Leadership: The Missing Link
By James Crown, Chief Executive Officer, Knowledge Group Consulting

Modern management and corporate governance require levels of leadership far beyond what is being practiced in most organisations - both in the public sector and in the private sector. Too often, we are led by super clerks who have grown by seniority alone into higher level managers. There is a vital, missing link, and that link is Leadership.

Let us define leadership as 'influencing people, by providing purpose, direction, and motivation - while operating to accomplish both the larger corporate mission and the lower level work area mission as well as continuously improving the organisation'. (providing people a reason to do things); direction (communicating the way you want things to be done); motivation (giving your people the will to do everything they can to accomplish the task); operating (the actions you take to accomplish the task); improving (striving to continuously improve).

Modern leadership needs to operate across at least three levels if the organisation is going to gain significant advantage. The first is direct leadership, face-to-face leaders; the second is organisational leadership; and the third is strategic leadership. Each has a specific role to play in terms of the skills individuals need to have, and the actions they need to take - all of which require both education and training.

Knowledge Group Consulting's leadership and management development program - 'Leadership: Building The Leader in You' recognises that most leadership models and much leadership training is done in a single dimension, as though there is only one leadership model. This is a superficial approach. There are many leadership models, they can all be used by the same individual at different times and with different groups of followers.

For example, directing leaders are necessary when those being led are not highly skilled, are not used to a certain procedure, or where the timeline is tight and there is little opportunity for lengthy explanations about what is to be done and how it is to be done. But that same 'directing' style (do this, do that) would be inappropriate if the leader was working with a group of highly skilled individuals.

Participating leaders ask their teams for ideas, information and recommendations or options for how to proceed. They then make the final decisions themselves. This requires time for consultation and is an excellent method when dealing with team members and staff who have experience and skills.

Delegating leaders give those below them the freedom and the authority to make decisions and solve problems on their own, without specific need to seek permission from the leader.

As well as these three styles of leadership, modern organisations must provide a structure that clearly indicates levels of leadership and then develops individuals to occupy and later succeed to each of these three levels - directing, organisational, strategic -- where appropriate leadership skills and action are necessary corporate ingredients for ongoing success.

At the junior and lower middle manager level, the front line, face-to-face leader must have excellent skills in communicating, reasoning, counseling, and supervising. This directing leader also needs skills in knowing and operating, and in process and procedure. This leader takes direct action and thus needs training in decision-making, motivating, and executing, as well continually assessing, improving, building and developing the team he or she manages.
At the higher level of middle and senior middle management, the organisational leader needs skills development in terms of understanding, communicating, and establishing intent, as well as how to filter information, and understand systems. This level also takes action and must know how to influence, communicate, make decisions, create and plan, assess and develop people.

At the highest levels of the organisation, strategic leaders face a different management environment than the two lower levels. Here the skills include the use of dialogue and negotiation, achieving consensus, envisioning, and having solid frames of reference about the wider internal and external environment.

Strategic leaders must deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, leveraging technology and managing higher-level expectations. Action training here must concentrate on strategic planning and strategic assessments. Strategic leaders are responsible for the organisation as a whole, often facing complex problems that affect and are affected by incidents and organisations in the wider world.

The basic tenets of Malaysian and worldwide corporate governance require strategic and business planning, risk management, internal and management controls, and so forth. The fundamental linkage between all these pillars of governance - the missing link in many organisations - remains Leadership that has the discipline, that will accept the accountability, that will provide the values' foundation, and that will lead the way into the unknown future. Finding and putting in place this link will improve the essential seamless journey from vision to mission to objective to strategy to performance to success.

Download Article - (19 KB)
Right click & choose Save As