Harvard Business Review, the pre-eminent journal on business matters, has been giving Leadership a lot of attention recently. One article, written by Vineet Nayar, opens by asking two key questions:-
- What qualities and responsibilities will define the most effective leaders of tomorrow?
- What skills and knowledge should you attain to become one of those leaders yourself?
He goes on to answer the questions by listing change management skills, deep knowledge of existing and emerging markets, the ability to inspire and motivate and, finally, lean management that can optimise efficiencies without sacrificing quality.
Are you sure that you have sufficient strength in these four areas? Congratulations if your answer is a definitive “yes”. But if your answer is in the “not sure” zone then you must take the opportunity to reflect. Our skills and experience can help you “get to yes”.
Jim Collins (in his book Good to Great) said “First who…then What. First get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats – and then figure out where to drive it.” Bob Eichinger added an important point. “Make sure you have the right driver.”
Research has shown that there are some significant differences between those who are successful high performers and those who are less successful. The successful people are more likely to be learning agile, they seek and get more feedback, they have more variety in their experience and they grow and change. The less successful people show no pattern of learning from jobs and they can become the victim of past successful habits. They tend not to learn from mistakes, they are less open to new or different ideas and they often lack core interpersonal skills so they don’t relate well to others.
Research by Lominger has led to the suggestion that there are a number of elements – six in all – which are relevant to leadership. We will be looking at them in the next few days.