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"Values
are the core ingredient (of leadership potential) here (at GE). The people
we are putting into leadership slots are those we deem to be terrific role
models. That means embracing the values, being able to motivate and
energize others, and having that infectious enthusiasm to tap peopleıs
potential and generate the capacity of the organization to accomplish
beyond what it otherwise would."
- Jack Welch CEO, GE
"The soft stuff is
always harder than the hard stuff. Human interactions are a lot tougher to
manage than numbers and Profits and Losses."
- Roger Enrico V. Chairman,
PepsiCo.
"At first, itıs
hard to persuade leaders to let go of control. But once they become
actively self-reflective, they realize they donıt know all the answers.
That sort of humility is very charismatic, because it makes others feel
useful and powerful (and trusted)."
- Erika Anderson President,
Proteus Intıl
"The most important
trait of a good leader is knowing who you are."
- Edwin McCracken CEO,
Silicon Graphics
"A key goal of successful
introspection is authentic self-confidence. That is, not the overbearing
bravado of a command-and-control manager, but an openness to facing
uncertainty, ambiguity, and paradox. The most effective leaders are able to
be both vulnerable and quietly self-confident at the same time, more open
about their weaknesses than their strengths (which speak for
themselves)."
- Mark Brenner, Ph.D.
Brenner Consulting Group
"This company is
not going to be successful unless we have people who can learn from
experience. We need our people to act independently, be accountable, and be
responsible for managing their own piece of the business. It takes a
certain amount of reflection to do that successfully."
- Joseph Galerneau V.P. of
Executive Training AT&T
"Difficulties and
obstructions throw a (person) back on himself. While the inferior (person)
seeks to put the blame on other persons, bewailing his fate, the superior
(person) seeks the error within himself, and through this introspection the
external obstacle becomes for him an occasion for inner enrichment and
education."
- The I Ching
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Creating Masterful Leadership
As a result
of the chaotic and transformational business environment of the '70's and
'80's, the art and science of management has also been radically transformed.
Consequently, executive coaching has become a highly valued resource within
corporate life. Our firm has been coaching top leadership since 1981.
Regardless
of how you look at it, you are your primary instrument of interpersonal
influence, organizational impact, and personal accomplishment and
fulfillment. So, elevate your game. Get a coach.
The Management Landscape
Has Undergone a Sea of Change
The Industrial Age
• Please superiors
• Command-and-control
• Stable
• Meddle
• Conforming
• Need-to-know
• Fiefdoms
The Information Age
• Delight customers
• Empowering and participatory
• Agile
• Enable
• Outside-the-box action
• Open and transparent
• Interdependent networks
In the
prior Age, management skills stemmed from a heroic military model - plan,
control, delegate, coordinate, and motivate. As the Information Age hurtles forward
toward the next millennium, within a business environment characterized by
permanent whitewater, the high impact leadership competencies are now
dramatically different:
•The Explorer: Forges a vision and
is an agent of change
•The Beacon: Instills trust and
inspires passionate commitment to the
vision
•The Advocate: Clearest voice in
support of visionary, strategic, and
values-driven behavior
•The Facilitator: Creates a
consultative and teaming workstyle within
the culture
•The Partner: Encourages a
collegial, supportive, and collaborative
workstyle
•The Coach: Brings out the best
in the organization's people, in terms
of their aspirations, potential, performance, and contribution
This set of
six leadership roles, when used, creates extraordinarily powerful leverage
for the executive. Do you know how far from criterion you are on each of the
six? Do you know the best ways to close the gap? Well, just as in
sports and in the performing arts, it's now increasingly becoming the case in
business that the more successful you are, the more likely it is that you
will use a coach to deepen and extend your success. Tune up your game.
High Performing
Executives vs. Under Performing Ones
We now
actually understand a great deal about what differentiates the successful
leader from the under-performing one. Successful people are aggressive
learners.
They are
individuals who:
•Constantly
seek feedback and are extremely analytical about their
successes and failures
•Possess a
finely tuned capacity for self-reflection and self-awareness
•Seek a wide
variety of experiences, out of both a sense of curiosity and
the sense that experience is the best medium for self-discovery
•Constantly
strive to learn something new and different by searching for
comparisons, contrasts, and generalizable insights
•Find ways to
apply new learnings to new situations
•Use strengths
to modify weaknesses
The bad
news is that only about 10% of us are by nature active learners. The good
news, though, is that much of what it takes to be an aggressive learner is
coachable.
So, What Does It
Take?
Much of what
our coaching model focuses on is building a set of skills that helps the candidate
become a more agile learner. Increasingly greater agility is pursued in four
different spheres, each of which has a marked influence on a person's
learning curve and on their performance as a leader.
I. Mental Agility.
The
candidate discovers ways to more consistently:
• embrace complexity
• confront ambiguity
• expand their interests and perspectives
• pursue complexity out of heightened curiosity
• view penetrating questions as more important than answers
II. Interpersonal Finesse.
The
candidate develops more techniques with which to:
• self-reflect and augment self-awareness
• catch their own counter-productive behavior and modify it
• vary their role and style to the situation
• embrace conflict and harness it for creative ends
III. Change Mastery.
The
candidate's executive repertoire is broadened when they:
• learn how to behave as strategically as possible
• employ hypothetical modeling in their thinking and problem-solving
• embrace the underlying spirit of continuous improvement
• come to understand how critical tenacity is in any change initiative
IV. Goal Orientation.
The
candidate hones a high-impact results orientation by adding or refining the
following capabilities:
• create a presence and inspire others by consistently acting "on
purpose" (i.e., acting strategically)
• address their own performance and others' in a systematic,
developmental, and strategic way
• differentiate among the various levels of priorities and act
accordingly
(i.e., the two-by-two matrix of Urgent x Important)
• deliver on promises and expectations
İ
Copyright 1999 The Global Consulting Partnership
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