' (or
woman). But the 'eternal second-in-comand' types below them, it
seems, osmoze comfortably between sectors.
Then there is the category of aspirant leaders to
take into consideration. Further down the organisation - throughout
the organisation, in fact - you will find the leaders-in-waiting;
those who aspire to leadership and might, if successful, find places
among the first or the second categories.
The existence of this third, aspirant category has
long been recognised in organisations such as the civil service,
where a five-year 'fast track' programme exists, or in the traditional
graduate trainee programmes. However, as society and business have
changed, the emphasis has moved away from background and qualifications,
and towards self-selection. A lot of corporate initiatives around
leadership now look to putative leaders as a group that can be nurtured
and supported through learning, at whatever level of the organisation
they present themselves.
So it seems we have three categories of leaders that
we might loosely brand as Loose Cannons, Safe Pairs of Hands and
Apprentices. What else do they have in common - and how best can
they be engaged as learners?
Next>>
Introduction
Learning from the post boy
Tough love for top leaders
Conclusion
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