The Legacy Man

Avoiding the folly of corporate self-aggrandisement

I’ve a new client. Great guy, been around forever, one of the all time great survivors. He’s been through a lot, but always seems to keep on the success-side of the street. Kurt, his name, Scandinavian background, big built, big presence and big, big ideas. I saw him last week in his new role as CEO of a packaging firm and, since I’m trying to get his business to develop some of his key people, he kindly laid out his current strategy.

All was sounding good until he mentioned the “L” word. “I’ve been in business a long time Rudi,” he said, “achieved just about all I ever wanted, but there’s a few things I’ve left to do. I want to retire in

about three years when my contract is over and leave something, behind me, something lasting.” Kurt hesitated or a moment, leaving the word he was about to say unspoken.

I steeled myself, to say it, knowing I’d regret it the instant it popped into my head.

“A legacy, “I ventured, “ almost whispering the word.

“Exactly!”, cried Kurt, jumping up his seat, his blue eyes flashing with passion and obvious, pent-up emotion. “A legacy, that will last for years to come. Something that they’ll always remember me for.”

Oh dear, oh dear, I thought. What have I gone and gotten myself into this time?

You see, I have a thing about this sort of stuff. Attempting to leave a legacy behind you, is not the icing on the cake, but the poison on the pill - it just doesn’t work. It’s tantamount to committing professional suicide. Time after time I’ve seen business leaders, pour thousands of dollars, dinars and dalasis (*) funding chairs of learning (my goodness where would our B-schools be today if not for misguided -or should I say misgifted- CEOs), that they vainly hope will preserve their name long after the pages of corporate history have curled up and faded.

Sadly, there was a dilemma for me. Should I tell Kurt the horrible truth; that trying to leave a legacy will open him to ridicule and worse, as he joins a long list of misguided, swollen-headed leaders? Is it really worth losing a good friend, not to mention his business, just because he’s got a little above himself?

As our eyes met, it took just a nano-second to transmit my look of doubt (was there a small smidgen of disdain in there too?), and I knew that I’d scored. Looking back on it some hours later, I realised that I didn’t actually have to say anything, he knew what I thought. And he was smart enough to know - without missing a beat - that what I thought was exactly the reaction that everyone else would have: the board, the team, the employees the clients, customers the whole kit and caboodle.

The moment was over. He sat back and looked at me, drained his coffee cup, sighed and said, “You know Rudi, being a leader isn’t much fun really, too much to think about, too many responsibilities.”

I nodded eagerly in agreement. “Yes, but a good leader has to know when NOT to do stuff too.” Again our eyes met. I knew that he knew, that he’d made a fool of himself. But he knew I’d saved him from making a massive mistake, a folly of corporate self-aggrandisement that would be difficult to ever live down – just the legacy you DON’T want. My one look of horror, well mixed with disbelief, was sufficient.

We never spoke of it again – not ever. The business school that would have been the recipient of his largesse, went unfunded. No matter. Another poor sap is always only too eager to have a tablet cemented above the door lintel as a tribute to their – and their shareholders - largesse. They don’t do a chair in corporate stupidity yet – maybe they should think of one.

(*) I didn’t make this up, its the national currency of Gambia, but it rhymes nicely !!!

This column on leadership and organizational development is written exclusively for the IEDP by Rudi Plettinx, Managing Director of Management Centre Europe, the Brussels-based development organization. Have a comment or a question? Engage direct with Rudi Plettinx here.

Doing Things Differently

Based in the Bay Area of California, Susan Stucky has had a long and varied career as a thinker, consultant and philosopher on how why, where and when people learn - especially at work. As the debate about the future of work rages onwards, we asked for her thoughts on what’s coming next. A “sneaky peek” around tomorrow’s next corner.





MCE: We hear a great deal these days about the need to be creative at work. From your point of view, are we more or less creative in the workplace; are we teaching students how to think creatively?

Susan Stucky  (SS): First. Are we talking about doing things differently - or doing different things; or doing the same thing in different ways; or doing it in different places? Why does it have to be new to be considered creative? Something that is creative in first grade in school isn’t necessarily in sixth grade? Some idea or thing seen as creative at an established firm isn’t at a start-up. 

Isn’t “creativity” just another phrase for "do more with less.” 

Isn’t it just another corporate mandate?  “Be Creative! 

“Here in the Bay Area we talk about innovation more than creativity, so we come down on the side of “new”.  But one important thing to realize is that all so-called new ideas and things are built on existing ideas and things, even if only in opposition to them.  

And that innovation and creativity are actually, fundamentally, social. The lone genius isn’t alone really. He, or she aren’t alone.
Or are we talking about “the creative class” as in the Super Creative Core (innovative, problem-solving) or the Creative Professionals (classic knowledge workers)? 

The Creative Professionals are mainly the ones who did school work well and had connections.  The Super Creative Core are the ones who maybe didn’t do so well in  school, aren’t socially adept necessarily and know people who aren’t afraid of marketing, including themselves. Are we teaching that?  Not really so much. 

But people, including children, are learning it. From the environment around them.  

MCE: California still seems to be the land of “start-ups”.  Is it something “in the air” by the ocean or is it just easier to try and fail.. Are you not a serious player until you’ve failed a few times?

SS: All those myths are bandied about, and it is worth remembering that just because something is a myth e doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Except for the fact that San Francisco is the happening place now and Silicon Valley is now the Bay Area, Anna Lee Saxenian’s conclusions in her 1994 book Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 still ring true.  

She called Silicon Valley a protean place — a shape- shifter changing”through patterns "of collaboration and competition”.  The whole Bay area is stuffed, literally stuffed, with people.  Those of us who remember a Palo Alto where you could drive to the city (San Francisco, of course) in under an hour now take public transit.  The freeways have those big white busses ferrying commuters from San Francisco to Silicon Valley (still a lot of jobs there). 

In 1994, the commute used to be the other way around.  More to the point, people still go to work in offices some of the time.   Having lunch is still important and there are oodles of Meet-ups that work like pop-up stores for ideas and networking.   

Most people in your network or someone else’s are really ready and willing to talk with you — I was told they would and they do.  Here, if you offer to meet in person, they will often take you up on it.   After all, they may need to talk to you sometime in the future that’s how the world goes around

MCE: You’ve spent a lot of your career thinking about how people learn. Have we got any better at that. What’s the big barrier?

SS: I’d like to think that corporate training has largely disappeared for one simple reason.  That we have finally realized that formal training does not guarantee that people have learned what is being taught is what they need to learn. 

I’d like to think that the rise of social media means that we understand that learning is fundamentally social. I’d like to think that “open office” plans mean that collaboration will be enhanced.  But the first and third are cost-saving plays primarily. Closeness does not necessarily mean collaboration. 
And the middle one — I’m afraid that social media and social media analytics means it is easier to find people like “us" and ignore people who aren’t like us . It means we find ideas and things that people like us like. 

The good thing is that people like us all over the world now have access to much of what is codified and explicit. 
If they want to know it they will.  But knowing is not the same as doing or putting what you know into practice, especially in a firm or a start-up. 
And the barrier to all that?   The way we think about learning.

MCE: The digital agenda is just “business as usual. Any thoughts on coping with the digital overload that seems to be swamping us like a tsunami? Is there a default “off” switch we need to activate at some point?

SS: Are we talking screen-based living and working?  Personally, I keep hoping that as screens become more distributed, that they will eventually fade into the background.  Kind of like wallpaper.  They can serve to remind us without being “in our faces.  The kind of digital I am worried about is the prevalence of too much information   and so little awareness of the context and implications of it. And that means us too. – All of us wherever we live or work anywhere. 

"Wicked problems", the most important problems a business has.

Dr. Patricia Seemann is a Swiss surgeon and the founder of The 3am Group, with a specialty like no-one else. Her unique expertise is diagnosing and treating the most complicated and intractable issues that plague large global corporations … the “Wicked Problems” that, left unaddressed, can endanger the entire enterprise. She is a former member of the Group Management Board of a major financial services firm and has 15 years of experience in helping CEO identify and deal with “Wicked Problems.” She will be addressing those issues in a keynote presentation at #MCE55 Event in Brussels in April 2016 (19-20 April 2016).  

MCE: Does EVERYONE, no matter how driven, successful, ruthless, or misunderstood genius they may be, have that 3 a.m. trauma in their make-up? Why ? and what is it ?

Patricia Seemann (PS): Some will claim they don’t. The idea is to project complete command over everything. As one guy told me: If I were losing sleep, it would reflect a lack of competence on my side. Vulnerability isn’t in the make-up of conventional leaders. They don’t know that there is a whole bunch of stuff they don’t know. Which is what makes them so dangerous.

In a recent paper, two journalists interviewed about 60 leaders (government, military, corporate) who all agreed that Leadership is failing because individuals cannot have the answers anymore. The word has become unknowable.

What keeps them awake? Some things never change: where do I get real talent from? How can I get my team to play nice, etc. Today it is also a kind of impostor syndrome, feeling deep down that they aren’t up to the job. The thing is, in a way nobody is.

You can help but helping them acknowledge that having the answer is no longer the requisite or even possible skill. What is critical is the ability to ask the right questions and to draw on the collective intelligence of the firm. That of course predicates a very different leadership model

MCE: Can YOU cure them of these night time bogeymen the “something” lurking in the shadows ?

PS: I don’t know whether curing is possible, but certainly helping the cope, yes.

MCE: Does guilt, unfulfilled dreams, unrequited ambition and the need to be top dog play a key part and should certain behaviours act as a warning flag? Can YOU do anything about it?

PS: Well, Carly Fiorina had a larger-than-life portrait hung in the lobby of HP. I think that is a pretty clear signal that she has a problem. Would I have been able to change that, probably now, because she wouldn’t seek counsel from people like me. Of course all the things you point to can and do play a role. I cannot change deep rooted character traits. But what I can do is show them how working on some of their behaviours is to their advantage.

MCE: We’ve seen a whole slew of M and A’ s seriously derail because tough CEOs want to empire-build to the exclusion of all rationality. Will that always be there, or is it inherent in the “beast” that is the 21^st Century CEO?

PS:Certainly! But it is also the inability to think in non-linear, messy ways. People assume that doubling the size of the firm doubles complexity, in fact it increases on a logarhythmic scale. They also rarely understand the notion of company as social systems with deeply tribal characteristics. Tribes really don’t like to be brought together.  Note also the role of the bankers. They can make any deal look compelling good on paper. The numbers are always pretty. But they do not reflect reality, because that is grounded in humanness, not numbers. And finally scale means something very different in a knowledge economy than if you are producing bricks.

MCE: Finally, If you had to say (or gently whisper) one word or phrase to a CEO with his or her eyes wide open at 3 a.m., what would it be?

P S: Build a company that’s smarter than you Then you can rely on it.

Leadership in an Age of Convergence

Jens Maier is Lecturer at the University of St. Gallen, Fellow at London Business School (Centre for Management Development) and the Founder of CE Convergence Engineers.

He is the author of “The ambidextrous Organization-exploring the new while exploiting the now”; Palgrave Macmillan; 2015 and will be presenting a keynote session at #MCE55 Event in April (19-20 April 2016). 

Convergence between markets and technologies happens around us. The perfect Storm of ubiquitous Technologies (smartphones, cloud computing, big data, social media and the internet of everything), often characterized as „digitization” is by itself challenging enough. When coupled with a megatrend such as aging population, the implications are felt across most industries.

MCE: You’ve introduced "the ambidextrous leader” as a viable concept and a “must- have” for today’s successful corporation. But doesn’t the evidence indicate that a lot of senior managers can’t use even one hand effectively to steer the corporate boat?

Jens Maier (JM): Sure, there are always exceptions: that individual leaders fail at running the existing business smoothly. However, years of benchmarking, continuous improvement, black belts etc. have helped to raise the professionalism in most industries. Therefore, I have observed that senior managers have become quite proficient at using the hand of “exploiting” the current business.

Now, the perfect storm of technologies such as smartphones, cloud computing, big data, social media and the internet of everything has a huge impact on the future of most existing industries.

This current phenomenon, often summarized as digitalization, creates new competitors in the existing business and is simultaneously offering opportunities for new businesses. Therefore, organizations are challenged to develop the capability of exploration. It is no longer just about playing existing game better, shaping game is now required. In shaping game organizations are fighting for relevance in the next phase of their industry. Witness Nokia and Blackberry fresh in our minds as examples for organizations struggling to move beyond efficiency to stay relevant.

Relevance therefore is the result for an organization’s capability to reconcile exploitation (efficiency in the existing busing business) and successful exploration of new opportunities beyond today’s core business. Organizations have to develop the organizational “bandwidth” to reconcile exploitation and exploration.

MCE: What’s your recipe for getting respect as a leader? What would you mandate/demand that CEOs-in waiting MUST experience, learn, adopt or get enthused about on their way to the top.

JM: Respect is earned and due when a leader can demonstrate both authenticity and adaptability. In the book I use the analogy of the T-model. We find that initially first time team or project leaders tend to repeat the leadership behaviour that brought them success in the previous assignment. If the “hammer” was successful, in the next, larger assignment a bigger “hammer” is being used. This brings leaders success in their functional area of expertise or to stay with the analogy, as long as the challenge presents itself in the shape of a nail... However, we have learned about the high levels of de-railment that take place at the transition from the vertical line of the T-model to the horizontal line, the transition from functional specialist to general manager.

At the level of general management, the CEO role is just the broadest version of general management, a leader has to demonstrate additional competencies such as “influencing”.

This means that the leader has to develop the necessary “bandwidth” of behaviors over and beyond the preference for the “hammer”.

Now, in the current age of “digitization” the need for developing bandwidth in leadership behavior has been added one important new dimension, the requirement to be able to do both “exploitation” and “exploration”.

In their role as leader, individuals are required to prepare their organizations for the future, in short to innovate. Now, as leaders progress in their careers they usually assemble a good track record around exploitation, the continuous improvement of processes and products. However, in the age of digitization, exploration as a key competence has to be acquired. Again the new dimension for increasing personal bandwidth is the competency to do both exploitation and exploration.

MCE: We keep hearing about phrases like soft skills and mindfulness, but it’s a tough, real-world out there. Doesn’t the ambidextrous leader need an iron fist in a velvet glove to gain respect? So how do you reconcile these opposites to be the real leader so many of us want to follow?

JM: This is where the idea of individual bandwidth comes in: There are times when a leader has to apply the iron-fist, or the hammer. This may be necessary to apply exploitation. However, during our times of digitization, when it is important to explore new approaches, the competence to develop a vision, a point of view is also critical. This exploration competence includes winning the hearts and minds of followers, includes influencing inside and outside the organization. This could be described as the velvet glove. This means that leaders have to develop their individual bandwidth to be adaptable to both exploitation and exploration requirements and to stay authentic.

MCE: If you could sum up your book’s message in one phrase that any would-be leaders should keep in mind everyday to repeat as a mantra as they start their day’s work, what would it be?

JM: Ambidexterity is about personal and organizational bandwidth – what do I do today to improve both my personal and our organizational bandwidth.

#MCE55 Event 19-20 April 2016: Accelerated solutions for building organizational relevance and connectivity in a disruptive world.

Read here more why you should come to this event.

The best way to ensure career success

Amrit Thind

A series of interviews with experienced players and experts in human resources and organizational development. Here we ask the questions to Amrit Thind, who is taking an MSc in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at ESADE Business and Law School in Barcelona. He explains what he sees as the best way to ensure career success.

MCE : In your recent experiences as a student, what are business schools NOT putting into their curriculum that you think should be on the ”MUST teach them” list?

Amrit Thind (AT): Business Schools are increasingly moving away from standardized teachings; too often students tend to only enter the professional world with a strong understanding of management principles, financial fundamentals, and the basics of large industry to assist them in their job hunt. However, what students lack nowadays is a basic ability to solve problems.

For the past decades European educational systems have spoon-fed students problems and accordingly the right solutions. Students don’t tend to make many mistakes. This needs to change. For example, the MSc Innovation & Entrepreneurship program at ESADE Business & Law School has a different approach to educating their students: The course is very much built on practical principles, providing students with an array of different problems to solve: starting an innovative new venture from scratch, for instance. This gives students the freedom to identify problems and figure out how to solve them however they best see fit. More importantly, making mistakes is a crucial part of the process.

  

MCE: What life/work experiences do you think that you NEED to have to become an effective people manager and respected leader?

AT: Working in teams and taking on various roles with different people is absolutely key to becoming an effective people manager and respected leader. No matter where you work, people will always challenge you. The sooner you learn to manage individuals with different personalities, backgrounds, mindsets, and working styles, the better.

Moreover, if you want to become an effective people manager and respected leader, it is also crucial for you to allow yourself to be managed by someone else in order to identify how it would be working for yourself. Reflecting on who you are and what you do is often more revealing than anything else in developing strong managerial and leadership skills. 

  

MCE: If you could choose to spend 24 hours with any business/management guru/thinker what would be your choice and why? (Basically – who IS your hero?)

AT: I would love to spend 24 hours with the authors of Freakonomics, University of Chicago economist, Steven Levitt, and New York Times journalist, Stephen J. Dubner.

Whilst their infamous book is already a decade old, I try to listen to their podcasts on Freakonomics Radio as often as possible. They talk about incredibly interesting topics, often discussing every-day issues and unveiling unexpected results. For example, do you know what “temptation bundling” is? Or did you know that the ability to think like a child could be incredibly fruitful in idea generation and developing creativity? I would highly recommend Freakonomics Radio for anyone who is looking for some intellectual stimulation during the commute. If you don’t know where to get started pick up any of the podcast episodes. It will definitely hook you.

MCE: Despite the fact that it appears to be a young people’s world, it looks like we are going to have to work until our 70s. What’s your thinking about keeping yourself up-to-speed current and relevant in your personal career cycle?

 AT: I believe there are two elements that are crucial in keeping yourself up-to-speed and relevant in your personal career: Innovation and the ability to sell - yourself and your product or service.

Innovation is key because it is what companies rely on to continually grow and stay differentiated. In fact, without innovation, corporations become arrogant and die. Therefore, staying innovative doesn’t only mean that you need to keep in touch with the modern world and technology – which is often overwhelming in and of itself. More importantly, never become arrogant and always listen to your customers. This is not just a lesson for your professional career; it is a lesson for life.

Sales are key because, ultimately, everything boils down to sales: You may have an impressive personality and skill set; you may have amazing work experience and a wonderful CV; you might have the most incredible product or service in the world. But if you don’t know how to quantify your value proposition, identify your customer, and understand their needs as well as match your solution to their needs, you will be forever stuck in the same place.

Whilst innovation and sales are important, I believe that, if we are going to have to work until our 70s, it is equally important to take a step back and breathe every once in a while. The world moves so fast nowadays. We are constantly bombarded with information and things we should do: Emails, LinkedIn, WhatsApp Messages, and Facebook notifications – it is easy to become overwhelmed. Step back and breathe – if you are going to work into your 70s, you better find a way to enjoy it. 

Leading Maverick Managers

VIEWPOINT: Innovative thinkers are often mavericks. Rudi Plettinx, Managing Director of Management Centre Europe, says we need them, in this fifth in a series of articles for IEDP: Maverick managers, off-the-wall employees, tortured geniuses – individuals that we have been taught, counselled and warned to leave well alone. Staff recruiters weed them out early in any selection process and any inherited non-conformists get sent packing to the outer limits of the corporate empire. “A new world of work where similarity breeds contempt” Until now, standard procedure seems to have been building organizational cultures filled with like-minded people, none of whom will ever rock the boat, much less capsize it. But, as I keep trying to impress upon my peers, we are leading and managing in a new era of work. A new world of work where similarity breeds contempt and the status quo needs a good shaking up. Why ? Simple. Talent is in ever shorter supply, meaning hiring our preferred people is harder than ever. At the same time, we need to innovate and invent to survive. This means that there is an urgent imperative to think new, radical thoughts about our businesses. And if you want radical thinking where else to go but to the source of all things different – the maverick executive. We’ve all met them, many of us have worked with them. They are the loose cannons of corporate life. Their travelling companions are chaos and confusion, but they may just offer new insights into how to boost a business, promote a product, or smarten up a service line. My argument is that in today’s business world we need these people who think and act differently to ourselves and our plain vanilla compatriots. Only problem with mavericks, you have to know how to lead them! As a leader, the first thing to recognise is that maverick employees need one thing above all else – freedom. Try and tie them down to the rules that the rest of us follow and they will quickly get frustrated and quit. Conversely, if you give them a totally free rein chaos can ensue and others will leave instead! Second thing to take on board is that these wonderful, wacky people need lots and lots of encouragement – amazingly they often have quite a low opinion of themselves and the more you praise their efforts the better they will be. Thirdly, you need to create a climate that can support them without turning off your run-of-the-mill corporate clones – the Bills, Bobs and Bettys, that your recruitment agency would much rather you were hiring. These employees need assurance too (most importantly that you haven’t gone crazy), but they also need to be told that these mavericks are not different; they are part of the team. So, if you want to put some maverick’s into your business, how should you deal with them ? Here’s a few thoughts to get you started. Make them part of the group you lead (be sure they feel valued) and make real efforts to integrate them. However, also spend a lot of face-time with the others in the group so they know what the score really is. Tell your maverick(s) that you welcome their ideas (however weird and wonderful they may be!) and you look forward to them. Above all you want them to make a contribution and feel that they can be as open and as innovative as possible. Set goals and challenges for them. This keeps them focused on what you want, not what they would like to do. Most mavericks have short attention spans and if not watched can wander off and get into trouble. Follow up quickly with their ideas and their actions. It’s all about encouragement. If an idea isn’t worth pursuing say so and move on. But rather than saying “no,” suggest they think about their idea in another way. What you want is positive reinforcement, not a series of turn-offs. However, never say, “It’s a great idea,” where it clearly isn’t. By trying to build up their credibility you will quickly lose your own. Don’t say, “I’ll get back to you,” and leave them waiting days for a response. Say you will consider their idea and get back to them in 24 hours and make sure you do it. And what about conflict ? Well it does happen. Most often because other members of the team can feel sidelined or ignored and take it out on your mavericks. If that happens, confront it. Make it clear what each member of your team is supposed to do – so everyone understands the responsibilities and the roles they play. Don’t play favourites. Properly led, mavericks can play a major role in organizational success. Is it worth the trouble ? If you know why they are there and you can keep them focused, yes it is. Otherwise stick with those cosy clones although that way corporate life will never be as much fun! This column on leadership and organizational development is written exclusively for IEDP by Rudi Plettinx, Managing Director of Management Centre Europe, the Brussels-based learning and development organization. Have a comment or a question? Connect with him via Linkedin.

Communication – a soft skill?

Bettina Hausmann

Bettina Hausmann helps professionals optimize their business communication and leadership skills for improved results. Bettina has longstanding experience consulting blue chip companies, international organizations, EU officials and associations in their positioning, campaigning, media relations, stakeholder outreach and issues communications. She has also trained hundreds of senior managers including C-level in message development, media and stakeholder relations, and presenting and handling issues. In addition to her communication and leadership expertise, Bettina is also an accredited executive coach and Senior Associate at MCE. Here, she talks about communication skills. 

Often times when I mention I give communication training, I hear: ‘Aha, so you are doing soft skills?’ Indeed, some organisations and trainers put communication training into the category of ‘soft skills’.

We are in communications indeed, and it bothers me when communication is linked to a term that is synonymous of fluffy, blurry and mushy. When you google images for ‘soft’, you’ll get flowers, feathers and marshmallows. For some, ‘soft skills’ seem to stand for easy, secondary and difficult-to-grasp abilities. Hard skills, on the contrary, evoke knowledge, occupational skills and must-haves for your job.

The term ‘soft skills’ and its underlying perceptions undervalue the role and importance of communication. The Holmes report has quantified the cost of miscommunication in companies to dozens of billions of dollars every year. And one does not need to think as far back as the BP oil spill to realize that poor crisis communication can cause huge reputational and financial damage.

Mastering their communications will help professionals achieve tangible business impact and shape their careers. 

Take, for instance, the five areas below:

1. Presentation: You can learn how to package and deliver your message in a way that your audiences will act on it. Wanting, and even liking to be on stage is possible, and it does marvels.
2. Media: When running a media interview, you’d better know how to develop, tailor and deliver your messages. And how to move from a victim to an effective spokesperson.
3. Crisis: We are all prone to crisis, and business leaders better prepare for different crisis scenarios, developing skills and materials to tap into, in case their reputation is at stake one day … and everything goes really, really fast.
4. Negotiation: Knowing the rules of the game helps mastering it. It enables you to make informed choices, depending on your goals, the situation and the negotiators at the table.
5. Conflict: When conflict emerges, you will appreciate mastering difficult conversations.

There is so much to learn and enhance. Some of my most interesting clients are already great communicators. They understand the value and power of communication and carve time out of their busy agendas - sometimes in the late evening - to lift their stakeholder outreach skills to another level.

Soft is the contrary of hard, maybe even the contrary of real. Rather than shifting communication to another secondary category of skills, I’d advice putting it centre stage. Communication is business-critical.

What makes now a great and successful leaders is not anymore the most important question.

Johan Beeckmans

Johan Beeckmans’s extensive international expertise in leadership, strategy and management development has been built over a 25 year career in key Human Resources roles and senior positions with international companies in the US and Europe. He is also Senior Associate at MCE and he talks about Leadership development. 

How to change the mindset?

What makes now a great and successful leaders is not anymore the most important question. It is about how to change the mindset? This can be done following the four step approach.

• Self-awareness

It is the basis of our knowledge about ourselves. With self-awareness we have a reasonable chance not only to develop good and solid social skills, but to start to change our mindset. Without it, there is unfortunately little chance to change the mindset. It is a journey that requires continuously building and refining a set of skills that allows people to guide, inspire, and work with others as well as making their plan for the “stages” they need to go through. It considers both horizontal and vertical development. 

Great managers have a wide range of competencies to draw on. They understand their strengths and weaknesses, their preferences, what makes them tick, what they avoid and how they learn. They know themselves well. Successful leaders learn from listening to others and from feedback. They are open to listen to feedback and make the necessary changes in their behaviors in order to plan their own stages of development.  And becoming a more complex thinker, they focus on vertical development i.e, the steps to become a more complex thinker.

•  Inspiring the Team 

Great managers and leaders know exactly what their role is in the team. They read the situation and understand what is needed from them. Great managers create a great atmosphere to work in. The manager – and their behaviors – has the biggest impact on team climate.  Team climate affects performance. It affects the amount of effort people in the team will contribute. The more they contribute, the more successful the team will be.  Positive climates encourage extra effort – negative climates inhibit it. High performance climates are characterized by individuals, who routinely do whatever it takes – who exceed expectations. Extended periods of poor climate may cause people to lose faith in the idea that things can improve, leading people to disengage from their jobs and the organization.  

•  Leading in a complex world

One of the things that matter, of course, is our capacity to hold and understand complexity. Leaders need to have the ability for each of us to hold the shades of grey complexity brings with it. Leadership is filled with so many shades of grey, so it matters that we can see those different shades. The complexity does not only comes fro the outside environment, but more so from the internal environment. Successful leader lead with mindfulness in their teams, organizations. This is the only way we can change happen in the organization. The reason that managers at higher levels of development are able to perform more effectively is that they can think in more complex ways.

•   Create your Personal Leadership Brand

Effective managers ask themselves: “What are the demands of my managerial situation?” Then they select the right leadership styles in response to the demands of the situation, considering:

ƒ. the experience and capability of team members

ƒ. the complexity of the task

ƒ. time pressures and resource availability

ƒ. the risks that result from under-performance

ƒ. the organization’s culture or norms.

Finally, they keep an open mind and observe their impact, watch out for changes in the situation that demand a different approach, and assess changes in the climate they are creating for their team.
Managing your personal brand requires leaders to be a great role model, mentor, and / or a voice that others can depend upon.

A major part of leadership development is helping people develop how they think.

How they get to an answer matters more than ever. The focus is on the individual’s responsibility for own development. And it starts with the self-awareness and the ability to change the mindset.  When people are confronted with increased complexity and challenge that can’t be reconciled with what they know and can do at their current level, people have to take the next step. Development accelerates when people are able to identify the assumptions that are holding them at their current level of development and find a way to do something about it.

Where to start? A starting point can come from redefining what is meant by the term leadership. It is not anymore the heroic leader with the 5, 7, 10 traits that makes them successful. Leadership is a process of mobilizing people to face difficult challenges, process of inspiring teams to high performance; process of leading in a complex world and above all to create a leadership brand. Who is the leader becomes less important than what is needed in the system and how we can produce it.

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Europe’s Cross-border Leadership Emphasises ‘Softer’ Skills

VIEWPOINT: Europe’s emerging leadership style is leading the way. Rudi Plettinx, Managing Director of Management Centre Europe, offers valuable insight in this fourth in a series of articles for IEDP: One of the great aspects of my job is that I get to meet so many people from many different places and professions.  When we meet – often in a leadership development environment – I am regularly asked one simple question: “Tell me Rudi, is it harder to be an effective leader today than it used to be?”  When I reply : “Yes, I think it is,” the same question always follows: “so how is it different ?” Well from my travels and experiences there is one thing that separates today’s leaders (and by ‘leader’ I mean people at all levels in an organization) from those of, say, a decade ago. Nowadays they have to lead in a far more complex world. And much of that complexity comes from the fact that an increasing number of us are leading and managing in a global marketplace. Interestingly, in Europe virtually every business, small, medium and large has an increasing exposure to external influences. While they may not have factories and offices in other countries, most businesses export, import or exchange services on an ever growing cross-border basis. My view is that successful leaders are going to be those that understand today – right now – that the criteria that have worked for us over the last 20 years are not going to be sufficient for the demands of tomorrow. And if I am right, then Europe is quite possibly ahead of the U.S. in getting to grips with this new model. Why? Well the European business model – grounded deeply in sociological orientation – is a much closer fit to these emerging leadership requirements than that of the U.S. where the free-market rules and ‘making the numbers’ is a recurring corporate mantra. (See my blog on ‘Making the Numbers’ published in May) As I move around Europe, I’ve developed some interesting views on how Europe and the U.S. differ as we search out an emerging leadership style. A new generation of leaders realize that to be an effective leader in 2015 requires meeting the expectations of the workforce (insourced and outsourced). To do that consistently requires an emphasis on those more collaborative skills – include persuasion in that too! – that will create respect and involvement within our businesses of tomorrow. As I explained earlier, we may not have paid enough attention as to how this evolution of the leadership skill-set is coming about, but as I travel around Europe and see the on-the-ground reality, I am deeply encouraged by the way the next generation is tackling the leadership challenge. So, today, when I get asked that question, “so how is [leadership] different?” I have a new answer. It goes like this, “Don’t ask me. Look at what you are doing and what you have done. You are leading the changes, so you tell me what’s different, because I need to learn from you.” I have a great job, watching a new generation in a new Europe find new ways to lead. Sure, I and my colleagues can help to put the practice and principles of leadership into focus in a learning environment, but it is in the offices and factories that the basic elements are assembled to create a new leadership focus: one that seems to be grounded in collaboration and mutual reward. Cross-border, cross-functional, cross-industry, cross-cultural, Europe’s business leaders in the 28 member states have rapidly learned a host of lessons that are being put into practical use on a daily basis to manage an emergent economic area. This is creating leaders comfortable with complexity, ambiguity and constant change and challenge. It is going to be very interesting and exciting to see where this journey takes me and everyone else who has a true interest in the concept and practice of leadership, because – while the basic tenets of leadership are constant – we must recognize and welcome the emergence of new ways to take our businesses forward. Leadership is, after all, a competence grounded in understanding and adapting to change. This column on leadership and organizational development is written exclusively for the IEDP by Rudi Plettinx, Managing Director of Management Centre Europe, the Brussels-based development organization. Have a comment or a question? Engage direct with Rudi Plettinx here