Leadership development in an individual can follow a progression from a capable individual contributor to an effective team member to a competent manager of people and resources to a leader who inspires commitment among followers. There is another level, called Level-5 Leadership by Jim Collins in Good to Great, that is marked by personal humility and a passion for building a great organization. This factor was foremost in distinguishing the great from the good, according to Collins. Leader as an organizational architect/builder is a powerful concept that recognizes the best lever available: building an organization that generates a high-performance culture.
Our friend and colleague, Jim Haudan, who recently authored a terrific how-to book, The Art of Engagement, has said for years that "people will tolerate your conclusions, but they will act on their own". If you will accept that premise, and it's hard to argue, it becomes clear that effective leadership will not be accomplished through one-way memos from the executive suite. A leader cannot create a compelling organization through pronouncement. What is required for people to come to their own conclusions? No special effort at all. What is required for people to arrive at conclusions in alignment with the company's strategic direction and its mission, vision, and values? Dialogue. What do we never have time for? Dialogue. Maybe it's time to rethink how we do meetings. We also highly recommend Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together by William Isaacs.
We have witnessed attempts by business leaders to become organizational architects by rearranging org charts; we have not seen these efforts accomplish what the business leaders were after. Systems theory holds that changes in one system will affect all other interdependent systems, and therefore, we have the law of unintended consequences. Our strong preference is to understand the desired change, engage the people most familiar with the areas involved in the change, and use a structured methodology to allow those people to redesign the organization in accordance with the desired change. Here is where a Level-5 leader's trait of personal humility comes in handy.
Personal humility is also required from the leader of a cognizant organization. Candid assessments of the complex business environment and of actual business performance allow the organization to deal with reality. When a leader's ego conflicts with or rejects reality, irrational actions will surely follow. A leader's healthy curiosity about performance, interest in learning from experience, and openness to input from across the organization will portend well for organizational performance.
Leadership is certainly a factor in organizational performance. Leadership is also an organizational capability; organizational performance depends on leadership throughout the organization. Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood wrote about leadership as an organizational capability in their latest book, Leadership Brand. If a company is great because of its leader, what becomes of it when that leader offboards? Our leader as organizational architect will hopefully care enough for the continuing organization to provide for its leadership development.
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