Great leaders encourage leadership
development by openly developing themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Listen to what General
Mills CEO Steve Sanger recently told 90 of
his colleagues: "As you all know, last year
my team told me that I needed to do a better
job of coaching my direct reports. I just
reviewed my 360-degree feedback. I have been
working on becoming a better coach for the
past year or so. I'm still not doing quite
as well as I want, but I'm getting a lot
better. My coworkers have been helping me
improve. Another thing that I feel good
about is the fact that my scores on
'effectively responds to feedback' are so
high this year."
While listening to Steve
speak so openly to coworkers about his
efforts to develop himself as a leader, I
realized how much the world has changed.
Twenty years ago, few CEOs received feedback
from their colleagues. Even fewer candidly
discussed that feedback and their personal
developmental plans. Today, many of the
world's most respected chief executives are
setting a positive example by opening up,
striving continually to develop themselves
as leaders. In fact, organizations that do
the best job of cranking out leaders tend to
have CEOs like Steve Sanger who are directly
and actively involved in leadership
development. That has certainly been my
experience. This has also been confirmed by
a recently completed research project led by
Marc Effron at Hewitt Associates, one of the
largest HR consulting firms. Hewitt and
Chief Executive magazine put General
Mills on their latest list of the top-20
companies for leaders, among such familiar
names as IBM and General Electric.
Hewitt found that these
organizations tend to more actively manage
their talent. They put lots of focus on
identifying high-potential people, better
differentiate compensation, serve up the
right kinds of development opportunities,
and closely watch turnover. But crucial to
all these efforts were CEO support and
involvement.
No question, one of the
best ways top executives can get their
leaders to improve is to work on improving
themselves. Leading by example can mean a
lot more than leading by public-relations
hype.
Michael Dell, whose
company made the Hewitt list, is a perfect
example. As one of the most successful
leaders in business history, he could easily
have an attitude that says, "I am Michael
Dell and you aren't! I don't really need to
work on developing myself." Michael,
however, has the opposite approach. He has
done an amazing job of sincerely discussing
his personal challenges with leaders across
the company. He is a living case study from
whom everyone at Dell is learning. His
leadership example makes it hard for any
leader to act arrogant or to communicate
that he or she has nothing to improve upon.
Johnson & Johnson, tied
for first on the top-20 list, has
successfully involved its executives in
leadership development. Its CEOs, formerly
Ralph Larsen and now Bill Weldon, and top
executive team regularly participate in a
variety of leadership-building activities.
Having a dialogue with the CEO about his
business challenges and developmental needs
makes it a lot easier for employees to
discuss their own business challenges and
developmental needs.
Executive candor can even
help turn around a troubled company.
Consider Northrop Grumman, the aerospace
defense contractor. CEO Kent Kresa inherited
a company that had a poor reputation for
integrity, a battered stock price, and an
unfortunate reputation as one of the
least-admired companies in its industry. His
leadership team reversed the company's poor
image and engineered an amazing turnaround –
ultimately becoming the Forbes’
most-admired company. From the beginning of
the process, Kent led by example. He
communicated clear expectations for ethics,
values, and behavior. He made sure that he
was evaluated by the same standards that he
set for everyone else. He consistently
reached out to coworkers. He didn't just
work to develop his leaders--he created an
environment in which the company's leaders
were working to develop him.
Unfortunately, in the
same way that CEO support and involvement
can help companies nurture leaders, CEO
arrogance can have the opposite effect. When
the boss acts like a little god and tells
everyone else they need to improve, that
behavior can be copied at every level of
management. Every level then points out how
the level below it needs to change. The end
result: No one gets much better.
The principle of
leadership development by personal example
doesn't apply just to CEOs. It applies to
all levels of management. All good leaders
want their people to grow and develop on the
job. Who knows? If we work hard to improve
ourselves, we might even encourage the
people around us to do the same thing.
Post your comments at
amin@aiminlines.co.th
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