Leadership: have you tested yours lately?

Published: 2011-02-19   There are 6 comments ... please add yours below

Phil Rozenzweig, a professor at IMD in Switzerland, swims against the current. When asked “What’s the next new thing in strategy”, he replied “That’s the wrong question. There’s always new stuff … and most of it’s not very good.” His advice … “Seek what’s true, not new!” This quote leads an article in a recent McKinsey Quarterly that offers ten tests for your company’s strategy. My list below is identical except I’ve inserted “leadership” instead of “strategy” in each test. Check them out and see how you rate.

1. Will your leadership beat the market? The market here is internal as well as external. The people, who need to follow or admire you (subordinates, peers, customers, etc.). Would they say you have a market-leading offering? Do people emulate you? Want to work for you? Or, hire you?
2. Does your leadership tap a true source of advantage? Title and position are no guarantee of leadership. But the luck of being in the right job at the right time can certainly confer advantage. But, what are your differentiators: your special skills, experience, network or reputation?
3. Is your leadership granular about where to compete? Do you think of your skills only in terms of today’s job description? Or, think deeply to identify and develop advantages that will be value-adding in the market going forward? Individuals, like companies, only need a few winning attributes.
4. Does your leadership put you ahead of trends? Do you just extrapolate or look for the new waves and work out how to ride them? Do you rely on existing frameworks and models or seek new ones? Just scan from the centre or walk to the edges?
5. Does your leadership rest on privileged insights? Do you rely on the common daily data deluge or sift carefully for the golden flecks of insight? Do you stress-test all assumptions and check scenarios? Exhausting the “what ifs”? Thinking across boundaries?
6. Does your leadership embrace uncertainty? Recognising where there’s clarity and where it’s more about options, a range of possibilities or even total ambiguity? Teasing out what could cause one type of outcome rather than another? And, the impact on you and your career.
7. Does your leadership balance commitment and flexibility? Given all the foregoing, have you decided where you need to go firm; and, where to remain agile? Remembering that commitment is the foundation for creating built-in advantage – via your big bets.
8. Is your leadership contaminated by bias? By things like overoptimism, loss aversion or herding; tendencies that most of us carry in our psyche. Do you let yourself engage in woolly thinking?
9. Is there conviction to act on your leadership? Deep down, do you really believe in your own capabilities and the career strategy you’ve chosen? You’re the first person you have to lead!
10. Have you translated your leadership into an action plan? For someone, who’s developed a Leadership Action Planning tool, this is music to my ears – a free commercial. I love these guys! We all plan strategy, marketing and IT upgrades – but seldom plan our leadership actions! That’s mad!

Strategy is central to leadership. And, leadership is your single strongest key to implementing strategy. It’s hard to separate them. Please, share your thoughts below.

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®