Authentic leadership – the way forward?

I suspect I am not alone in suggesting that 2011 is proving to be one of the most managerially challenging and difficult years ever. The economic omens both nationally and internationally could be better to say the least and for many the strategic textbook term ‘retrenchment’ is having real and painful consequences, at both an organisational and personal level.

Over three years ago, I and a group of former mature students formed ‘the Forum’, as an independent think tank that would be both a challenging academic exercise and also might benefit ourselves and our organisations. We accurately anticipated the recession, euro zone crisis, potentially 500,000 public sector job losses, de-centralisation and localisation amongst many others.  Whilst treading a delicate path between pessimism and realism, we don’t see 2011 or 2012 being generally much fun either, particularly in the North, but then we aren’t always right. However, we do see some fantastic opportunities out there for those individuals and organisations with the right skills, attitudes and the willingness to use them.

My point therefore is important. We don’t have to be, or see ourselves and our organisations as victims. Adverse times offer a real test of character, ingenuity and innovation. Now is the time when we will see new leaders, products, services and organisations emerge and prosper. This doesn’t happen by accident though; we can and must take charge and collectively make positive things happen. In other words, we need personal leadership and organisational leaders like never before.

I know it’s a perennial discussion about what defines a leader, but I’d like to offer my own thoughts in relationship particularly to the current environment we find ourselves in. Previous blogs have discussed the damage done to our profession by the legacy of target setting mentalities and the rise of ‘heroic’ charismatic leaders. I have also offered the opinion that what we now need is ‘authentic leadership’ – so in more detail what might this embrace?

Lets keep it simple then and start to explore my seven A*’s of being an authentic leader;

Aspiration – anyone can lead, but have you the desire and attitude required? You might care about something but do you care enough to do something about it? Entrepreneurs spot an opportunity, usually through dissatisfaction, and then do something about it. We now need these people in our communities and organisations – true ‘intrapreneurs’. In other words those that can see a need to make a difference, know how to make a difference and most importantly, are prepared to make a difference. Also what motivates you – power, wealth, relationships, recognition, challenge or necessity? Maybe doing nothing and having an easy life is your preferred choice?

Affective – learning. You are not going to be right all the time, can you accept and learn from this and have the emotional resilience to keep going when times are hard? How well do you know yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, attitudes and potential? Have you really learnt how to experiment, learn and develop personally as opposed to just being taught academically?

Alignment – by this I mean grouping together the people we are taking personal responsibility for, providing a vision, establishing and agreeing the need to change and then achieving buy-in on where we are going and how we get there.

Authority – organisations and situations are now possibly too complex to manage in crisis or through change. Centralisation has its benefits but can stifle innovation, motivation, identification of problems and ownership of solutions. Delegation and micro leadership at all levels, correctly aligned, is going to be essential with these people given clear operating mandates. BAA take note maybe after the snow fiasco last winter!

Actions – people listen to words but respond to actions.  What we say is important, but we are judged on what we do. Ask a student and Liberal Democrat MP if in doubt…… What better way to demonstrate true authenticity than by being who you say you are and acting accordingly. Celebrity has had its day and in the future ability and measurable achievement will be vital for establishing and maintaining leadership reputation.

Accountability – along with power and rights comes responsibility. Everyone has to be responsible and liable for their actions, a new concept for many brought up in an age where it’s always been someone else’s fault! This will lead to conflict but being able to manage that is an essential skill. Being popular is easy, being right and professional is more difficult. Again an issue our coalition government is coming to terms with!

Acknowledgement – finally, we need to publicly recognise what individuals do and achieve, both rightly and wrongly.  What better way to motivate, develop culture and organisational learning. Maybe what we need more from our leaders is what Jim Collins refers to as ‘personal humility’.

So these are my first thoughts – please let me know what you think.

CMI Summer’10 Newsletter – Management in Focus

In the last article I began to set the scene explaining the ‘failed social experiment’ that we have lived through over the last 30 plus years. It was a theme we developed at our first Management Munch in March at which 17 regional members participated in a fascinating and thought provoking discussion encompassing positive and negative liberty, the rationale behind target setting and my personal views on its potentially disastrous impact on the managerial profession.

So what might be the managerial mindset that will successfully enable us to survive and prosper in what has been chillingly termed the ‘zombie economy’?  This was the theme for our second Management Munch held mid-May. Here we debated what good management would look like, what skills and attributes a successful manager might have, how these might be developed and than what government might do to facilitate this. Here’s my very brief interpretation of what we discussed…..

Managers will have to be effective at delivering positive sustainable change. In other words deliver faster, cheaper and better products, services and processes. They must understand the innovation process, can cure causes – not effects, have the ability to ask questions, know what to change, how to change it and want to change it, are focussed on ‘win/win’ not ‘not losing’ and can collaborate effectively.

They will lead through what I am calling ‘authenticity’. This means having self-knowledge, belief and ‘being comfortable’ with themselves. Have clear clarity of purpose and vision and know what has to be achieved in the long term, medium term and short term. They can receive and act upon open feedback and develop real trust, respect and reputation through example. They will be consistent and genuine, have appropriate, demonstrated values, principles, correct behaviours and attitudes. Style will be about ‘Inspiring and doing’ rather than ‘coping and reporting’. An ability to build and lead effective teams will be essential. They will need to create an appropriate structure and delegate to it with organisations broken down into units of 150 max and ‘led’ accordingly through culture, identity and commitment generated through vision and communication. They must identify ‘micro’ leaders then develop and lead through them allowing these ‘micro’ leaders to challenge and adapt rules with culture guiding decision making in preference to rulebooks where appropriate.

All managers must be ‘developed’ to the appropriate level of their responsibility and take on the personal responsibility to continuously develop themselves.

The development process will start with correct selection with a greater emphasis on promoting from within as ability has already been demonstrated. Reviewing performance through 360 deg feedback and checking and evaluating achievements will be more commonplace as will the use of experienced managerial mentors and the recognition of Chartered Managers.

Government support could begin with leading by example with all Ministers to have an accredited managerial qualification and be working towards CMgr. In the Public sector there should be no promotions without an appropriate accredited qualification whilst in the Private sector there should be ‘Kite mark’ recognition for those organisations only promoting with appropriate accredited qualifications. Funding for training should be simplified with enhanced tax breaks for organisations, costs claimed directly by organisations  for accredited qualifications and improved funding/ tax benefits for individuals paying themselves. With regard to employment laws these should be simplified and made more sensible to allow leaders to actually lead and managers to be responsible for their actions too. Finally we would like our MP’s to engage with us more, especially at a local level.

CMI Spring’10 Newsletter – Management in Focus

Ever wondered where we have been managerially for the last 30 years and why?  What are the likely themes and issues that will determine where we are going next?

Our Branch Education Officer David Broadhead has some controversial views about the subject, not surprisingly, and is not only working hard to discuss these at a national political level but also helping develop a new generation of middle and senior managers from all sectors equipped to survive and prosper through the forthcoming ‘zombie economy’.

As background information, over the last 10 years David has independently tutored more than 150 post-graduate managers to Masters level awards through his company Partners in Management, based in the Media Centre Huddersfield.  Prior to this he was a Senior Lecturer at Huddersfield University running conventional MBA/DMS programmes which followed a successful senior management career in international manufacturing industry.

So why his concern over the last 30 years…..

“In my opinion we are now seeing the death throes of a failed social experiment, originating in the Cold War, that has in many ways reduced our society to economic and moral bankruptcy and has had serious negative implications for the managerial profession” says David.

“The focus on micro-managerial control through political obsession with targets and the one-best practice/system approach has removed purpose, meaning and real innovation from organisations. Organisations have seen change as positional and radical without fully understanding the implications and consequences.  They are missing real opportunities for meaningful evolution and instead are focussing their resources on just managing systems and processes.  This emphasis on management through targets is what Mintzberg refers to as ‘deeming’ and in essence just pushes problems to the ‘point of delivery’ where individuals probably have the least opportunity or authority to resolve them.  A further disastrous consequence has been the destruction, particularly in the public sector, of the rich cultures many organisations used to have and which formed the focus of their existence, for example the diminution of head teacher’s authority in schools. This has been done in the mistaken belief that promoting individual liberty and destroying controlling elites was the way of the future. The furore over MP’s expenses and bankers bonuses where individual greed and lack of moral responsibility has overcome common sense, is just one further example of the end product of this failed philosophy.”

So what are we going to do about it?

“In our view we are in for an austere decade, devoid of external growth due to lack of available finance, manufacturing capacity and skills, particularly innovative ones.  There are tremendous opportunities out there particularly given the new emphasis on environmental issues but we need a new mindset in order to succeed and make the most of them.  The skills and managerial mindsets needed will be focussed around collaboration, trust, integrity, authenticity, open communication, individual responsibility, creativity and sustainable, organic innovation.  Organisations will become smaller, local, faster and through being effective will by default become inherently more efficient. The ‘efficiency saving’ monoliths much favoured by central governments and institutional shareholders will be seen as the dinosaurs of an industrial age and no longer viable in the information age of constellation organisations and cloud computing.  Individuals too, although physically still employed by organisations will however be engaged emotionally by brands and organisational identity, ethics and values.”

In support of these beliefs, David and his colleagues are pioneering a new range of readily accessible management development programmes all focussed around these key concepts of personal awareness and development, managing sustainable innovation and facilitating effective change.

Passionate about the subject and the role management has to play in rebuilding our society and economy, David has become an Ambassador for CMI locally, has contributed to developing and launching the CMI Manifesto for a ‘Better Managed Britain’ and also recently spent time in the Houses of Parliament explaining his views to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Management’s Chair, Barry Sheerman MP.  He is also keen to promote the role and significance of the CMgr award too and sees this as a significant aspirational status all managers should aim for in order to demonstrate their competence and commitment to the profession.

Post Election Discussion – How good management will return us to prosperity and what government can do to promote this.

This discussion has now been set up on the CMI regional discussion website

http://www.managers.org.uk/forum/central-west-yorkshire-branch/post-election-discussion-%E2%80%93-how-good-management-will-return-us-pr

Central and West Yorkshire Branch members met up on 17^th May at the Media Centre in Huddersfield for our second Management Munch where we held a Post Election Discussion – How good management will return us to prosperity and what government can do to promote this, the theme being the future of management and leadership in this new so called ‘decade of austerity’ we are allegedly entering. Our findings are discussed in more detail in June’s regional newsletter but one thing we believe in is that good and effective management and leadership skills are going to be essential in leading us successfully out of recession and in reducing the burden of national debt we now carry.

Given the new coalition government and its opportunity to break the traditional mould of adversarial leadership, we thought it appropriate to make suggestions as to how government can actively intervene and help promote the development and recognition of effective management and leadership skills. In the next weeks we intend to ask for comments from all our local Members of Parliament regarding our suggestions – we will keep you posted with their comments!

Here is the link to the mindmap of our findings.

CMI Mgt Munch – Monday 17th May

Our next Management Munch is on the 17^th May at Café Ollo in the  Media Centre , Northumberland Street, Huddersfield HD1 1RL and will be a:

Post Election Discussion – How good management will return us to prosperity and what government can do to promote this.

Given the current economic and political situations, we desperately need good management now, probably more so than in any other post-war situation.

As such we have decided to focus on this issue at our next Management Munch at which we intend to:

• Determine what is good management in today’s changed environment
• Identify what this new managerial skill set comprises
• Suggest ways in which individuals and organisations can develop these skills successfully
• Produce recommendations for all our local Central and West Yorkshire Branch MP’s to comment and act upon

Given the obvious natural London-centric nature of policy both within the CMI.  the media and major political parties, we feel it important that we in Yorkshire make our views and opinions known.  As the expression goes ‘don’t vote then don’t complain’ – now’s your chance to contribute with your views about the future needs and direction of your profession!

Start time is 6.30 for 7.00 with a buffet for which we charge £5 on the door.  Please let me know if you wish to attend as places are limited!  Our first Management Munch was a success – let’s make the second one a success too!

Contact: david@partnersinmanagement.co.uk

CMI Management Munch – March 22nd 2010

Monday evg saw 15 existing and prospective CMI members get together at the Media Centre, Huddersfield to listen to my personal views on ‘The Future for Management & Leadership’.

The First Management Munch

I tried to explain (to the best of my abilities) the concepts of negative and positive liberty, the rationale behind political and managerial target setting and the subsequent disastrous impact on our society and managerial/leadership capability.
It’s not all bad news though as I outlined the tremendous opportunities for the future linked to the need for sustainable innovation and the impact on the managerial profession through the necessity for real ‘authentic’ leadership. I suggested as well the likelihood of a return to smaller, local, more tribal organisations led more through cultural values as opposed to imposed targets.
In other words we will want ‘meaning and purpose’ injected back into our lives, our organisations and our society!
The presentation slides are available from our website.

Here’s a better explanation of positive and negative liberty taken from the BBC TV series ‘The Trap‘.