New paradigm in developing Leadership pipeline
AUTHOR : Anubha Maurya Walia, International Trainer and Facilitator
Research paper published on 6th March 2013 at ISTD & NSDC Conference
Abstract
“Leadership is not the magnetic
personality – that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends
and influencing people” that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s
vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher
standards, the building of personality beyond its normal limitation” – Peter F
Drucker.
Indeed of the most important sets of
skills required in a changing world are the skills of leadership. This has
become increasingly evident as we have attempted to adapt to the escalating
changes in our society and workplaces over the past century. Effective
leadership is one of the keys to our future and more important is creating or
nurturing New Leaders by existing leaders. This paper looks at the current moral state of organization
performance and business leaders. It identifies the underlying of the current
leadership skills exist and the need for a new leadership paradigm—a shift from
being the best in the world to the best for the world; a shift from what’s in
it for me to what’s best for the common good; and a shift from “I” to “we” by emphasizing
on how existing leaders and organization together can create new leaders in
system.
To
understand this one and only question will always keep coming in mind - What is
leadership, and who has it? Or can you develop leadership ability, or is it
something you must be born with? Some say leadership has to be learned and
earned. Others say leadership is a gift that cannot be taught.
Much
of the literature on leadership focuses on "characteristics" of good
leaders. These characteristics, however, are often too general to be of much
practical value to someone trying to become a better leader. For instance, to
say that good leaders are "gifted optimists" or are “honest" and
"inspiring" provides little practical basis for specific skill
development or improvement. These are typically judgments about our behavior
made by others.
In
defining what effective "leadership" is, it is important to
distinguish between (a) a "leader" (b) "leadership" and (c)
"leading." The position of "leader" is a role in a
particular system. A person in the formal role of a leader may or may not
possess leadership skills and be capable of leading. "Leadership" is
essentially related to a person's skills, abilities and degree of influence. A
good deal of leadership can come from people who are not formal "leaders."
"Leading" is the result of using one's role and leadership ability to
influence others in some way.
In
its broadest sense, leadership can be defined as the ability to influence
others toward the accomplishment of some goal. That is, a leader leads a
collaborator or group of collaborators towards some end. In businesses and
organizations, ‘leadership’ is often contrasted with ‘management’. Management
is typically defined as "getting things done through others." In
comparison, leadership is defined as, "getting others to do things."
Thus, leadership is intimately tied up with motivating and influencing others
which further helps in creating a new leader.
RESEARCH DESIGN and
METHODOLOGY
Source of Data- The study was based on both primary and
secondary data.
Primary data was collected with the help of observation and
personal interview and secondary data was collected through journal articles,
dissertations, theses, books, magazine articles and internet.
Instrument- Unstructured interview was conducted to gather
as much as relevant data as possible from HR managers, Trainers, Junior - Middle
– Senior level from various sectors.
Before further understanding how we together can create -
The New Leadership Paradigm, one of the insightful thought has been given by Nocholls
(1988) about different perspective of leadership that is Micro, Macro and Meta
Leadership.
Micro,
Macro and Meta Leadership
Nicholls
(1988) has pointed out there are three fundamentally different perspectives of
leadership: Meta, Macro and Micro.
- Meta leadership creates a
‘movement’ in a broad general direction (such as civil rights, home
computers). Meta leadership, "links individuals, through the leader’s
vision, to the environment. In doing so, it releases energy and creates
enthusiastic followers."
- In macro leadership,
"the leader’s role in creating a successful organization is fulfilled
in two ways, path-finding and culture-building... Path-finding can be
summed up as finding the way to a successful future. Culture-building can
be viewed as drawing people into purposeful organization - one which is
capable of traveling along the path that is found or of fully exploiting
current opportunities...Macro leadership activity can influence
individuals by linking them to the entity - be it the whole organization
or just a division, department or group. The leader influences the
individual by supplying the subordinates with answers to such questions
as: what is this organization all about? where do I fit in? How am I
valued and judged? what is expected of me? why should I commit myself? In
the process, the leader creates committed members of the
organization."
- In contrast to both of these, Micro leadership, "focuses on the choice of leadership style to create an efficient working atmosphere and obtain willing cooperation in getting the job done by adjusting one’s style on the twin dimensions of task and relationship behavior. Choice of leadership style depends on the particular subordinates and the job/task being done, it is, thus, situational and contingent...the leader directs people in organizations in the accomplishment of a specific job or task. If the leadership style is correctly attuned, people perform willingly in an efficient working atmosphere."
It has been observed Micro leadership primarily addresses
issues at the levels of environment, behavior and capability: i.e., where,
when, what and how.
Macro leadership focuses on issues at the levels of beliefs,
values and role identity: i.e., the why and who behind the
where, when, what and how.
Meta leadership emphasizes the levels of ‘spirit’ and
identity: i.e., the who and what else which form the vision and
purpose behind all of the other levels of leadership.
After understanding and analyzing different perspective of
Leadership, we tried to analyze what Characteristics of Leaders they possess.
The key leader characteristics help the leader acquire
necessary skills, formulate an organizational vision and an effective plan for
pursuing it, and take the steps needed to implement the vision into reality
(Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991). It is not necessarily the individual possessing
the most formal authority who is the leader in an organization, large or small.
The leader is anyone who exerts influence over others. Specific traits,
characteristics, and personal attributes that will predict superior performance
in any given role, team, and organization can be identified and defined. On a
whole the Leaders after observation and interview with subordinates / employees
stated, best leaders mostly posses and are:
·
Great Motivator &
Communicator
·
Target achievers &
Committed
·
Charismatic as believes
in Self
·
Creative & Innovator
·
Strategic thinker
RESEARCH FINDING: Practise
on Creating New Leaders
We need a new leadership paradigm. We need to grow a new set
of leaders—leaders who operate from their souls, rather than their egos. We
need to find these new leaders urgently because the problems of existence are
now urgent and global. We need our business leaders to see beyond global
competition. We need our political leaders to work with our business leaders
and civil society to build industry charters that regulate competition within a
framework of global policies that support the evolution of humanity and the
global common good.
Based on above, we observed with Leadership characteristic,
many leaders have begun to refer to the “what” about future leaders and how to
make new leaders. We identified the two aspects for same
1- Organization perspective
– OKE Model
2- Leader Perspective - The 4S (based on 4 Skills)
I – OKE Model
The methods in
which Companies are improving its performance in successfully dealing with the
changes in the near future is to employing, selecting training and guiding the
right people in the organisation. Companies leaders focuses on “OKE” that is
being used as best strategic practice to achieve that can be normally
referred to as a profile-fit practice. This practice are used by Companies who
don’t have to make its employees undergo extensive training on behavioural
front after recruitment and selection but consider Attitude first and work
toward experiential learning with ongoing development of skills and knowledge
which is taken care by Leader by using their 4S skills.
This strategy is the person-organisation fit practice. In this
case, organization seek to recruit and select persons with good morals who are
able to meet the organizations’ values, culture and structure in the changing
sociological aspects of the society first foremost and further enhance skills
and knowledge related to job. Human resource management practices in the
company have been utilized in measuring the analysis of the OKE carried out by
organisations. These practice guided the management in selecting persons with
desirable attitudes and characteristics suitable for the job description.
OKE - Outlook, Knowledge. Skills / Expertise, is termed as systematic enhancement
of Attitudes, Knowledge & Skills / Expertise needed by an employee in order
to perform a given OKE resulting to business performance and development.
Development is the growth of an employee in terms of capability, understanding
and awareness. Organisation are emphasising OKE
through training and development followed by coaching approach used by
Leaders can help company to;
- Develop a workforce that can
perform higher-grade assignments
- Increase efficiency,
effectiveness and standards of performance by the employee
- Giving them challenging
task.
- Helping them to work in a
new way.
With Leaders rising based on
their pivotal role are the primary asset of an organization, and are being
faced with new challenges to come up with strategic approaches that can add
value to the organisations. Leaders develop the competencies to design and
deliver practises which build organisation capability, they create and sustain
unique sources of competitive advantage.
Competencies refer to an individual’s ability to demonstrate knowledge,
skills and attitude but now emphasis on first ATTITUDE and then Knowledge with
skills. In other words they are behaviourally – specific description of OKE required by employees to perform their OKE efficiently and effectively.
Having all
three aspect (OKE ) makes professional moves up to hierarchy from individual
contributor to senior level as mentioned in TABLE 1.
|
COMPETENCY – focusing on OKE
|
Selected by % of Sr. HR Exe
|
|
Business acumen
|
90%
|
|
Capacity to facilitate and implement
change
|
60%
|
|
Influencing skills
|
50%
|
|
Leadership abilities
|
40%
|
|
Organization effectiveness
|
40%
|
|
OD skills
|
40%
|
|
Systematic thinking
|
40%
|
|
Communication skills
|
20%
|
|
Process management and improvement
skills
|
20%
|
|
TABLE 1 - FUTURE COMPETENCIES
REQUIRED BY SENIOR ROLE
|
For developing above mentioned competencies the existing leaders need to
further focus on application of the 4S for creating new leaders.
II – 4S Model
Based on above, we
observed with Leadership characteristic, many leader have begun to refer to the
“what” about future leaders and how to make new leaders is based on “the 4S”
i.e if you as a Leader initiate on 4S
can help in generating new leader. It is based on 4 Skills which leaders are
using to develop new leaders. 4S emphasize on four different skills a leader
uses to enhance persons capability and these skills are Self Skills, Social
Skills and Strategic Skills, Systematic Skills.
(If you need full research paper - please mail anubhawalia@gmail.com)
Conclusion: New Leadership for 21st
Century?
In summary, the leaders are successful largely to the extent
that they provide their Skills to young budding leaders. Effective leadership clearly involves
addressing issues at all of these levels – whether it be in regards to self,
others, system or goals.
Few
published works or leadership models directly address the deeper psychological
processes that are the foundation of the exercise of leadership. Leadership is
not simply the function of a role, of a position in a social structure, or of a
particular combination of individual attributes. It is not a hat one wears, a
divine gift or a product for sale. Leadership is a deeply archaic psychological
dynamic that manifests itself in the context of any social system. At its core,
leadership is deeply emotional and great behavior.
We
frequently hear about a new kind of leadership for the twenty – first century
or creating leadership pipeline. My say is – Don’t believe it. There will be no
new kind of leadership or for that matter new model for but its Back to Basics
approach for developing leaders – and answer is application / usage of 4S –
Self skills, Social skills, Strategic skills, or Systematic skills. Although
leadership today is essentially the same as leadership was a thousand years ago
and will essentially the same after thousand years from now, only change will
happen how are we developing new ones.
Leaders
are not born. There is no gene for Leadership as there are genes for green or
blue eyes and black or brown hair. Research might suggest that height
correlates with high organization status, but there will always be leaders like
Nepoleon who fall at the low end of the height distribution and who
nevertheless manifest supreme leadership qualities in practice.
Leadership
is not restricted to the top floor of the company. Leadership is universal. It
is evident from infancy on. Just watch your kinds in kindergarten or on the
playground. Anywhere there is a human group, there is leadership. Even you as a
reader has leadership quality, only important element is has someone identified
your Leadership quality by applying 4S or where you given that opportunity for
leading and influencing helped in your own growth first and then organization
growth. This is as true of young people first people first entering an
organizational context as it is of presidents, directors and prime ministers
formally heading their companies or countries.
Organization
therefore has been observed, they make people work in small group to identify
the true potential as required by competencies set by organization for future
role. Although it is true to say that every small group needs leadership, it is
probably not true that every small group needs “a leader”. So can we teach
leadership? Answer is Yes only by writing articles, books and case studies
about prominent leaders. To make someone leader, help him / her out to give
challenging situation. Let them dirty their hands and practice and for this you
don’t have to be part of executive committee. Leadership can’t be taught, it
can be learned / you as a leader can make someone learn for new / higher role.
Remember “Leader” will die but “Leadership never will”.
About Author
Anubha M Walia is a prolific Human Process
Facilitator & Coach carries 14+ years of rich corporate experience has
worked with top of the line blue chip organizations like ICICI Bank, Moody
ICL Certification in Training &
Quality verticals and now serving generation by her credentials through imparting
trainings and providing consultancy under Prism Global trainings and
consultancy banner. Having 9000+ hours of training experience
with Junior, Middle and Senior level leaders ,h er areas of expertise includes
human process intervention, Organization Development, Team building and
Instructional Design.
She stands tall with her rich and magnificent background as an
honors graduate from LSR College, Delhi University, MCom and an alumnus
of Narsee Monjee from where she mastered her post graduation. Recipient
of Emerging HRD thinker award (consecutive for 2 yrs), Certified Change agent on Train the Trainer, Six
Sigma and Lean, has added an additional International certification of
Facilitator by DDI and Mind Gym.
She is Self-Discipline Strategist who relates profound truths
coupled with humorous anecdotes empowering professionals to conquer their
apprehension. With her contagious enthusiasm & captivating energy, during
her training delivery, motivates audience everywhere and helps to achieve their
maximum potential, makes her training program unique and special. She is actively engaged in research work on Trainings
& Leadership and her work has been acknowledged by a host
of industry publications.
You can visit her site
for more details: https://sites.google.com/site/anubhawalia/
