Leaders In London

From past Leaders in London speaker General Colin Powell (rtd)

These 13 rules are from the back of Colin Powell’s book My American Journey, and are in Powell’s own words:

As we are trading through difficult times at the moment, here’s a reminder from the slightly abrasive (I think he was in a bad mood that day; you can hear it in his voice) Allan Leighton, on what you should STOP doing or watch out for in fellow leaders in your organization. Leighton was speaking at Leaders in London 2007. This is a less forgiving economic environment than we have had for a few years and, as Warren Buffet said, you never know who is swimming naked till the tide goes out. Make sure it isn’t you or other leaders in your organization.

Posted on behalf of
Leaders in London
by
Phil Dourado of
The Leadership Hub

I’ve been reading Bill George’s book, True North, his follow-up to Authentic Leadership. George is the ex-CEO of Medtronic, inventor of the pacemaker, which he grew in ten years from a $1.1 billion to a $40 billion company.

We tend to have an archetype in our head of leaders as infallible, certain of where they are going, moving from success to success. Even George’s phrase ‘True North’ reinforces that image. But, great leaders – authentic leaders – often don’t feel that way when they are in the middle of achieving great things.

Anne Mulcahy, the CEO credited with rescuing Xerox from its downward spiral, is a case in point. The emotional roller coaster of trying to keep people at Xerox motivated and pull the company back from the brink was so draining that, at one point, Mulcahy described to George, she was on the way home, drained, and had to pull over to the side of the road. She sat there, temporarily unable to move, and said to herself, “I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to go home. There’s just no place to go.”

The boxer Jack Dempsey once supposedly said champions get up when they can’t. Dempsey would have said Mulcahey ‘got up when she couldn’t’. And she is now widely praised as the woman who saved Xerox (a claim she would herself deny, as she credits a lot of people at Xerox with saving the company). That’s the test of an authentic leader, says George.

It occurs to me, then, that great leadership doesn’t always feel like that when you are in the middle of it. Mulcahey knew Xerox could go either way - off the edge of the cliff to bankruptcy or be pulled up out of its long dive just in time. You don’t know if you are going to win when you are in the middle of it. And you often doubt yourself. It’s only in retrospect you realize that whatever you did was the right thing to do and the best you could do. When it works, you become a hero. When it doesn’t, if you can get up and learn from it and go again, you’re still a great leader. Worse, when it works, but you are ousted or not given the credit anyway (think Carly Fiorina) you have to realize that doing the right thing doesn’t always mean career advancement.

Both Bill George and Carly Fiorina are coming to Leaders in London 2008 to share their recipes for great leadership, and for leading through and after adversity. George is now an academic at Harvard, running the MBA he created in ‘Authentic Leadership’. Fiorina, famously ousted from the HP CEO position by a boardroom coup, has since watched HP follow her strategy to become the world’s first $100 billion tech company, passing IBM to the number 1 slot in the process. She’ll be talking about sticking to the vision and taking the long view…and the tough decisions that get you there.

Posted on behalf of
Leaders in London
by
Phil Dourado of
The Leadership Hub

Each year IBM surveys 400 business leaders worldwide and asks them what their top concerns are. And each year for the past three years, lack of effective leadership has been right up there at or near the top, as holding back growth. This year’s report (The Global Human Capital Study, 2008) was published this week and goes further than any previous reports in saying there is a leadership vacuum in large organizations. Here’s what the report says: 

Direction, feedback and clarity needed 

“Companies are finding themselves with a leadership vacuum, with fewer individuals who have the knowledge and experience to guide others through necessary business transformations. Without leaders who can provide the direction, feedback and clarity needed to navigate in a more complex world, companies will struggle to achieve business goals.” 

A significant barrier to growth 

“A lack of leadership capability has become a significant barrier to growth for many organizations… Without sufficient leadership talent, who will setthe direction? Who will paint the vision? Who will lead the change? It’s not only an HR issue. It is a business imperative….” When asked “What do you see as the primary workforcerelated issues facing the organization?”, the second highest answer was ‘lack of leadership’, coming second only to ‘inability to rapidly develop skills to address current/future business needs.’  

Inability to develop future leaders is a major problem 

The report goes on to highlight that most organizations are struggling to develop  future leaders. The report says:  “Not only are companies concerned with their current leadership capacity, they are confronted by their inability to develop future leadership talent …. Over 75 percent of companies indicate building leadership talent is a significant challenge. 

So, what do we do about it? 

We seem to learn best and be inspired by real leaders with real stories to tell, backed up with practical experience-sharing. Joining a community of practice – real leaders really doing the job in real time – and learning from each others’ experience, is likely to be an accelerant to any in-house leadership training and development initiatives. You could start by attending Leaders in

London at the end of this month, being inspired by the bank of world leaders on the stage, and networking with the hundreds of practising leaders among the attendees. And Leaders in

London attendees are entitled to free membership of www.TheLeadershipHub.com, the world’s online leadership community, where leadership practitioners and experts share experiences and learning. 

Good luck in dealing with that vacuum!