The Role of Leadership

If you are like most leaders, you would hope the organization beneath you could smoothly and effectively find and fix the challenges facing the organization. More commonly, however, even naming the right problems to address is sometimes awkward. And even when they are clearly defined, problem solving efforts are less than optimal. The problem solving model presented here provides a new way to think about how to create that optimal organization.

After you have read through the notes below, you may want to assess the readiness of the senior team to adopt this style of leadership.

The experience of most leaders is quite different from our stereotypes, or from their expectations. Here are some of the most frequently heard concerns:

• No matter how hard I drive decision making down, it keeps coming back up!
• I spend all day fire fighting; where's the time to think long-term?
• I limit people to 3-page presentations, but I know the problems are more complex than that. But if I didn't limit the presentations, we'd never get through our agenda.
• There's more competition between my own department heads than there is with the companies who could really hurt us in the market.
• I'm not confident people are telling me what I need to know.
• I tell my staff we need to take risks, but most people still seem timid in their thinking.
• We spent a lot of money to document our processes, but my best people tell me that's still not the way we get work done around here.

The first step is to build a definition of good leadership, but build it backwards. That is, our first question is not "What constitutes a good leaders?", but rather "What constitutes a well led organization?" Then we can ask what leaders would have to be like to foster that kind of organization. Here's a list for starters:

• quickly identifies and addresses its critical challenges, both internal and external.
• balances attention to long-term strategic options with attention to more immediate, tactical obstacles.
• keeps the appropriate openness of boundaries, so that departments work together smoothly, and alliances with key players in their supply chain are reliable and resilient.
• deftly applies its available talent and resources to address problems efficiently.
• explores the inherent dilemmas of business with innovation rather than rancor or excessive conflict.
• exploits the value of both formal, mechanistic approaches and more organic, emergent approaches.
• anticipates major shifts in its future environment and avoids over adapting to the current situation if necessary.
• maintains a rich dialogue between leader, manager, and staff that continuously contrasts goals against capabilities, leading to appropriate adjustments in both.

If you are like many, the list seems awfully aggressive, even idealistic. But ask yourself, which feature could you do without? If your competitors were strong in that point and you were not, what would the consequences be for your company?

Executive summary of process steps

The value of the list above is that it anchors our understanding of leadership. A great leader is not some abstraction or moral ideal. A great leader is one who fosters a well-led organization. From the list provided, it is also obvious that leadership is not the sole responsibility of a single individual; this kind of company requires the collaboration of everyone across a broad range of attitudes, skills, and values. It requires a shared mindset, and a common vocabularly. We have identified 3 key talents that define the leadership of a well-led organization:

Naming

The ability to identify the key problems that threaten the strategic intent of the organization

Framing

Quickly typing a problem so its essential nature is foremost in the mind of those called to solve it; tasking the effort correctly, so the organization has the clarity of purpose and role understandings for a successful project.

Taming

Actually tackling the problem, which is the primary responsibility of the managers and individual contributors rather than the executive who chartered the effort. Nonetheless, there is usually a distinct role for the executive to ensure the process comes to a successful conclusion.

Copyright © 2003 by Jerry L. Talley | Home Page |