MGT 506 Visionary Leadership and The Tribe Discussion

MGT 506 Visionary Leadership and The Tribe Discussion

Module 4 – SLP

VISIONARY LEADERSHIP AND THE TRIBE

Visionary leaders plow through their days with a sharp focus on the future. They know exactly where they want to take their organizations and teams, and they often know exactly how they want to accomplish it.

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Processors People at all levels in any organization tend naturally toward one of three leadership styles: visionaries, operators, and processors.  Processors, as you might gather from their name, are people who want to bring order to chaos. They like to put in place systems and processes. And their key goal is to, A, squeeze out risk, minimize our exposure to risk, and, B, to make sure that tomorrow we do better what we did today.

Processors bring growth by iterative steps. And placed in a situation where they’ve got the right challenge, processors are an incredibly strong asset to any organization. Good examples of processor leaders are Vikram Pandit at CitiBank; Warren Buffett has built an enormous business through his almost obsessive adherence to systems, process and data, not allowing his emotion to decide what he’s going to go next.

Leo Apotheker, on the other hand, is an example of a processor leader who, during his time at Hewlett-Packard, was forced into a role with which he was uncomfortable, much more of a visionary role.  Here’s the key thing to understand about processor leaders if you work with them.

Processors think to talk. When you communicate with a processor, they’ll typically listen, they’ll take everything in, and only if they think they have something that will add to the discussion will they then contribute.

That means that processors tend to work a lot with mutual feedback, and sometimes it’s very hard when you’re working with a processor to know whether they’re adopting what you’ve talked about, whether they think it’s a good idea or not.  And so what’s really important with processors is that you learn the strength of summarizing and paraphrasing the discussion that you’ve had with them and encouraging them to give you some feedback as to what they think the best way forward is.

And for you, if you’re a processor leader, it’s equally important for you to see the other side of the coin. Many times people will talk with you, and they may leave not knowing precisely what your thoughts are on the matter.  Now, of course, as a processor, that may be because you haven’t quite yet worked out what way you want to go with a particular issue. You might want to run some data. You might want to take some other people’s opinions into account.

Even so, it’s really important to engage with the individual that you’ve been speaking with and say, “Look, I’ll tell you what, I’m not sure where I stand on this just yet. Let me do a little bit more work, but let’s set up a phone call in a week or so and I’ll tell you what my views are. ”It’s really important as a processor not to get stuck into just one-way communication. Les McKeown Leaders as Operators

Everyone at all levels in an organization tend naturally toward one of three leadership styles: visionaries, operators, and processors. Out of the three styles, the individual that’s hardest to spot is the operator. And the reason for that is that operators are task-focused: they don’t sit around; they don’t sit in meetings that much; they’re not wandering the halls; they don’t manage by walking around.

They are out there getting things done. For an operator, the single most important thing is to get something off their task list that day, and because they’re so task-focused, their task list grows and grows and grows. Operators are those people who you see taking on almost every problem that comes their way. They’ve got big shoulders.

And what they try to do is they try to lead their organization by sheer power, by their will, by their determination, by the amount of effort that they put out. A classic example is Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. Steve Ballmer is an operator leader.

He’s determined to bring Microsoft back to the peak of its growth by sheer willpower and determination. The problem with an operator leader is often associated with that task focus. What can happen is they lose sight of the overall strategic goals of the organization, and they can, if not managed correctly, turn into ardent taskmasters who don’t delegate terribly well.

And the single most important thing that you need to do if you work with an operator is, not only to set clear boundaries for what you expect them to do, but insist that they do only what only they can do.

Operators have a tendency to grab from everybody else’s portfolio. They see a problem, they like it, it excites them, they want to do it. And for an operator it’s very important to put clear boundaries down. Once you’ve done that, they will go through any barrier to achieve that goal. Operators are an enormous asset for any team or group.

Now, if you are an operator leader, it’s really important for you to see the other side of that coin. Because of your ruthless focus on getting things done, you’re often going to be out of the loop. Y ou’re going to try to find ways to avoid those meetings that are just talking shops as far as you’re concerned. You’re much more happy out there engaged with your customers, with your clients, and getting things done. And so what will happen if you’re not really careful is that you’ll find yourself slowly, politically being pushed to the edge of the organization until you fall out of the loop.

And here’s my tip for you: find one or two key meetings that you really need to be at in a month or a quarter to stay in the loop, and even though your preference is to be out there completing those tasks, force yourself to come in, sit down, listen, and engage.

Having a visionary leader can be a competitive advantage. All other things being equal, the Visionary leader (strategic, creative, charismatic, communicative) will produce greater step change and higher growth than the Operator leader (driven, tactical, focused, determined) or the Processor leader (process-oriented, systems focused, iterative, conservative). Visionary leaders frequently personify their organization’s leadership and vision and, unlike the Operator or Processor leader, fail to institutionalize it. A Visionary can institutionalize their V-ness and leave behind a lasting visionary framework. To do so, take these six steps: 1. Have a talk with your ego. 2. Step back from the front line. 3. Change your hiring process. 4. Change how you deploy people. 5. Mentor and coach. 6. Integrate and protect.Full textTranslateHeadnoteThey need to institutionalize their V~ness.HAVING A VISIONARY leader can be a competitive advantage. All other things being equal, the Visionary leader (strategic, creative, charismatic, communicative) will produce greater step change and higher growth than the Operator leader (driven, tactical, focused, determined) or the Processor leader (process-oriented, systems focused, iterative, conservative).The problem comes when it’s time for the Visionary leader to move on. Whether it happens by choice (Bill Gates), ouster (Michael Eisner) or death (Steve Jobs), the Visionary often leaves behind a vacuum rather than a legacy. The reason? Any organization of size is typically populated with Operators and Processors. So when an Operator or Processor leader moves on, they leave behind an underlying Operator or Processor framework that can (relatively) easily be managed by a successor uber-Operator or Processor.The Visionary leader is often the personification of the vision. So when they leave, the vision cr unibles (see Howard Schultz, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell and Ted Waitt when they each left their companies for the first time). Unlike the Operator or Processor, the Visionary often fails to leave a visionary framework that can carry forward their legacy and maintain the vision. Visionary leaders frequently personify their organization’s leadership and vision and, unlike the Operator or Processor leader, fail to institutionalize it.This doesn’t need to be so. Like Sam Walton, Estee Lauder, Robert Johnson and Herb Kelleher, with planning (and commitment), a Visionary can institutionalize their V-ness and leave behind a lasting visionary framework. To do so, take these six steps:1. Have a talk zvith your ego. Of the three natural leadership types, Visionaries are most defined by their particular style. While Operators and Processors can be just as proud of their leadership achievements (and rightly so), they have a lesser need to be seen for what they are. Visionary leaders need to be seen as the alpha- Visionary. Hence, it is hard for a Visionary to happily co-exist with other like-minded people. They often drive out lesser Visionaries to preserve their position in the pecking order. Hard-wiring visionary leadership into the enterprise requires encouraging – not eliminating – other visionary leaders (accepting the existence of other visionaries as a good thing, to be encouraged – a strength, not a threat).2. Step back from the front line. Once you decide to institutionalize Visionary leadership, the time involved and the need to be protective of the seeds you sow mean that it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed while managing the business full time. You may begin to institutionalize the vision, only to find your efforts choked by the sheer volume of other responsibilities, or stunted because of the too-high opportunity cost of taking your eye off the operating needs of the business. Institutionalizing your vision is best done at a time when you can lighten your operational load. Look for times when you can shift some duties to trusted colleagues – windows when you feel less stressed, less committed – and hand over some responsibilities.Enlarge this image.3. Change your hiring process. If you have been the personification of the vision, your hiring process downplays Visionary attributes (such as creativity, initiative and controlled risk-taking), and emphasizes Operator and Processor attributes, such as systems thinking, execution skills, and compliance.Hiring is the lifeblood of capability, and only through hiring can Visionary leadership be introduced in its natural form (you can mentor, coach and train Operators and Processors to emulate the Visionary mindset, but it’s not the same thing). Begin by identifying the key roles you wish to see Visionaries occupy over time, and examine the hiring profile. Add the Visionary characteristics you think are important for the role, and get involved in the hiring process for those roles. You may need to move incumbents out of those positions to get the process under way.4. Change how you deploy people, Institutionalizing visionary leadership won’t happen simply by dropping an individual Visionary leader into each major division or department and leaving them to do their thing. AU that achieves is to decentralize your personified vision. The goal is not to enlist a cadre of Visionaries who replicate in their fiefdom a smaller version of your personified Visionary leadership. Doing so multiplies the very weakness you are trying to eradicate – dependence on one person. Instead, deploy company-wide your newly hired Visionaries, using job-sharing, jobswapping, cross-functional teams, internal hiring, and placements to ensure they rotate. Build the muscle of visionary leadership without developing a dependency culture.5. Mentor and coach. If you are the vision personified, to institutionalize your vision, you must mentor and coach others. You can mentor the newly hired Visionaries on what you expect from them, about what your vision is; how it shows up; how to protect it and grow it. You can coach Operators and Processors on how to interact with the Visionaries: how to understand each other’s thought processes and communication styles; how to work together as a cohesive te ani for the good of the enterprise.6. Integrate and protect. The process of institutionalizing a personified vision is tricky, even dangerous. Operators and processors feel threatened by new Visionaries. Veteran employees sense the culture is becoming more bureaucratic. Big dogs (who had the Visionary leader’s ear) fear their high-level access is losing its value. Front-line employees can, at first, misinterpret the institutionalization of the vision as disengagement by the Visionary leader. What should be an exciting process can be a fear-tinged drift.Institutionalizing your vision does not mean disengaging. To the contrary, you must, for a while, be even more accessible. However, this heightened accessibility is now about the process, not the vision. Town halls, group and team meetings, one-on-ones, online FAQs – utilize every vehicle possible to explain, persuade and evangelize the new process.ACTION: Take these six steps.Enlarge this image.AuthorAffiliationLes McKeown is CEO of Predictable Success, advising leaders, and author of The Synergist: Leading Your Team to Predictable Success (Palgrave Macmillan), zoww.predictables uccess.comCopyright Executive Excellence Publishing Jan 2012

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