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Intelligent Leadership – Chapter 1
 Authors: Alan Hooper and John Potter Publishers: Random House Date: 2000 ISBN 0-7126-8415-8 Hardback Buy from Amazon CHAPTER ONE -Why This Book?Change. The very word inspires such a wide variety of responses that it is difficult to know where to begin. To the Chief Executive, it means displaying leadership by developing a vision of the future, crafting strategies to bring those visions into reality and dealing with the crises along the way. It is also about winning political battles to ensure that everybody in the organization is mobilising their energies to work towards the same goals and objectives. To the production line worker, the salesperson, the truck driver it frequently poses a threat to the status quo. Just when things seem to have settled into a predictable routine, someone has the idea to bring in some change, often for obscure reasons but usually geared towards gaining more work from people for less money. It is easy to be cynical about change. Throughout the organization, change means that inevitably there will be winners and losers. And frequently it is not the people who are "let go" in a downsizing type of operation who are always the losers. In many cases they move on to better jobs and careers through force of circumstance. What is now emerging is the so-called "survivor syndrome" experienced by those who survive the current round of job losses. And it is these individuals who frequently pose the greatest challenge in human terms to the leadership of our organizations. There is no doubt that the challenge of change is increasing. In the latter part of the 20th Century, we have seen more change in the way we live, work and carry out our business than for hundreds of years previously. In this book, we have set out to examine how leaders in a wide variety of organizational settings have faced up to and dealt with the challenge of change. We have interviewed a wide variety of individuals in settings ranging from large transnational corporations to small local businesses, from large public sector services undergoing privatisation to individuals in the education world faced with a global marketplace in terms of their customers. It has been a fascinating journey. At times we have thought we had the one answer to all change problems. We ultimately found that not to be true. What we did find, however, were recurrent themes which time and time underpinned the effective change leadership projects we explored. As authors, we both have a vested interest in change. Both of us have successfully changed careers during our lives in an attempt to meet the challenges of the changing world around us. Although these changes were not always comfortable experiences they have taught us that the only way to deal with change is to embrace it and not resist it. And this is the challenge faced by all organizations, certainly the ones we discussed in our interviews. We chose individuals who had both had a significant impact on the organizations they are involved in and who clearly were ‘learning leaders'. So leadership has to be our start point in understanding how to handle the change issue. As we discus in Chapter Three, thought on leadership has progressed considerably during the past century. What is now abundantly clear is that effective leadership is a process created by an individual rather and a focus on that individual's personal qualities. This means that no longer can leaders be complacent in terms of their personal abilities to create effective processes in their organizations. The world around us is changing at such a pace that the learning leader concept has to be the way for the future. We have chose the title "Intelligent Leadership" for exactly that reason. The ideas of ‘brainy leadership' and ‘the thinking leader' have been around for some time. What we have done is to explore leadership in terms of the processes created and the appropriateness of those processes to given situations. In many respects we are of the view that leadership is an emotionally based process and so we have leant significantly on the ideas of Daniel Goleman with his concept of Emotional Intelligence. More and more, it seems, emotion is being recognised as having a major impact in terms of how successful we are in coming to terms with the demands made on us by our progress through life. For many years, particularly in the business world, we have fought shy of the world ‘emotion' believing it to be counterproductive to the ideas of maintaining control and discipline within our organizations. Yet the fact is that emotion is the very issue that enables us to maintain control on a personal level and create that sense of discipline which is often lacking in so many organizations. We are thus approaching this whole subject of effective change leadership from the viewpoint of understanding how successful change leaders master the emotion dimension of change through the behaviours they display. Goleman has identified five areas which underpin the concept of emotional intelligence and in many respects these provide a sound footing for understanding effective change leadership. In fact we can suggest that these same five areas underpin our concept of ‘Intelligence Leadership' because in the final analysis leadership is about the emotional impact produced upon the led which transforms their behaviour so that they can reach a higher level of performance. Thus the first area of Intelligent Leadership relates to the leader acquiring self knowledge. ‘Know thyself' has been a well used phrase during history and never has it been more relevant than in today's turbulent times. Effective change leaders are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and capitalise on both their abilities and those of their colleagues. A key part of self knowledge is the skill of listening which so many leaders seem to lose towards what inevitably becomes the end of their reign. Many commentators say that this was the downfall of Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s because following her successes in the Falklands War and in the creation of an international reputation of the ‘Iron Lady', she seemed to develop the idea that she was unassailable and that she could ignore the advice of her cabinet. This ultimately led to her downfall and provides a useful lesson for all leaders, what ever their sphere of activity. Managing emotions is the second of Goleman's emotional intelligence issues and this translate in leadership terms into managing morale both on the part of the leader and the led. In our earlier book "The Business of Leadership" we suggested seven basic leadership competencies, the seventh of which was decision making in crisis. It seems a vital part of effective leadership, particularly in times of change that the leader can handle his or her emotions and those of the followers. Morale issues have always figured high on the leadership agenda and this is an even more important aspect of leadership in handling change. We have addressed the third point of Emotional Intelligence, the harnessing of emotions, in our idea of creating emotional alignment. In all change situations, one of the most important aspects is managing human energy and ensuring that everyone is working towards a common aim. By emotional alignment, we mean that as much human energy as possible is channelled towards bringing the vision into reality and as little energy as possible is dissipated in terms of internal conflict. One aspect of change which frequently needs consideration is the idea of the critical mass, that is, that body of individuals who have been won over, emotionally at least, to the new ideas and ways of working. Emotional alignment is a key issue in terms of harnessing emotions. Understanding others and their viewpoint is a key element of both emotional intelligence and intelligent leadership. Jay Conger has already pointed towards the idea of ‘Persuasive Leadership' in his article ‘The Necessary Art of Persuasion; published in the Harvard Business Review. Empathy and the understanding of the viewpoint of the followers is a key factor in intelligent leadership which is persuasive. We will review Conger's approach to persuasive leadership later in this chapter. The final element of emotional intelligence which translates directly to intelligent leadership is that of relationship management. The successful management of relationships is vital for both organizations and individuals. In terms of the corporate world, we now realise that effective relationship management does not just apply to customers but to other stakeholders as well including employees, shareholders, suppliers and the community at large. Successful, intelligent leaders in the future must remember that they, too, have a range of ‘stakeholders' as far their operation is concerned, not just followers. So as we move forward to starting our journey into effective change leadership using our perspectives of both emotional intelligence and intelligent leadership, it is important to realise that this book is meant to be a practical tool for helping leaders at all levels to be more effective in terms of how they handle the issues of change.Whilst we are presenting some theoretical and conceptual tools which really do help manage and implement change more effectively, we believe that the main value in this book lies in the interviews we have undertaken. We chose our respondents carefully and they represent a wide range of organizational settings, both private and public sector. They also represent a range of geographical settings. As well as the United Kingdom, we have talked with leaders in Europe, South Africa and the United States of America. Our respondents all displayed considerable leadership both in terms of the tasks they were undertaking and how they dealt with the people involved. It became clear that they had developed a natural feel for effective leadership even if they had not all the books on the subject. Good ideas and practices tend to emerge from experience which is usually the result of the application of poor ideas! In this book we have set out to help the reader short circuit those bad experiences by learning from others. As such it should help leaders and managers at all levels operate more effectively. One issue that has arisen during the writing of this book is that both change and leadership take place at different levels within the organization. Although no simplistic two dimensional model can ever explain and predict fully the nature of such a complex system as a human organization, such devices can aid our understanding if used with care. We found that looking at the operation of an organization in terms of three levels - strategic, operational and front-line - a most useful way of addressing the issue of change and leadership. Very often, organizations set about creating their own visions and strategies for change through strategic discussions with relatively little thought as to how those strategies might be put into practice on a day to day basis. Furthermore, even if the operational middle management levels have had the privilege of being introduced to and even involved in creating the strategies, the impact on the front line is frequently overlooked if not ignored completely. We have found that leaders who are effective at working with change seem to be able to think at these three levels simultaneously and we believe that is a skill which all leaders should develop. Our aim with this book is to present some thoughts on both leadership and change illustrated with examples of individuals who have used those principles successfully. We do not claim to have solved all the problems relating to successful change leadership and the reason for this is obvious. Because the world is changing so fast, what works today may or may not work tomorrow. We are constantly having to re-invent both our organizations and our ideas on how they should operate. Having said that, we believe we have identified some guiding principles which will stand the test of time. Our expectations of what the workplace means to us is changing. Remote management and virtual teams where individuals operate in geographical isolation are becoming more and more common. The growth of electronic communication brings with it a host of benefits and challenges. The art and science of the effective change leader is to harness these benefits and to overcome the challenges. We believe that the key to doing this is to create a strong sense of belonging and emotional alignment to the organization. There is no doubt as we move onwards into the 21st Century that the emotional aspect of business will become more and more important. Already we are now seeing the business bookshelves featuring such titles as Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence" which we have already mentioned. This is just book which is acknowledging the importance of the emotional dimension of organizational life. In fact this shift towards the emotional issue is not new. In the early 1980's, Tom Peters with his highly successful book "In Search of Excellence" pointed towards the importance of addressing the ‘people issues' as well as business strategy, structure and the other ‘hard issues' so common in business literature. Peter Senge in "The Fifth Discipline" advanced our ideas on the learning organization by promoting both systems thinking in a business sense and the more human aspects of mental models, developing personal mastery, team learning and building shared vision. Even the writers on leadership started several years ago to move away from purely behavioural or traits based models towards thinking about leadership more as an emotionally based process, creating effects in the followers. Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, for example, pointed towards a ‘New Theory of Leadership' in their book ‘Leaders' which pointed to the differences between management and leadership. Both authors put forward the idea of leaders utilising strategies which have a high emotional impact on the followers. The Attention through Vision is clearly aimed at the inspirational level with Communication, the creation of Trust and the Development of Positive Self Regard all supporting the emotional dimension. In more recent times, Bennis has moved from the ‘whats' of leadership towards the ‘hows' - the mechanisms that leaders at all levels can use effectively to influence their people. This approach has been developed by Jay Conger, a colleague of Bennis, whose article "The Necessary Art of Persuasion" published in the Harvard Business Review. His approach is based on the observation of some 23 leaders operating in a variety of context over a 12 year period. He has noted that effective leaders seem to use four vitally important mechanisms in order to influence their people. Firstly, they establish credibility. In the context of change this is vital. It is about the leader being well informed, handling information appropriately, behaving in a way that inspires confidence and generally winning the confidence of the people. The second point of Conger's approach is that of establishing common ground. People feel threatened in a change situation when they see themselves as potential losers. It is the leader who can see a situation from the other person's viewpoint and then empathise with that individual to establish common aims objectives who will win the day. The third idea is that of the use of language. Leaders throughout the ages have known the power of effective oratory and rhetoric. However, in the current business world, much of the emotion seems to have been removed from our language. The effective leader seems to be the individual who can use language effective rather than simply deliver spreadsheets and numbers. Finally, Conger points to the emotional aspect of leadership, connecting emotionally with the followers. Once again, we see the implications in terms of our attention moving more towards the importance of emotional intelligence than simply intellectual intelligence. So leadership is increasingly being recognised as more than simply the qualities of an individual. It is much more about the processes created by the leader and the impact, largely emotional, on the followers. Coupled with the potential threat and fear aspects of change, we can see just how important it is that effective leaders do master the key principles involved in dealing with people in times of change. The rate of change is accelerating. It is unlikely that we will see a slowing down of this rate of change in the forseeable future. What we will see, however, the drivers of change making more and more impact on our lives, both at work and in our leisure time. We have devoted Chapter Two to this topic because we feel it is vital for any effective change leader to have both an overall awareness of the factors which are driving change both in general terms and in specific terms related to their own operation. Chapter Three moves on to consider the nature of Leadership in terms of how our thought on the subject has developed. Although our ideas on this aspect of leadership have been presented in a more comprehensive form in our early book "The Business of Leadership", we feel it is useful to plot the development of thought on leadership because it does display some distinct trends. Firstly, there is a clear shift from the focus on the individual's qualities, through behaviours towards the idea of effective leaders creating a process whereby they transform the ability of the follower to produce high levels of motivation and performance. Secondly, the notions of power and authority are clearly seen to be shifting from the individual leader towards the generation of energy on the part of the followers. And this leads us to our third clearly identifiable theme, that of the shift from command and control type leadership towards a more empowering style which seeks to unlock the potential in the followers rather than control behaviour. The development of our thought on the highly complex topic of leadership also reflects the shift away from the commonly held notion that leadership is "male, military and Western". What is now becoming clear is that leadership is a human process which can be and is displayed by both sexes, that all organizations are in need of effective leadership and that no one part of the world can lay claim to possessing more leadership than any other part. In Chapter Four, we move on to consider how organizations are responding to the challenge of change. We daily see examples of downsizing, rightsizing and de-layering together with the subsequent effects on the individuals involved. No longer does anyone realistically believe they will follow on career path during their working life. Promotion is no longer the main driving force in our flatter, de-layered businesses. The idea of job enrichment, sideways movements, moving outside the organization and portfolio lifestyles have become the language of the day. The virtual organization is becoming a reality for many operations both in the public and the private sector. We are now realising that it is the development of intellectual capital within the organization which is vitally important for the organization to survive and develop in the future. Luddite reactions to the introduction of technology are no longer tolerated. Every organization is now having to embrace technology in an unprecedented way. First line managers have greatly expanded spans of control, middle managers are disappearing and senior management is increasingly realising that it needs to develop its ability at director and vice-president level if it is going to retain its leadership credibility. One unfortunate by product of the ways organizations are responding is the paradox created by fewer people doing more work and the need for innovation at all levels. Stress in the workplace is increasing dramatically. For example in the UK, it has been estimated that over 100 million working days are lost each year from a workforce of around 38 million. That translates to between 2 and 3 days each year for every person in the workforce. A staggering waste of resouce. At the same time, it must be realised that stressed people do not produce their best work, particularly in terms of creativity and innovation. For organizations to adapt and embrace change effectively they have to take into account the impact on the people involved. Chapter Five looks in some detail at how human beings respond to change. We explore the notion that peoples' desire for change and their ability to cope tends on average to reduce as they move through life. In contrast to this, the changes to which they have to adapt seem to be escalating on an exponential curve. The impact of this on the individual is considered together a range of strategic and operational approaches to helping individuals master change for themselves. Chapter Six is about winning hearts and minds. It is about what in military terms would be called the ‘psychological aspects of operations'. Again we point to the all-important emotional aspects of the human being and how these need to be taken into account by leaders at all levels in the organization. Change always creates both winners and losers. The winners tend to look after themselves. It is the losers who provide the leader with the greatest challenge. The undermining effects of fear, resistance and negative beliefs provide a major challenge for the effective change leader. We explore how this limiting issues have been addressed in a number of organizational contexts so that change can be embraced and developed rather than feared and opposed. We believe that people who are feel involved in the change process tend to react more positively than those who feel change is being forced upon them. We thus look at the issues of delegation, coaching and empowerment in the context of change to see just how possible it is to ensure that people really do ‘buy into the change' and become committed. We look at implementing and encouraging change in the middle layers of our de-layered organization using the very important observations of Jon Katzenbach in his book "Real Change Leaders". Chapter Seven is about strategy. More accurately it is about creating the conditions for a range of strategies to be effective in creating change whether the source of the change is from outside the organization or from within. Fashions change as far as strategy is concerned. We believe however, that unless you have some well laid out way of approaching the change situation, your efforts will be doomed. Strategy is important and we believe that every change leader needs to be effective in crafting effective strategies. Chapter Eight is about evaluating success. Just how does a change leader know if he or she has been effective? We look at various ways of assessing the impact of a change programme from simple attitude surveys to more complex approaches such as scorecards and other measures both hard and soft. This book has been a fascinating journey and one which we feel we have been privileged to pursue. This book addresses the key issues of effective change leadership in that it looks at the drivers of change, strategies for change, the impact on individuals and how our efforts may be evaluated. The starting point for that journey is to gain an understanding of the drivers of change. References
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