Leadership’s Five Worst Mistakes to Avoid

Leadership is looked upon as the ultimate capability to succeed. Leadership is unique in that its success comes from the success of the teams that leaders lead. Leadership is, therefore, nothing but influencing the teams to perform to their full potential. Leaders typically possess a set of skills and attributes which they deploy in certain styles to lead the teams. Though leadership is, in part, contextual the broad set of leadership competencies remains the same. Many times leadership is based on excellence in a few attributes relative to others. The attributes of relative excellence could be any or some of the following (illustrative): conceptualization, strategy, decision making, execution, public speaking, memory, agility, perfection, empathy. The ability of the leader to influence his or her team members to succeed, based on such attributes, creates a leadership charisma.

Leadership charisma reinforces the success competencies of a leader leading to a virtuous cycle of success and charisma, in an ever increasing trajectory. Along with that comes a sense of infallibility and invincibility, fuelled by relative superiority. In some leaders it just remains as a streak and in some leaders it starts becoming a dominant stream. When the latter happens, leaders start committing certain mistakes with the assumption that their supremacy is unchallenged. This approach, in the long run, becomes counterproductive to the leaders and their organizations because, more often than not, the team comprises potential leaders who with time and given the space could step into the leader’s shoes. The sense of relative superiority, which is a result of self-perpetuating cognatic bias of a leader, prompts him or her to commit certain mistakes. Discussed below are five of the serious mistakes a leader can ever make, and should never make.

Competing with team

This is the most common mistake successful leaders make. A wise leader recognises that his direct subordinates could be better than he himself is on certain attributes and together the reporting team could be better than the leader. This awareness amongst the subordinates develops based on individual and team successes and group collaboration. A leader who is always out to prove that he is superior to his team would hardly give credit to his team for successes. A leader who is always attempting to prove his superiority over his colleagues ends up using his positional power to achieve this, given the fact that he may not be intellectually superior on all counts. There are several negative consequences of a leader competing with his team.

Firstly, the team becomes acquiescent, if not obsequious, denying the organization the benefit of collective wisdom. Secondly, it places too much power in the hands of one individual who has started trading his wisdom to aggrandisement. Thirdly, the broader organization becomes centrally driven diluting the authority and relevance of a whole team of leaders. Two things happen as a result. Potential leaders become blind followers, passive aggressors or take up early exits. By the time the leader and the Board come to realize the folly, mostly through some failures, they would find that the organization has no potential leaders. Eventually, the reputation of the leader as a concentrator of power would inhibit entry of external leadership talent.

Joker(s) in the pack

Though not very apt, the leadership team can be seen as a pack of cards utilized by the leader to win the game of business competition, majorly through skill but partly also through luck. As we know, the joker card which has no sequential or set attribute has enormous value to be used as any card to make a set or sequence. Leaders tend to have a team member who is loyal to the core and who fulfils the role of a joker in the pack for the leader. It is not uncommon even in great corporations to have a joker in the leadership pack; they do contribute to forward movement by adding their word (usually at the behest of their leader) to certain solutions desired by the leader. The trouble arises when the leader tends to have too many jokers in the pack.

Like in a card game, too many jokers in the leadership game rob the game of business any competitive strength. A leadership team filled with members of blind loyalty, even with substance, would add little to the long term strength of the company. Very soon there would be no issues to debate and no decisions to make. A leader who fills his pack with too many jokers would find it difficult to reconstitute the deck even if wisdom dawns on him because unlike the competent ones jokers tend to stay on for a lifetime! There is probably only one way to deal with an excess of jokers; offer them sinecure positions and make them lead inconsequential non-mainstream divisions.

Drawing the blinds

A company, more so its headquarters which houses its leadership team, is like a cozy home. It stays in its community (the supply base or the marketplace) but also could be a mini-community by itself. It is important for any house to draw in, from outside, sunshine and breeze so that the residents are healthy. A home may protect its residents but unless residents go out and are able to live their external life they would eventually become weak. The fate of headquarter leadership is also similar. Unless leaders undertake periodic viewing and listening tours in their fields they are likely to be isolated, and lose their touch with competitive pulse. Being blinded to realities is the worst handicap that a leader can inflict upon himself.

The third mistake leaders commit is to draw blinds on their homes, shutting out the view on and feel of outside developments. Artificial light and air conditioning may not only substitute the natural sources and be more comfortable. They may even give a false sense of control over them. They are, however, expensive and inappropriate; like artificial light can never help in vitamin D synthesis in a person as natural sunshine does. A leader who runs a headquarters that is isolated from its environment does more harm than good to the vitality of the leadership team and agility of the company. It is not enough for one or two potential leaders to foray into the environment. There must be continuous openness for all the team members.  

Decoupling with peers

A peer is someone at one’s own level. A leader, if he is hierarchy bound, and in addition has a mistaken feeling of superiority may never see anyone as his peer. It is important for a leader to appreciate that aspirant leaders who are one level below him organizationally, and even managers several levels below, can be peers based on intellectual capabilities. Organizational structures and processes are designed, despite their bureaucratic nature, provide several opportunities to couple with executives, managers and leaders of shared or overlapping processes.

The fourth mistake leaders commit is to decouple themselves from their peers despite organizational opportunities. Decoupling occurs in two ways; one is going through interactions in a mechanical manner and the second is to build silos around himself and allow other leaders to build silos around the divisions they head. Leaders who think of themselves to be superior or carry needless burdens of their weaknesses tend to deliberately decouple themselves from their peers; hierarchial or intellectual. A leader who does deliberate decoupling only downgrades his potential.

Tunnelling the vision

Leaders are charged with a rather sublime duty of conceptualizing a vision. Vision is not a definition of a future business. Vision is more an expression of how a business would build itself and endure over a really long time. Apple’s vision is to lead a digital revolution. Google’s vision is to organize all data to be useful. Microsoft’s vision is to seek diversity and inclusion in its business. Ikea’s vision is to create a better everyday life for people. Amazon’s vision is to be the world’s most customer-centric company. General Electric’s vision is to bring good things to life. Vision, in a way, represents a superordinate philosophy of a company. A leader’s differentiation will be evident in the nature of vision statement.  

  

The fourth mistake of a leader is to tunnel a vision; an oxymoron of sorts. Vision needs to be expansive as open sky horizon and capable of lasting in perpetuity. Expressing a vision in terms of products and businesses is a hallmark characteristics of leaders with tunnel vision. This leadership mistake restrains an organization from absorbing its fundamental purpose and establishing a perpetual connect with its stakeholders. It is not expected that a leader should develop a vision by himself. If the leader does not make the mistakes mentioned earlier he would be in a position to develop his leadership bench, bring out their inner and innate potential, and seek contributions from his team members to develop awesome vision.   

Board role

The role of apex leaders, among many other important things, is to be a model of leadership, and keep organizational processes on track. If the apex leaders, the Chief Executive Officers and other C-Suite Officers, themselves make any or all of the above five mistakes, it is difficult for others in the organization to correct such leaders. As mentioned earlier, the subordinate leaders and managers may just comply or exit. If leaders do not realize the need to avoid the five mistakes, the Board of Directors becomes the only hope.

The Board is the institutional framework that can mentor and coach the apex leaders to live their leadership role in totality, avoiding the above five mistakes. To be able to play that mentoring role, the directors on the board themselves must be seasoned and wise enough to understand the five mistakes that leaders could commit and they themselves should not have committed them. The Board’s role is not just review of performance, or even ensuring governance but is enabling the apex leader to do the right things and avoid mistakes, and reach the fullest potential.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on June 12, 2016

Two Minds Are Better Than One: The Theory of Twin Leaders

Management processes are developed over time to facilitate, enable and ensure success. Organizations create departments around functions and identify managers to lead. Organizations are also corporations with departments, all headed by CEOs as singular leaders conducting corporate management in the quest for success. Organizational practice, over time, also got concerned about vesting singular powers in individual managers and leaders, and has tried to use departments as mutually critical of each other while requiring them to be collaborative.  Individual managers and leaders are trusted to deliver through such singular power or face consequences later (Google Nest is a recent example). Concerns are delayed recognition of failures has led to organizations being layered vertically and horizontally with departments that oversee each other.

The zig-saw puzzle of ‘trust and verify’ is reflected in several organizational structures. Production produces but Production Planning counts while Quality verifies. Accounting records and Finance tallies. Internal audit checks veracity of all these processes. This has been the traditional structure. It has not stopped some business failures and occasional malfeasance. Investors and regulators became concerned, and new departments such as compliance, risk management and ethics came into organizational mainstream. There is another dimension too. In early days, all departments used to be consolidated into just two broad divisions: technical and commercial. Over time, not merely due to increasing scale but also due to avoid departmental cartelization, every department (almost) started getting a C suite officer. Despite all this, looking at the broad range of business failures one would wonder if the management processes, as they have evolved, provide an infallible solution.

Which two?

The efforts to find the right balance continued to extend, and that too to the higher levels of organizations. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Managing Director (MD) is required to hive off day to day operational responsibility to the Chief Operating Officer (COO). The roles of Chairman and MD are now expected to be different. MD and CEO are expected to operate under the superintendence and guidance of a board of directors with diversity of experience. The Board itself is divided into independent (non-whole-time) directors and non-independent (whole-time) directors, independence being related to material pecuniary relationship with the company of a director over a sufficiently long period of time. In further addition, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is expected to report also to the Board. An audit committee of select directors of the Board acts as an independent reviewer of accounts, interacting with external and internal auditors. And, there exist other board committees for investments, risk, compliance, and so on.  

The audit committee also acts the ultimate stop for the whistle blowing mechanism in the company and as an ombudsman of sorts. There are many further nuances, both from regulatory and company perspectives, which are expected to support the endless divisions and superintendence. All these mechanisms expect remediation to be carried out only by the CEO and the other C suite officers who alone have the day to day knowledge and execution capability. The audit committee and the board may go through all the internal audit recommendations but will only have to look at the CFO and CEO to implement the remediation plan. In battles between heads of production and purchase, production and sales, finance and all other departments, only those respective departments have to implement corrective processes. All this discussion leads us to wonder if different functions, departments or responsibilities that are headed individually are the solution (or the problem?) and something else is the problem (or solution?).  

Root cause 

The root cause for bad performance is usually bad decision or bad execution, or both. Without addressing the root cause for bad performance mere structural redefinition would not help. Better processes do help to an extent but essentially, individuals need to be better at decision making and execution. There is one reason other than leadership skills as to why leaders do make bad decisions or do turn bad at execution. That reason is that leaders are also human! We may aim to achieve precise and clinical leadership through various efforts of leadership development. However, leaders as humans are subject to pressures, internal and external as well as biases, internal and external. While it is part of leadership skill set to be confident and objective (which should address issues of pressure and bias, respectively) it is indeed humanly impossible to be extraordinarily virtuous. It is, therefore not uncommon to see even seasoned leaders wilt under pressures of the Street or get mesmerised by their own pet ideas.

When the issue is within the native profile of human behaviour, there is only a limited alleviation that organizational structures and processes can offer to offset the impact of pressures and biases; particularly when such structures are in the nature of dividing responsibilities, and reviewing decisions and actions sequentially.  The key here is that the primary decision or execution is singular by an individual; so is the secondary review of decision or execution. Though review by a board is plural it is also a post-facto delayed quarterly review of singular decisions or actions. It is important to enable challenges, debates and superior outcomes in decisions and actions. This cannot be achieved just through a discussion between the boss and his subordinates as the former eventually displays positional power and the latter eventually succumb to career growth issues. This cannot be through peer level discussions either as peer groups tend to eventually “live and let live” rather than aim at the best outcome.

Two minds

It is often said, “Two minds are better than one”. In fact, the concept of synergy lies in being “One plus One becoming Three, rather than an arithmetical Two”. The first is a typically social adage that implies that two minds can bring to the table viewpoints that would not be obvious to just one person. The second is a typically corporate adage implying that when two minds get together some sort of catalysis takes place. There is a saying related to individual experience that plays spoilsport though: “I am in two minds”! In corporate setting, indecisiveness is frowned upon. This has been one evolutionary reason why singular authority has been encouraged in all organizations. As we have seen in the earlier sections, this concentration of power has the potential to lead to inappropriate decision making or execution. A bold new experiment could be to have two leaders responsible for a single function. For example, key functions such as Finance, Operations and Commercial could have two equally titled top executives lead each of them. All decisions could be taken and executed only by the two together.

The rationale for two minds taking one decision or supervising one execution is clear: two minds are better than one, especially when the function is too complex to decipher or when multiple solutions require multiple viewpoints. Having two equally endowed executives enables each of them to overcome their pressures and biases through the critical thinking of others. Having another powerful co-sharer of decision making and execution enables the two member team take bold decisions which each individually would not probably be taking. There are, of course, risks that the two leaders could form a conveniently colluding cartel rather than critically thinking team. As long as this two member team concept is not limited to just one function but covers a few other important functions besides the CEO role itself, the risks of such cartelisation would be low. There would be higher costs associated with the concept but can be overcome with greater infallibility and greater value building through such pooling of strengths.

Left and right

The general approach in a Twin Leader deployment could be to select them based on complementary domain skills. For example, of the two to head the commercial function, one could be a sales oriented leader and another a marketing oriented leader. Of the two, heading the finance function, one could be a growth oriented fund raiser and another precision oriented cost accountant. In the operations domain, one could be a production expert and another quality expert. At the level of CEO itself, one could be conceptual and another analytical or one could be thinker and another implementer. The logic is that by putting together these skills at the leadership level one gets the best domain leadership capability. There is much to support such a skill based approach. There is another approach too that could be very viable that is rooted in neuroscience.

Ever since Roger Sperry, the 1981 Nobel Laurate, brought out the concept, lot of research has focused on lateralization of brain through left brain and right brain functionalities. Right brained individuals are expected to be more intuitive, thoughtful and subjective while the left brained ones to be more logical, analytical and objective. It is not that the two sides of the brain are completely compartmentalized; the brain does work together with the various parts of the brain including the left and the right conversing through the corpus callosum which joins them. The point here is that the twin leader approach has an enormous potential to bring together not only complementary domain skills but also a winning fusion of intuitive and logical, thoughtful and executional, and subjective and objective skills that are so essential to accomplish top-class leadership. If organizations look beyond the immediate costs of twin leadership approach, the organizational value that could accrue would be immense.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on June 5, 2016       

Continuing Education for Employees: Consistent Strength for Organizations

Two things never stand still in life; the first, of course, is time, and the second, less recognized, is knowledge. Knowledge gained through education is the prime ticket for career entry. Thereafter, consummate application of such formal knowledge as well as experiential knowledge gained in one’s career is the key to further progress in career. Industrial and business organizations are paradoxical. At one level, they are at the leading edge of technology. At another level, they tend to stagnate at past levels of knowledge, which is attributed mainly to employees being engaged in repetitive jobs and not being challenged to be at contemporary standards of knowledge.  A study of different companies reveals that those companies which invest in continuing education for their employees tend to be more competitive.

Continuing education even in the best of companies is a misnomer. Usually, it is limited to providing “canned programmes” to a proportion of employees, “allowing” a few employees to pursue formal part-time degree or higher degree programmes, and “sponsoring” even fewer to executive development programmes. Some companies eschew all of these on the basis that there is no substitute for on-the-job-training on a continuing basis. These policies cause a stagnation of skill levels and lead to competitive decline. In some cases, companies which are impacted by competitive decline engage external consultants at an aggressive pace and at great costs to reinvent themselves. In contrast to such uncoordinated efforts, it would be more appropriate to embed continuous learning in organisational culture, with emphasis on contemporaneity and quality rather than just coverage.

Shared responsibility

Continuing education is a shared responsibility of both the company and employees. While the company has a lead responsibility in articulating that it places a premium on knowledge, and following it up with a learning environment, employees also need to consider continuing education as their responsibility too. In fact, continuing education is a very useful platform to align the career possibilities that a company can offer and the career expectations that an employee has. Continuing education helps in that it could derive greater competitiveness through skilled-up employees and be in a position to offer them better opportunities.  For employees it is an opportunity to offer a superior or different value proposition to the company and seek career progression in the same or different track.

The extent to which responsibility for continuing education is felt by company and employees varies based on the business context. Start-ups by definition are innovative and, where required, learn by experimentation; they are likely to have little penchant for continuing education. Growing firms evidently are competitive and successful but also cost conscious; they are likely to adopt a need based approach for continuing education. Mature firms are engaged in defensive strategies and are likely to be open to a skill based approach for continuing education. Declining firms are engaged in survival strategies and are likely to have little time for continuing education. While employees may like to prefer a degree or skill based approach, the company context determines their approach.

Multiple approaches

Companies could adopt one of the three approaches in fulfilling their share of responsibility. The first is a ‘qualification gap’ based approach. In this approach, the company determines an optimal qualification for each role (as contrasted with minimal qualification required for entry) and encourages acquisition of degrees or certifications/accreditations for bridging the gap. The second is a ‘competitiveness gap’ based approach. In this approach, the company maps people competencies to company’s competitiveness and does whatever is required to make the company competitive. The third is an ‘industry leadership’ approach. In this approach, the company believes in a heady mix of superlative qualifications and competitive competencies for a differentiated performance. While most companies would follow the first or second approach, top ranking consulting firms, law firms and investment banking firms appear to be following the third approach.

Employees’ approach to continuing education, by and large, depends on the nature of the company. A technology and research intensive industry will require skills that are typically offered in leading educational institutions. Skills required for other industries may be more easily sourced in the general marketplace. Regardless, in general the approach tends to favour the acquisition of higher formal degrees. Whether employees do it through part time education or by taking a break depends on personal circumstances, company environment as well as career shift that is desired. Research indicates that employees do not consider in-house training as being supportive of career aspirations; they also consider external short term courses as little more than of marginal support for either on the job performance or career shift.

Education as mind-set

The primary objective of industries and businesses is to provide products and services, and not to educate. Similarly the primary objective of industrial and business employees is to put their knowledge to use. To conceive, therefore, of a situation where industries and businesses as well as employees focus only on education is somewhat impractical. However, the need for continuing education as brought out above is critical. The blog post suggests a few mind-set approaches to accomplish the objectives.

Continuous as lifelong

The first is to consider continuous as really meaning lifelong. As a concept, continuous education has lesser emotional connectivity to an individual than lifelong education. Once an individual gets into a mind-set that education is a lifelong, value adding process, he or she will surely develop ownership. Similarly, it focusses to the company that the continuous education initiative would need to be a part of life skill development of an employee. The concept of ‘lifelong’ is humbling as well as futuristic, for both employees and companies.  

Company as campus

Companies take many structural approaches to supporting their versions of continuing education. These include setting up their own in-house technical training centres with pilot equipment for on-hands training and management development centres for development of executive and managerial skills. These, however, tend to be just a part of the company infrastructure and figure more as slots in training calendar. The compelling proposition, on the other hand, is to consider the company as a campus wherein every piece of equipment, every bit of procedure and every interaction with a person provides learning opportunities.  

Individual as learner

While the company has a lead responsibility to provide a learning ecosystem, it is for and up to the individual to mould himself or herself as a perpetual learner. Being a learner does not make one a novice; only the insecure would feel that way. Being a learner and asking questions should never be seen as infra dig by employees or management. Wise scientists learn from every reaction of an experiment, wise operators from every rhythm of their equipment, and wise executives learn from every interaction they have in the company.

Learning processes

When we think of learning processes, things like classrooms, flip boards, audio-visuals, presentations, course materials etc., come to mind usually. Some think of off-site events and programmes as great learning opportunities. However, all these are at best accessories and aids to the learning processes. The real learning, that too perpetual learning, happens through the following personal approaches.

Listen, observe, absorb

In keeping with the prime responsibility on the individual to learn, the prime responsibility for learning approach also shall be that of the individual. It is fairly simple too. For a perfect learning process, the individual must listen intently, observe closely and absorb earnestly. These processes must take place in all interactions, peer to peer or boss to subordinate. In several cases, there could be learning opportunities from the younger reporting staff too. Learning environment is usually an expressive and empowering environment.

Follow, emulate, excel

The objective of learning is to excel in performance. This is usually preceded by two fundamental stages of following and emulating. Following is the process of merely implementing the learnings as absorbed. It is task oriented learning, putting into effect the ‘know-how’ learnt. Emulation is the process of thinking and acting like the person providing learning inputs; it is mastery of both ‘know-how’ and ‘know-why’. Excelling is the process of creative thinking and execution based on the learnings imparted/ received. Excelling is the result of empowered learning.    

    

Teach, share, coach

Everyone has a responsibility to disseminate learnings as much as they absorb. This again occurs through a three stage process. Most people who are well-versed in their art tend to teach. Those who teach prepare their learners only for ‘know-how’. A few others not only teach but also share their thinking around the subject matter of interest. Such people help the learners absorb both the ‘know-how’ and ‘know-why’. A few go beyond both the stages and truly coach the learners overcome their issues and limitations, and become what they can truly become.

The winning twelve

This blog post has reviewed the ticker of continuing education that most organizations would like to carry, and proposed that it should be considered more as lifelong education. It has reviewed current shared responsibilities between a company and its employees, and noted that while a company has the lead responsibility to create a learning ecosystem the prime responsibility for learning must be that of an individual. It has considered the multiple approaches currently adopted and postulated that they serve to accessorize rather than elevate continuing education as a lifelong journey.

The blog post proposed twelve elements of a lifelong learning journey. On one plane is a true learning platform that embeds the concept of lifelong learning, with perpetually learning individuals considering the entire company as their learning campus. It also proposes an easy and feasible multi-step process to learn through listening, observing and absorbing to be able to follow, emulate and eventually excel. It legislates that those with superior knowledge must endeavour to teach, share and coach all the time. Lifelong learning is a humbling feeling and a rewarding experience. It is a win-win for both employees and organizations.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 18, 2016  

     

The Theory of Decisiveness: Ten Principles of Decisive Leadership

Leadership has many traits to enable and support. The author of this blog post covered many such traits in an earlier blog post. Reference may be made to the post, “Leadership Qualities and Skills: Opportunities, Challenges and Enigmas”, Strategy Musings, November 6, 2010 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2010_11_01_archive.html). Amongst such several traits, decision making, or decisiveness, is a key trait; so much so, decisive leadership is referred to as a distinct category of leadership. Decisiveness is the ability to take decisions quickly, resolutely and firmly. Decisiveness does not mean taking random or snap decisions. Decisiveness means, in a leadership practice, taking considered decisions. Leadership is all about converting a vision into reality through an organization, which requires decisions to be made by leaders all the time.

While there are several leadership styles, leaders are required to be decisive in all the styles. Only the style of decision making varies across leadership styles. One stream of thought says that apart from being focused and agile in decision making based on available information, one can be flexible (adaptive to situations), hierarchic (taking hierarchy based decisions) or integrative (taking into account multiple points of view). The first approach makes use of little or minimal information while the last approach tends to get weighed down by enormous amount of data and information. The other two fall in between based on the dynamics of context and the extent of hierarchy, respectively. While there could be other ways of linking decision making styles to overall leadership styles, decisiveness can be seen as being prompted by ten different dominant competencies.

Decisive by nature

Certain personality traits such as emotional dominance, self-belief, self-worth, social boldness and task orientation imbue certain leaders with a natural tendency to be decisive. Such people use internalized data and their personal predilections to make immediate and compulsive decisions when they encounter new situations or problems. They may not be intolerant but they will be certainly impatient. Such leaders are unlikely to retract decisions or retrace their actions. Their nature makes them pile up decisions on their teams in general. The unique nature of naturally decisive leaders is that they can be decisive even in the face of little information; a situation not too infrequent in real life situations.  It could turn out to be a big advantage in such situations.

Decisive by authority

Some leaders wield, and live by, abject power. Authoritarian leaders are almost like military generals; whether they have strategized their actions objectively or not, they make it appear that all their mandates stem out of their authority. They are very conscious of their formal and informal boundaries of power. Authoritative leaders struggle with millennial employees and knowledge workers but could excel in domains marked by wide and deep spans of control, like infrastructure projects by virtue of their resonant leadership. They are unlikely to be very collaborative but could excel when organizations are structured to clearly reflect boundaries of power and authority.

Decisive by intellect

Some leaders are very intellectually driven; they possess knowledge and respect knowledge-seeking. They look to validate the data they receive, the interpretations they make and the decisions they take through the knowledge they possess; and if they find the knowledge at their disposal to be inadequate they do not hesitate to collect additional knowledge to validate or modify their decisions. Their nature makes their decision making slow but they tend to make exceptionally sensible decisions in areas driven by intellectual matters such as product and manufacturing innovation, patenting and futurism. They could do exceptionally well in technology-intensive industries.   

Decisive by experience

Most leaders have loads of experience. Only some, however, make their decisions purely out of experience. Leaders who decide based on their experience are visualizers and extrapolators of what it takes to achieve a goal. Such leaders are well suited to taking follower firms on paths taken by pioneers successfully. Leaders of this ilk are pretty quick in decision making but could also be failing to respond to new situations due to their preoccupation with their previous experiences. They could be needlessly biased by their experiences, both positive and negative. Most leaders are likely to belong to this class, thinking and behaving through their prior experiences.

Decisive by intuition

Intuition is one of the important hallmarks of successful leadership. Leaders are able to stand by their visions mainly due to their intuition. Leaders acting by their intuition may be intellectual, experienced and task oriented but they may not using any of these faculties unless they feel intuitively supported. Such leaders surprise their teams as well as competitors with their intuitive decisions, which not surprisingly pan out fruitfully. The author has posted a perceptive post on intuitive leadership earlier: ”Educated and Experienced versus Instinctive and Intuitive: From Conflict to Synthesis of Four Leadership Essentials”, Strategy Musings, May 10, 2015 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2015/05/educated-and-experienced-versus.html).

Decisive by goals

Goals are the critical drivers of company performance. Leaders who swear by goals tend to be obsessively focussed and occasionally missing wood for the trees, especially when business contexts keep changing. Such leaders are appropriate to drive turnaround as well as growth in stable economic environment. Such leaders are unlikely to be respectful of lead times required by diligent processes.

Decisive by incentives

A whole lot of leaders belong to this category. With emergence of variable pay, performance bonus, profit commissions, stock options, and long term incentive plans as new ways of incentivizing leadership performance, leaders tend to take decisions and pursue actions which are incentive friendly. Leaders belonging to this class tend to take speedy decisions and be oriented towards short and medium term. Such leaders tend to excel in turnarounds and priming growth stories. Per contra, it is unclear if such leaders help companies build long term value in their businesses.

Decisive by process

Leaders who still have strong legacy of structured management stand profoundly committed to processes. They believe in structured planning, guided execution and programmed management. For them, process integrity is paramount; they believe that right results follow right processes. Process oriented leaders particularly excel in quality and compliance oriented industries such as pharmaceuticals, food processing and semiconductors. Process oriented leaders also excel in ensuring high standards of corporate governance in their firms.

Decisive by recognition

Some leaders are inspired by the opportunity to carve a place for themselves in halls of fame. While they are driven by some of the various faculties and traits described above, and are motivated by goals and incentives etc., they are literally actualized by the potential of standing out in the crowd of leadership. Dhirubhai Ambani, who established the Reliance Group, belongs to that rare breed of entrepreneurs who liked to leave a legacy of bringing equity culture to the common man, dwarfing all other Himalayan achievements of his.

Decisive by people

And finally, there are leaders who are decisive standing by the people. Mahatma Gandhi is the unparalleled example of leadership dedicated to people, and seeking final fulfilment in serving people. Socio-economic equity, social harmony and equitable distribution of wealth are their primary drivers. Nelson Mandela. Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda are other notable leaders of this worthy, and hard to follow, leadership. Eminent entrepreneurs like Jamsetji Tata established industries to generate employment.

Leadership mix

Just as no two businesses are identical, no two leaders or two leadership styles are also identical. Logically, multiple businesses require multiple leadership styles; the same business may require different styles in various phases of evolution. All of the ten decisiveness templates discussed are appropriate in one context of the other. Admittedly, being decisive is only one, albeit very important, link of the leadership value chain. Anticipating, evaluating, interpreting, deciding, detailing, resourcing, aligning and executing are the other links of the leadership value chain. It is worth noting that all the other links too entail decision making in one measure or the other. A major responsibility of a leader is not only being decisive but also ensuring that the rest of the organization is decisive. Individual leaders always find it a challenge to tackle institutionalized indecision. Optimal leadership mix  lies in ensuring that autocracy and authoritarianism are not deployed to break indecision or discussions and debates do not stymie decision making.

Leaders should not only set the tone but also utilize a whole set of traditional corporate structures and systems to reflect a culture of decisiveness throughout the organization. Structures such as executive committee meetings and processes such as strategy and budget reviews can be utilized by leaders to demonstrate how it pays to be decisive. Decision oriented dialogue, rather than either hypothesis or theory oriented discussion, is a great way to embed a culture of decisiveness in an organization. Boards and Founders who select leaders, internally or externally, must be savvy to select leaders whose decision making style matches the business context, in each case. A seasoned leader must also recognize that he has as many as ten great endowments in him or her to be decisive. By selectively and contextually deploying them he would make great contributions to a firm.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on May 09, 2016

Opportunism of Learning versus Opportunity of Development: The Paradigm of Perpetual Learning Bench

In recent years, Learning & Development (L&D) has become an important function of Human Resources Management (HRM) in a company. What used to be a small training cell, has now become equal in importance to other HR functions such as recruitment and performance management. L&D is an important bridge between recruitment from the marketplace and delivery in the workplace. L&D can play a vital role in the overall talent management of the company, receiving and providing inputs from the other HR functions. Previously viewed as a corporate function, L&D is now viewed as an important site and business function. However, its importance as a function that could bridge the gaps between academic education and industrial needs for young entrants on one hand and reskilling and retooling of the aging workforce on the other is yet to be appreciated to the full potential. There are, however, reservations as to whether the function is living up to the expectations. 

The reasons for such doubts are many. Firstly, there is no clear body of knowledge as to what constitutes the right methodology for L&D. An overwhelming number of CXOs would still vote for on- the-job development, largely because the L&D specialists have been unable to make an effective case for dedicated learning streams. Secondly, L&D is often seen as a soft-skill initiative (based on generic outsourced canned programmes), leaving the line managers to grapple with the challenges of technical development (that require company-specific customization). Thirdly, despite having one of the world’s largest educational infrastructures in the world, L&D departments have been unable to forge viable academic-industry collaborations. Fourthly, it is unclear if L&D function is regarded as a mainstream HR function that can throw up future heads of HR function or the businesses themselves. Fifthly, the metrics to determine the effectiveness of L&D are yet to be developed to any appreciable extent. As a result, L&D continues to be a function of high potential but beset with unclear delivery.

Opportunism of learning

It is interesting that most functions in HR are not exactly the functions that provide ‘universal joy’ in organizations, given their requirements to be objective in business partnering. Recruitment, for example, has to bring in new talent to make businesses and operations competitive, even at higher salaries; this certainly is not a matter of joy for internal aspirants. Rewards management has to structure compensation within the means available to a firm, notwithstanding what industry pays or what staff believe they deserve.  Performance appraisal introduces relativity amongst employees with all its disharmony; bell curve or no bell curve. Succession planning is a function that demands hard (perception-wise harsh) choices; many top level separations are caused by succession battles. Industrial relations in traditional companies (and right sizing in new generation firms), of course, has been the cauldron of strife and disharmony in established organizations. In contrast to all these HR functions, L&D emerges as a relatively welcome function that brings forth no hard feelings!

In-house learning has, therefore, been quick to grab for itself the joyous characteristic of non-graded learning. Sponsorship to learning programmes is seen as a relief from the day to day work drudgery. If the sponsorship is to off campus and overseas learning programmes, the joy is even higher. Usually company learning programmes have neither the rigour of institutional teaching nor the challenge of end-of-the-learning gradation. Fun though such limited company learning is, firms can hardly become competitive just based on the joy of such non-demanding learning processes. In-company learning needs to be as studious and demanding as an academic programme of a top-notch institution tends to be; this is the only way to develop the needed skill sets. L&D has to be a mini HR system; from selecting the right candidates to providing the needed inputs, and from measuring learning to rewarding learning. L&D professionals should be willing to become gentle but tough taskmasters who would be both facilitative and objective.

Opportunity of development

The real joy of learning must come from the fulfilment of the accompanying development process. Learning and development are the two sides of the same coin. There can be no development without learning and learning sans development is infructuous. Just as a student who leaves the portals of a college is expected to be decidedly better than the one who enters, every employee who leaves a learning programme must be a better performer than the one who enters. The learning programmes could be simple ones such as fortifying one’s known language skills or challenging ones such as learning an absolutely new coding language. The joy for the learners as well as the teachers of such company programmes must be in terms of measurable increases in individual competence, and hence in organizational competitiveness. L&D professionals must impart seriousness and objectivity to the process of ‘learner-teacher match’ to focus on competencies and competitiveness.

Many times, the relative short span of internal programmes is held to be working against the objective of enduring developmental impact of the programmes. The fallacy lies here itself; why should a firm undertake learning programmes that are deemed suboptimal as a design itself? Are L&D professionals giving importance to form rather than substance, operational managers giving precedence to current work rather than future potential, `and corporate managements getting bogged down by budget impacts rather than by competency needs? It is important that firms decide on a few core themes and work towards programme structures and contents that reshape the skill sets in a decisive manner. This requires that L&D professionals become a part of value chain in the laboratories, plants and markets, list out the needs and develop customized programmes. A panel of line and HR leaders must vet the programmes, oversee coaching and evaluate the outcomes.

Accessing the infrastructure

India has such a large educational infrastructure that firms can indeed develop very effective programmes in collaboration with leading educational institutions. Rather than consider expensive executive education programmes, which are again general in nature, L&D would do well to tie up with colleges and universities to provide full course programmes such as Bachelors for Diploma holders, Masters for Bachelors degree holders, and Ph D for Masters degree holders. Many public sector undertakings such as HAL, SAIL and BEL (and some leading private sector companies such as L&T) had taken the lead, decades ago, in structuring such company specific academic programmes with intensely practical slant. With newer fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, mechatronics, sensor technologies, Internet of Things, bionics, nanotechnology, epigenetics, and wearable technologies set to transform all industries, it is important that middle level employees are reskilled in such domains so that organizations can stay contemporary at the minimum, and futuristic as a target.

There is a dilemma here though. On one hand, so much investment has been made in India by private agencies and the governments on colleges and institutions as well as teaching staff that it makes sense, at least for mid-rung companies, to utilize the investments. On the other, there does exist a criticism that Indian colleges and academic programmes are not known to be up to date in terms of knowledge base and pedagogy as a result of which the graduates do not have readily deployable skillsets, forcing companies to resort to on the job experimental development. Consequently, the confidence with which the industry can approach the academia is yet to be built. The paradox can be resolved to mutual benefit only if industry and academia decide to move together for collaborative programmes. Scale is necessary for making such programmes meaningful for companies as well as for institutions.

Learning bench

The concept of learning bench is relevant in this context. Depending on the nature of business and the technologies deployed, each firm should predetermine the number of executives in each cadre and each function that should be constantly learning. As a matter of hypothetical example, a pharmaceutical company could decide that 20 percent of its staff should constitute the learning bench at all times, so that in a span of five years the entire organization would be reskilled. Depending on the business model (whether it is research, manufacturing or marketing oriented), the relative percentages of staff in those and related domains and the nature of programmes could vary. Once a learning bench concept is embedded, selection of staff that need to qualify into the learning bench must be an annual feature with well specified criteria.

There should be a three tier approach to pass the learning bench through academic collaboration. The first tier would comprise the IITs, NITs, IIMs and other top ranking autonomous institutions such as BITS which can take the lead for creating industrial laboratory based research as well as advanced masters programmes. Entry into this tier must be based on proven potential as well as open competition. The second tier would comprise the large number of colleges and institutions which can impart academic programmes after learning industrial needs themselves. Entry into this tier would be open for the large numbers of young, operating staff who need their academic capabilities customized to industry needs. The third tier would comprise in-house programmes which are led by domain experts of the industry and institutions together with the learning bench staff that has already gone through tier 1 and 2 learning and development processes.

Companies baulk at making such huge investments on L&D as they are uncertain that executives so trained would remain in the company. The author is reminded of what an executive of Telco (now, Tata Motors) told him in 1976; he said that Telco, and for that matter all Tata Group companies invest a lot in training engineers under the Graduate Engineer Training schemes or in sponsoring middle level executives to XLRI three year evening programmes, fully aware that not all would stay. Yet, it has been the view of the Group that by training graduates and developing them and others in their companies the Tata Group is, in fact, building national competencies. That such a progressive concept was integral to Tata organizational development four decades ago, and could be articulated so clearly at a time when the fancy concepts of L&D were not in vogue in Indian industry, speaks of the visionary mind-set of Telco and the Tata Group. It should not be too much to expect the more enlightened companies of today to view learning and development as an immersive commitment, for their companies’ competitive advantage and India’s comparative advantage.

Posted by Dr CB Rao on April 30, 2016