SOUTH AFRICA John Sutherland www.leadership-initiative.co.uk john.sutherland@leadership-initiative.co.uk +44 15394 66000
‘The Age of the Guru is Over’ By John Sutherland Leadership development has failed to keep pace with the developing needs of business leaders and a radical overhaul is overdue. John Sutherland, managing director of The Leadership Initiative, believes that traditional models of high-end leadership programmes no longer deliver the results required to tackle the challenges of the global business community. In this article, he outlines his blueprint for a new approach to leadership development. The style of leadership development that has dominated corporate training for the past two decades, often called ‘experiential learning’ is no longer credible for the current economic climate. This old mind-set was based on the premise that you can teach people how to lead. We argue that this risks creating followers, not leaders. True leaders decide what to think and do, and how to develop and deliver their business plan. This means that the age of the leadership guru is over and in its place is a new age of selfdirected learning. A new disruptive technology for effective leadership development We believe the key to success lies in encouraging potential leaders to develop their autonomy and learn to trust their own thinking, instincts and decisions through a structured trial and error process. It is called ‘Action Inquiry’, which is a disruptive technology in leadership development because it encourages programme members to teach themselves and develop a lifetime habit of learning from experience and selfobservation while involved in leadership tasks. The business will benefit from leaders who know how to develop themselves without any further training budget spend because they have become the architect of their own ongoing development. Lack of focus on the real needs of the business If you ask business leaders or HR Directors to outline the specific leadership needs for
their business they can usually tell you or can easily find out – and this is where we place the focus of our work. Each of our clients co-design a specific leadership programme at the outset and we all avoid wasting time developing skills that are not relevant or are a low priority. Most open programmes can't tailor the offering in this way, which is one of the main reasons they tend to have a poor track record in transferring the learning back to the world of work. In addition most off-the-shelf leadership programmes require anything from a week to several months out of the office , and no time set aside to put new ideas into practice. In our experience it takes around 6-9 months to see lasting visible change and embed new habits in emerging leaders. Leadership presence or gravitas can be taught with a few simple techniques The popular view that people either have leadership presence, or they don’t is false. We have proved time after time that gravitas or leadership presence can be learned and developed. Just a few simple techniques can turn managers into the leaders an organisation needs to make a real impact on its future. I recently sat with an IT manager on a long flight who told me of an important presentation he had to deliver. I offered information on how he might grow the authority and presence he needed during his presentation delivery. We find that for many leaders it has a lot to do with actually being present, rather than having your mind wonder elsewhere. Of course different things works for different people and the trick is to try something new and see what works. The IT manager emailed me with progress updates and in a couple of months he refined his skill to a high level. Dealing with emotion in business The lack of emotional competence among leaders can have a catastrophic effect on an
organisation. yet most traditional leadership programmes avoid this important issue altogether. The corporate world is full of would-be leaders who lose respect and effectiveness through their inability to confront or deal with conflictive emotion. Media intrusion and a demand for greater transparency from customers mean that emotional issues will be reported more often, so modern leaders must learn to acknowledge, confront and manage emotion in the workplace. We find that working directly with each leader’s emotional 'hooks and scar tissue' almost always result in the release of a new leadership skill that had previously been out of reach. A checklist for success Whatever your thoughts on leadership development our experience recommends that you consider the following checklist; What leadership skills does your organisation need to achieve its business plan? What leadership skills are most obviously absent from the business? Where are you on succession planning? What would happen in your organisation if you developed leaders who stood in their own authority and collaborated from a position of clarity? How well do your leaders deal with conflictive emotion? Or do they simply duck emotional competence as a development issue? Before embarking on any investment in leadership development, make sure the programme has the flexibility to encompass all of the above. Remember, it’s not about emulating gurus; it’s about creating selfmotivated authentic leaders who can drive your business onto the next level.
July 2011 • GBM • 13