SEEKING AND SEEDING LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS IN THE ORGANISATION
Excerpts from “WINNERS ARE NOT LONELY AT THE TOP”
THE TRUE JOB DESCRIPTION OF THE CEO: SEEKING AND SEEDING LEADERS ESSAY 5
THE TRUE JOB DESCRIPTION OF THE CEO is a series of five white papers highlighting the “Five Star Process” that a CEO needs to focus on to drive a team to peak performance. These white papers correspond and mirror the main chapters of the book “Winners Are Not Lonely At The Top” by Carl Phillips.
The book describes and highlights the use of the “Five Star Process” by Garland Group who as a result of the process, delivered an EBITA improvement of 175%, a cash flow improvement of 254%, an employee satisfaction of 85%, a reduction in absenteeism of 16%, an improvement in safety of 54%, and an organic sales growth of 52%.
This is essay five of five essays entitled “Seek and Seed Leaders”. The Five Essays are listed below and each one represents one of the five stars in the “Five Star” process to which peak performing CEOs must adhere, and to which provide the framework for The Real Job Description of the CEO.
Star 1 – Start Operating In The Real World
Star 2 – Articulating The Common Vision
Star 3 – Assembling Mutually Supportive Teams
Star 4 – Creating A Disciplined Culture
Star 5 – Seek and Seed Leaders
We hope you enjoy the essay and be sure to read all five essays, and if you are a Board Member or CEO looking to drive your team to peak performance please reach out to us on CEO@tpgleadership.com
SEEKING AND SEEDING LEADERS
Star 5
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers”
– Ralph Nader.
It is not unusual for people to relate the word leader with a charismatic, high-profile individual. These are not the only elements which represent a great leader. It is great if you are a charismatic leader but as Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” says; “If you are a high-profile, charismatic leader, fine. But if you are not, then that’s fine, too, for you’re in good company right along with those that built companies like 3M, P&G, Sony, Boeing, HP, and Merck. Not a bad crowd.”
The word leader is somewhat misleading. The word leader tends to give the impression that the person has to be the individual out front leading the charge, and a number of CEOs do take this literal view to their dismay. These CEOs end up becoming the one person in the organization who has his or her finger in every pie and accordingly, being worked off his or her feet, gains only mediocre results.
This tends to suppress the initiative of other possible leaders, who become followers by default. The leader, who inspires other leaders to function as a team and move forward as one by inspiring the less confident ones, is the person who is the true leader.
Bill Conaty and Ram Charan in their book “The Talent Masters” describe Jack Welch’s philosophy on the creation of leaders in GE: “He wanted leaders, and not managers. How would the person deal with people and develop them? Did he have the self-confidence to find and develop people better than himself? Could he see what was coming from the outside and deal with it? Finally, he wanted leaders who could put their own near-term interests on hold for the good of the company. To bring these kinds of leaders to the fore, he would have to create a new culture at GE.”
Great leaders truly understand that their main function is to create a culture where the philosophy of leadership is to create more leaders. Most good CEOs consider themselves the chief recruiter for their company. They are constantly on the look-out for great talent. They are experts at selling these great talented people on the vision of the company. They know the secret to creating a great company lies in the talent and quality of people in the company. A company cannot outgrow the capabilities of its people. Furthermore, the people cannot outgrow the capabilities of their leaders. For a company to grow to be great, it must have leaders at all levels of the organization.
How does the CEO do this? Again the mantle falls on the CEO to set the example. The quality of leadership at the top normally sets the standard for the rest of the organization. The CEO needs to understand that the stronger the leaders are at the top, the stronger the leadership at the next levels will be.
The CEO’s role here is to concentrate on his/her personal development by seeking leaders that are capable of challenging him/her. This is what winners do when selecting their leaders. Of course, if the leaders are well selected, they will be balanced and mature individuals who are team players. Good leaders are also good followers. Therefore, any leaders who challenge the CEO will only help the CEO become a better leader.
Often, leaders at this level who become disruptive are prima donnas who create a divisive spirit at the top and hinder the CEO’s and the company’s growth. This is clearly not the definition of a good leader. What this scenario emphasizes is that the recruitment and selection of leaders at the top, along with the development of potential leaders in the organization, should be personally supervised by the CEO.
Often the selection criteria for leaders at the top are skewed towards technical qualifications, or towards knowledge of a particular industry sector at the cost of strong leadership skills. This often backfires when it comes to helping the organization grow. If a good balance is maintained in the selection criteria, the leaders that are finally selected will provide the momentum needed for the company to be a success. A good leader is a winner and knows how to make others winners. If the selection criteria are skewed away from good leadership towards other factors, then the organization will not experience balanced growth.
One of the problems with selection criteria is that balanced leadership is not seen as a serious requirement in many cases. One of the reasons is that often managers who define the criteria are themselves not clear about good leadership qualities. They are not trained to understand good leadership qualities. Where the managers are well educated on leadership, the selection systems are much more focused and balanced. Some of the most disruptive forces in companies that I have consulted with are generated by a brilliant engineer or highly qualified financial chief who is not a good leader or team player.
Companies become better as the quality of leadership in the organization rises. Leaders at all levels should understand that a good leader can only become better by working with leaders of a higher caliber. Imagine a world class tennis player like Serena Williams trying to improve her game by practicing with a mediocre tennis player. It puts this issue clearly in perspective. Yet many CEOs hire mediocre leaders to work for them so that they will not feel threatened.
This practice becomes the norm at all levels and the result is an overall mediocre company performance. Of course, following the principle of hiring high quality leaders requires that the CEO be prepared to be stretched to the limit in his/her personal performance to keep up with this higher level talent. The intent should be to seek to improve to beat the competition and not concentrate on competing with the internal leaders.
The first question that would come to mind is what criteria a CEO should seek in selecting leaders. The answer is simple: the five stars enumerated in this essay series are the true job criteria for leaders in order to help a company grow from good to great. To recap these criteria, a leader should have the following characteristics in addition to the technical qualifications required for the job
- Star 1 – A person who is strongly in touch with reality
- Star 2 – A person who can help people articulate a common vision
- Star 3 – A person who is capable of assembling mutually supporting teams
- Star 4 – A person who can instill a culture of discipline in an organization
- Star 5 – A person who will seek and seed leaders at all levels of the organization
If the CEO lays these characteristics down for all hires of leaders in the organization, the company will flourish.
In order to attract top leaders to an organization, one needs to understand what attracts good leaders and the answer is, among other things, other good leaders. It is critical that the company have a strong recruiting team to spearhead the search for good leaders.
Most companies give limited attention to recruiting for the organization. More importantly, the selection of leaders by other managers is often considered a chore to be done in addition to their real jobs. I have news for the CEO; the selection of good leaders for the organization is one of the most important real jobs of all leaders. I have been in selection interviews and have seen how unskilled leaders are about how to conduct effective job interviews. This is a major roadblock to staffing of good leaders for the organization, and by implication stunts the company’s growth.
The CEO needs to build a strong recruiting and selection team and have all the leaders in the organization thoroughly well-trained in recruitment and selection to ensure that the company is well-staffed with good leaders. Currently, there is no emphasis on understanding leadership in organizations. It is a sad state of affairs when one considers that the success of an organization lies squarely on the strength of its leaders. The small percentage of companies that take recruitment and selection of leaders seriously, consistently outperform their counterparts.
The biggest priority for a CEO regarding the leadership of the company, after fixing the recruitment and selection team, is to develop a strong leadership training program that is securely tied to a good succession program. Such companies as General Electric and P&G have led the way in these processes and enjoy great results. What’s more, they have little difficulty in attracting good leaders, and their ex-employees are also very much in demand by other companies.
Another important program that the CEO should seriously concentrate on is the mentoring and coaching of leaders. The CEO should personally work closely with his/her direct reports to ensure that each of them is meticulously following their developmental programs. Accordingly, the direct reports should do the same with their direct reports and so on throughout the company.
This will set the stage for a strong succession program for leaders. Having leaders at all levels trained, developed and highly prepared to fill in gaps when and if gaps appear, will provide the impetus to the organization to shoot ahead and take its rightful place in the forefront of its field.
Finally, leaders need to be respected at all levels of the organization. Needless to say, respect should be a strong quality that is commonly inculcated throughout the organization. John C Maxwell, Author of the seminal work “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, sums it up clearly; “How do leaders earn respect? By making sound decisions, admitting their mistakes, and putting what’s best for their followers and the organization ahead of their personal agendas.” Respect and influence go together. This has nothing to do with what title or role a person has.
John Maxwell illustrates this fact with an interesting example in his book “Ultimate Leadership” “in the summer of 1977, people were jolted by two events that occurred less than a week apart: the deaths of Princess Diane and Mother Teresa. On the surface the two women could not have been more different: one was a tall, young, glamorous princess from England who circulated in the highest society. The other a Noble Peace prize recipient who was a small elderly nun born in Albania, who served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India. What’s incredible is that their impact was remarkably similar. In a 1986 poll published by the London Daily Mail, Princess Diane and Mother Teresa were voted in first and second places as the world’s most caring people.”
That is a true example of the power of influence in generating world respect. It is a pleasure to deal with an organization where the culture of respect is clearly visible and not marred by sarcasm or disrespect. This will be reflected in the respect of customers, suppliers and the population in general.
As you look to make your organization more competitive, move your company away from a creator of products or services; to a creator of leaders. This will become the spearhead of your most imitable competitive advantage.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CARL A. PHILLIPS
Chairman, The Phillips Group
Location: Toronto, Canada
Carl has been consulting to CEOs and Leaders for over forty years. He is an Industrial Psychologist, an Entrepreneur, and an Author who has written two books on leadership. Carl was the Head of Global Organization Effectiveness for Watson Wyatt Worldwide, which is now called Willis Towers Watson, one of the largest management consulting companies in the world with over 14,000 employees.
Carl Phillips is a Certified Management Consultant who has created several assessment instruments and tests on leadership which he has been applying effectively on a variety of global companies located in North America, Europe and Asia for over forty years. Carl’s book, “Winners Are Not Lonely At The Top”, is a live case study of the proven application of his “Five Stars” model for experiencing exponential, sustained growth in an organization.
Carl has co-authored a book called “Global Literacies”, published by Simon and Schuster, New York. The book is a summary of his interviews with seventy-five global CEOs located in twenty eight countries wherein the lessons learned by these CEOs on the challenges for running a successful global company are documented in detail.
Carl Phillips has been keynote speaker in several international conferences on leadership and he has written a number of articles on The True Job Description of the CEO, a unique insight into the critical force in an organization that is often neglected.
SHANE PHILLIPS is Carl’s son and is currently the CEO of The Phillips Group based in Dubai, UAE.
The Phillips Group has been helping companies align, focus and build their leadership teams since 1984. Driving organisations and individuals to peak performance has been our raison d’etre for two generations.
Please contact us for your CEO Assessment Guide at CEO@tpgleadership.com
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