Rajeev Peshawaria is the CEO of the ICLIF Leadership &
Governance Centre and the author of 'Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders'. He has
previously served as chief learning officer at Morgan Stanley and Coca-Cola and
is one of the founding members of the Pine Street Group leadership development
programme at Goldman Sachs. In this article, he talks about why there is a lack
of strong leadership and what can be done about it.
‘There is a ton of
leadership advice out there, yet, as you point out in the book, on average
people say they have worked for between zero and two good leaders. Why aren’t
traditional techniques working?
First, we spend a huge amount of time and money trying to
teach something that cannot be taught. True leadership is about having the lasting
energy to create a better future — that’s not something you can learn in a
classroom or training module.
Further, not only are we trying to teach the unteachable, we
are also using methods that don’t work. Let’s walk through a few of the most
widely used techniques. First, most leadership training is based on competency
models. These capture what made someone successful in the past, and argue that
if one repeats those same behaviours, one will be successful in the future. But
today, when the world is changing faster than ever before, past behaviour is no
predictor of future success.
Another popular tool to teach leadership is psychometric
testing — this is meant to determine if someone has a personality suited for
leadership. But a quick look at
successful leadership through the ages will reveal that good leadership comes
in all personality types and styles, and that here is no correlation whatsoever
between a certain personality and effective leadership.
The third popular technique is one used by every business
school — the case method. But if we could become great leaders by discussing
cases with strangers in a classroom, we would all be leaders by now.
Then we have copycat role plays based on the notion of “best
practice.” Leadership experts tell stories of great leaders (like Jack Welch)
and translate their greatness into three-step formulas. The truth is that there
is no such thing as a three-step formula to good leadership. And last I checked the dictionary, copying
someone else’s behaviour was an act of followership, not leadership.
Leadership is not
about competency models, two-by-two matrices or best practice role plays. Leadership is about finding and maintaining
the energy to create a better future. To
become a leader, one must feel deeply about the inadequacies of current reality
AND decide to do something about it — and these things come from within.
What does a good
leader actually spend his or her time on?
The first step for
any leader is to discover their personal source of energy. In order to do this,
she must develop laser sharp clarity about two things — her purpose (the
results she wants to create) and her values (the principles that will guide her
when tested). Clarity of purpose and values are the only sources of
long-lasting leadership energy.
After a leader has
uncovered her own energy by clarifying her purpose and values, she must spend
most of her time aligning the energy of others towards shared purpose. There are three pillars that a leader must
proactively shape to make this happen, particularly in large organisations: the
brains, bones and nerves of the organisation.
The brain of an
organisation is its vision and strategy. The bones are the organisational
architecture, which means having the right people, processes and
structure. Finally, the nerves refer to
the organisation’s culture. We have found that those leaders who proactively
and regularly pay attention to these three pillars drive sustainable success.
You define a company’s
culture as “what your people do when no one is looking.” What makes for a
positive culture, and what is a leader’s role in bringing it about?
A leader must first
define what the culture stands for in terms of clearly recognisable behaviours. Unless there is a clear definition of
expected behaviour, there is no common culture.
Once defined, the leader must
socialies the culture by communicating expected behaviours regularly. While verbal and written communication is
good, the most powerful communication is walking the talk — a leader’s actions
speak much louder than her words.
Finally, the leader
must reinforce the culture by aligning reward and recognition systems to the
desired cultural behaviours. When I was at American Express many years ago,
50% of my bonus depended on my leadership behaviours. I had no doubt in my mind
that they were important.
Your book talks about
the importance of communicating company goals and strategy. What can leaders,
especially those who oversee large numbers of employees, do to make sure their
communication efforts are successful?
The key is to make
the communication both simple and powerful at the same time. I have seen many brilliant minds fail because
they could not communicate brilliant ideas simply enough. And while making things simple, one must not
make them simplistic. Vision and
strategy must be communicated in a way that is simple to understand but
powerful enough to motivate people to action. If leaders can ensure everyone in their
organisation has a common understanding of the vision and strategy, and are
inspired by it, they will unleash the energy of a large number of people
towards shared purpose. This is easier
said than done, and the only way to become good at it is to consciously try.’
