LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL REVIEW

7/28/2019 LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL REVIEW

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lEADERSHIPSPECIAl REPORT

The clamour for leaders in all walks of life and all occupationshas never been louder nor more persuasive. Leadership makesa difference, perhaps the difference. In this Special Report we

examine the work and wisdom of leaders in the frontline as wellas providing a handy introduction to what we really do know

about leadership and what you need to read on the subject.

THE RISE OF LEADERSHIPpage 20

LEADERS DIRECTpage 23

TEN THOUSAND STRONGpage 36

ESSENTIAL READINGpage 40

17../ BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW

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40% j , y 20% .Monika Hamori, IE Business School

JOB MOvESLEADERSHIP WISDOM

i 2009 us

$12 .Sue Ashford and Scott DeRue, htt://blogs.hbr.org

LEADERSHIP DEvELOPMENT

r uK rg uy xg

, y k .www.bbc.co.uk

BRAINS OF BUSINESS

MOvE DOWNWARDS 20%

PROMOTION 40%

MOvE LATERALLY 40%

LEADERSNIPSRarely has so much ink and wisdom beendedicated to such an abstract and mercurial science.We present a choice sample from the deluge.

When the eectiveleader is nishedwith his work,the people say ithappens naturally.Lao -Tzu, Chinese philosopher

18 BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW issue 2 2011

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64% x y

F m a c kg y kg.Monika Hamori, IE Business School

oy 12.5%

Ftse-100 .www.ibtimes.com

DIRECTORS OF FTSE-100

UK22%

GERMANY 33%

HOLLAND 42%

RWANDA 56%

SWEDEN 46%

t 2010 22% uK mp

. i G bg 33%; d , 42%; r, 56%; s, 46%.www.guardian.co.uk

WOMAN MPs

ExECUTIvE DECISIONS

To be omnipotentbut riendless isto reign.Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet

LEADERSHIP WISDOM

ny 60%

g .Sue Ashford and Scott DeRue, htt://blogs.hbr.org

TALENT SHORTAGES

TALENT SHORTAGES 60%

WOMEN 12.5%

COMPANY LEAvERS64%

lEADERSNIPS



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The rise Of

leadershipThe subject has been examined and analysed rom everypossible angle. But what do we really know about leadership?

baracK obama: a leader, but what will be historY's verdict?


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Leadership is universal andtimeless. People have led andthought about leadership since thebeginning of time from Aristotleto Shakespeare, Sun Tzu to von

Clausewitz, from Machiavellito Jose Mourinho. And yet, itwas only in the 1980s that thestudy of leadership exploded intolife. From a theoretical bywayit became an intellectual heavyindustry with hardly a day

passing without a new theory,treatise or celebration of a leader.

Most o the books and thinking onleadership have a amiliar eel. They

celebrate the leadership o BarackObama, Nelson Mandela, Jack Welchor some other regularly lauded leader.There are useul lessons to be drawnrom such remarkable lives, butleadership is about more than greatmen and women. So, too, must it bemore than a litany o competencies.

And therein lies the beauty anddanger o leadership. It is intellectualsilly putty, capable o being meldedinto whichever shape you preer.

But, cut away the heroes and

the hyperbole, not to mention thepsychology, and what do we reallyunderstand about leadership in thesecond decade o the 21st century?

It is not science. I management isprose, leadership is poetry. And, likethe best poetry, it is resonant withmeaning yet unwilling to be neatlyexplained or categorised. Those whoproess to nail leadership down toour actors or ve characteristicsare liable to provide disappointmentrather than enlightenment.

It is about followers. Leaders aredened by their ollowers. The subjecto ollowership has only recentlyattracted attention rom researchers,but it lies at the heart o leadership.

It is a team game. Increasingly,leadership is practised as part oa team. A board is a leadershipteam or should be. Likewise,leaders oten hunt in pairs. In theirwork on collective leadership (see

page 28) Mehrdad Baghai andJim Quigley o Deloitte provideinteresting insights into this newperspective on leadership.r

euters


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It is universal. Ask anyone to come upwith a list o the great leaders and thesad truth is that 90 per cent o them will

be men. This imbalance is a continuingreality in organisations worldwide.

The opportunities being missed bysuch blinkered thinking are enormous

and enormously depressing. Onesignicant eort to redress the balanceis 10,000 Women, a Goldman Sachs

philanthropic initiative implementedin collaboration with leading businessschools, including London Business

School. 10,000 Women is a $100million, multi-year investment toprovide underserved women with apractical business education and the

support services they need to growtheir businesses and create jobs ortheir communities. The programme

is delivered in 22 countries includingIndia, China, Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey,Aghanistan and Rwanda. Early results

show that more than 70 per cent ograduates increase revenues, and 50per cent hire additional employeeswithin six months o graduation. (For

more on 10,000 Women see page 37.)

It can be learned and developed.

There are natural leaders whoeortlessly practice leadership. But

there are many more leaders whohave worked hard at developing andlearning the skills they need to lead.The worldwide leadership development

industry is not an exercise in pyramidselling though it sometimes eelslike that when you witness some

o its most tawdry elements butis ullling an important need.

Leaders need to be developed.

It is personal. Leadership deesgeneralisation. Most leaders havelearned along the way, borrowing

and stealing ideas, tactics and tips.The result has to be authenticallythem. Otherwise, it wont work. As

Rob Goee and Gareth Jones havepointed out in their work, peopleare increasingly adept at smelling

out akes and alsity. People demandauthenticity rom their leaders.

It is important.There are urious

and long lasting debates about thenature o leadership, but there areprecious ew people who argue

that it is not important. Indeed, thereach o leadership is expanding. Itis acknowledged, or example, that

leadership has a crucial role to play ineducation and healthcare. Surgeons arealso leaders and so, too, are nurses.

None o these elements o leadershipprovide automatic clarity. Leadership

is not a single light waiting to beswitched on, but a complex andsometimes inspiring network oillumination and inspiration.

THE AUTHOR

STUART [email protected]

Crainer is the Editor oBusiness Strategy Review.

01 Nelson Mandela served aspresident o South Aricarom 1994 to 1999.

02 Nurses: Leaders, too.

01

02


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JUSTINE ROBERTSMUMSNETpAGE 24

JIM QUIGLEYDELOITTE TOUCHE

TOHMATSUpAGE 28

JRG OLEASGEA GROUP

pAGE 32

LEADERSDIRECTDo practising leaders spend much time contemplating

how and why they lead? How do they describetheir leadership styles? We talked to three leaders

from diverse backgrounds and organisationsto get their take on the reality of leadership.

01 02 03


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The 2010 British General Electionwas labelled the Mumsnet election,such is the pervasive power of the

parenting website Mumsnet. Thesite was the brainchild of Justine

Roberts, a sports journalist. Shetalks to Georgina Peters aboutthe irresistible rise of Mumsnet.

JUSTINE ROBERTS

MUMSNET WINSMAJORITY!

Georgina Peters:Mumsnet seems to

attract people who have opinions, and

opinions about you.

Justine Roberts: Over the last18 months our prole has risenimmensely. We have had a lot opress. In 2006 one o the UKsleading childcare gurus, Gina Ford,threatened to sue the site or libel.That hit the headlines, becauseit was a kind o test case or libelon the internet. And then morerecently the UKs General Electionbrought a lot o media attention.

I think there is a sort o tendency

when that happens, or people to wantto go orth and vent their opinions. Itspartly about being propelled into thespotlight and thats a natural response.

Justine Roberts

Co-founder

Mumsnet

mumsnet.com

a yhy nvnJn r hn pn h nn. shjn h n, c lngn,n mn nn y 2000. ov h hn 1.2 nv vy nh n n v n 25,000p vy ng y.

PROFILE

01

Justine roberts in the mumsnet oFFices.


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GP: You were a journalist. How do you

use your journalistic skills now?

JR: I still write the occasional piece.

The bit about being a journalist whichyou never lose is curiosity. So Im

curious and I ask questions. Im notsure thats always a good thing! I alsoworked as an economist in New York.

When youve got an organisationo any size, management is the skill

you need not, perhaps, somethingI needed when I was a journalist.

In a way I think the best training,in a way, is parenthood. It is about

trying to see things rom other points

o view, patience and that sort o thing.One o the things that I personally nd

a challenge is not trying to micro-manage. Its trying to concentrate on

the big picture and not get quite soinvolved in all the detail. You cantdo everything, as you expand.

GP: How do you describe yoursel?

Are you a leader, an entrepreneur, a

business person?

JR: I usually say that I run a websiteor parents. I certainly wouldntdescribe that as being an entrepreneur.I eel in a way that Mumsnet was oneo the worst business ideas ever really.You know we built a website in themiddle o the dot-com crash and thebusiness model is extremely dicult.Even the biggest and the best haveound it hard to create a businessmodel out o the ree internet.

Weve now been protable ora couple o years. Our ambition isto be the best community websitewe can be. Theres a lot we cando, rom a technical, user, designand unctionality perspective and

also in terms o our scope. To be abetter community website. Thatswhat our aim is. To do everythingthat we do now more and better.

GP: Can you see it going global? The

audience is now largely in the UK.

JR: Yes, it is very. I think you might beable to ranchise the idea, but peoplein local regions are the heart andsoul o it, local communities. Equally,

there have been a ew media groupsinterested in us. But, there are a lot opartners we wouldnt eel comortablebeing a partner o. For example,we dont take a lot o advertisers.

One o the strengths o Mumsnetis the act that were not a site orlet-leaning mums or right-leaningmums. It is or all mums. That isa strength and so, too, is the actthat we dont have shareholderschasing prots above all else.

GP: Your mother described you as the

ringleader o a very noisy gang andsuggested thats what youre still doing!

I will never ask her to do my PR!Ringleader is the wrong word. Peopleoten do think that we sit here in anHQ, issuing top-down directivesand have this band o people whodo as theyre told. Nothing could bearther rom the truth. This is a veryorganic group o individuals whovery much know their own minds.There is no puppet master. I amoccasionally the mouthpiece o a

group o very noisy individuals.

GP: What have you learnt over the ten

years at Mumsnet?

JR: I have learnt that communityis alive and well. There are a lot opeople who think in our busy lives wehave no time or anyone else notime or our neighbours, no time orstrangers. But at Mumsnet people goout o their way 24/7 to be helpuland give advice and pass on theirexperience to people who theyve

never met beore and may never meet.So I think thats a very positive thing.

I think Ive also learnt to listenreally. This is a world o dialogues and

There is nopuppet master.I am occasionallythe mouthpiece o

a group o verynoisy individuals.


lEADERS DIRECT


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i you listen hard to your customers

they will give you a lot o good advice

and direction. Most o our best

innovations have come rom them.

GP: How would you describe your

leadership style?

JR: Thats a really dicult question

to answer. I dont really think o

mysel as having a leadership style. I

think its a partnership. Mumsnet is

akin to a social enterprise. We consult

regularly; we talk about the directions

were taking. Any campaigns we

might be doing organically bubble

up rom the users. Its a partnership

more than a leader relationship.

GP: Why dont you consider yoursel an

entrepreneur? It seems to me Mumsnet is

highly entrepreneurial.

JR: I always think that or real

entrepreneurs it almost doesnt matter

what business they start. They wouldstart anything and theyll probably

serially start new businesses. Mumsnet

was very much about having an idea

that we thought would work and be

useul and then ollowing that through

and nding it very ullling. It wasnt

like my burning ambition was to go

and make money. The distinction

probably doesnt make a lot o sense,but thats the distinction in my head.

The kernel o the idea was

wouldnt it be nice i parents could

swap inormation about their

holidays? It was a botched holidaythat encouraged me to think it

might be useul. So it was more o a

product review and swap experience

kind o thing, than a campaigning

group or even a social network.

We saw people being able to

give each other advice and not just

churning out the advice o a so-called

expert or a group o experts. The

point about parenting is you learn so

much. The real experts are the parents

whove been there and done that. So

it was about passing on expertise.Now, we view ourselves as a

site or women who havent had

children. A lot o it is about whats

I think its prettypointless havinga ve-year plan,because this world is

changing too ast.

happening in womens lives. Our

busiest orum is one called, Am I

being unreasonable? Relationships,

style and beauty are all bigger

than parenting or pregnancy. Our

competition is a very broad group!

GP: Do you ever eel uneasy that men

should be more involved in the site?

JR: I there had been a name thatwas catchy that encompassed both

mums and dads we would have used

it. And our strap line is, By parents

or parents. Having said that, I think

there is something about the way

women discuss things online thats

slightly less conrontational. Thats

a terrible generalisation, but I think

its helpul to have a place where you

dont have very dominant individuals.

GP: Have you ever been tempted to do

an MBA?JR: I did think about it at various times.I would have loved some ormal trainingaround some o the issues Im now

Pressassociation


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THE AUTHOR

GEORGINA [email protected]

Based in Switzerland, petersis a business writer andcommentator who contributes

to ublications worldwide.

01 Conservative party leaderDavid Cameron receives aMother's Day card rom CarrieLongton (let), co-ounder oMumsnet, and Kate Allen oAmnesty International to lobbyor international commitment toimroving the light o mothersand children most at risk.

02 prime Minister GordonBrown seaks at the GoogleHQ in London, during thetenth anniversary arty orthe Mumsnet website.

and we stay fexible and we dont

get too unwieldy and large. And thatmeans not growing too much in terms

o people as well. Our whole modelhas been built on low costs because

our revenues have been hard tocome by. So we eel passionate about

being a low-cost operation as well.

GP: I you look around corporations,

the number o women in senior positions

is actually alling rather than increasing.Do you eel Mumsnet is righting that

balance or giving women more condence

or helping redress that balance?

JR: Its denitely an area we arepassionate about improving. Women

nd balancing amilies and careers

challenging. A change o cultureis required. But, I think rms and

organisations can do more to reallyadvertise the act that theyre parent

riendly. When we hire people intoMumsnet we make it very clear that

were an organisation where no oneneeds to miss the school assembly or

the sports day. We oer that fexibilitybecause we know well get it back in

spades. I someone really wants topick up their kids rom school every

day and work later, then we do ourdamnedest to allow that to happen.

GP: How do you stay resh and

enthusiastic ater ten years?

JR: We have a brilliant audience and

that keeps us on our toes and also

were proud to be part o this groupo smart, unny women makingtheir voices heard and helping

each other. Nothing could be moreworthwhile. I dont know where

its going, but its a un journey.

GP: Do you spend much time thinking

about where its going?

JR: I think its pretty pointless

having a ve-year plan, because thisworld is changing too ast and the

internets changing too ast. I think

you need to be the best you can bewithin the parameters o the next sixmonths and theres not much point

looking much urther than that.

having to deal with. I tend to rely heavily

on very clever people. People dont

mind i we ask them things because

its a very open source philosophy.

GP: How do you stop something like

Mumsnet becoming bureaucratic and

stodgy as it expands in terms o content

and the number o people involved?

JR: Im passionately anti-meetings

and pieces o paper. I want us to be

a pragmatic fexible organisation,

because I think thats what its all

about and thats our competitive

advantage against some o the old

media groups in our space. That is

the core philosophy. Being at your

computer screen because the clock

says you have to is a waste o time.

Were very busy people. Mums havelots to do and the last thing they want

to do is not to be time ecient. Its a

core philosophy that we stay nimble

01

02


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collective leadership. Here, JimQuigley tellsRichard Brass aboutwhat hes discovered about landlords,tenants, architects and the enduring

power of collaboration and respect.

Richard Brass: How does your idea

o collective leadership dier rom otherleadership concepts?

Jim Quigley: Oten we look at

leadership through too narrow a lens.

We sometimes think o leadership as

a command-and-control style, with

top-down driven strategy and power.

There have also been a lot o books that

have been written about an evolving

approach to leadership involving

a more participative, democratic

approach. What weve discovered is that

you can sustain collective leadership

with what weve identied as eightdistinct models. We dene collective

leadership much more broadly than

leadership in the context o a single

As part of his fascination withleadership, Deloittes Jim Quigleyhas now produced a bookaimed at providing a systematicunderstanding of how individualaction can be harnessed for collective

power. Co-authored with MehrdadBaghai, Managing Director of

Alchemy Growth Partners,As

One looks at dozens of case studiesfrom across business and aroundthe world, and comes up with aset of eight archetypes of successful

JIM QUIGLEY

COLLECTIvE

LEADERSHIP

Jim Quigley

CEO

Deloitte ToucheTohmatsu

deloitte.com

in h 36 y hd thth, J Qgyh n hgh hp gh xv h n h g pnv gnn.ovng nkh hn 170,000pn, n hn n hn 150n, h h h nnp v hhng hpn -hngng , h hn hn gnn nng hg vy f n v h g.

PROFILE

02

01

02

Pressassociation


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surveys. I you can somehow increase

the engagement o your workorce, you

can take your perormance to the next

level. One way to do that is to become

more intentional and more eective

with respect to your leadership. Youneed to look inside the minds o your

people and understand i they have a

strong sense o shared identity with the

organisation, i there is commitmentto execute the strategy, and i there is a

common interpretation o how to work

together. When you put those three

components in place, you have the

potential or collective leadership and

collective action, and you can denitelyraise the perormance o the enterprise.

RB: Is improving two-way

communication an essential step?

JQ: Its a big part o it. In order

or your team to be committed to

executing their strategy, theyve got tounderstand what the strategy is. And in

order or a leader-and-ollower pair to

be eective, there should be a commoninterpretation o how they want to work

together. One o the archetypes that

we identiy is Landlord & Tenants.

I the leader wants to be the landlord

o the employees, or tenants, and set

all the rules, but the employees think

o themselves as volunteers and want

to work in a Community Organiser

& Volunteers model, that leader-

ollower mismatch is going to causelower engagement. This mismatch

is something leaders can remedy by

amending their leadership style.

RB:Are there any outstanding examples

o particular models?

JQ: The book showcases a series

o case studies. The case study or

Landlord & Tenants that we use isApple Inc., particularly the business

process related to applications and

the application developers. Apple is

a great illustration o the Landlord &Tenants archetype. You have a group o

application developers outside o Apple

who want to have their applications

reside on the iPhone or the iPad, andApple sets the rules as the landlord

o what you need to do i you want

to have an application on its device.

Application developers come, becausethere is an economic advantage or

them i they can have their app on

those tools and use those tools as a

way o distributing their intellectualproperty. The more tenants that come,

the stronger the power base o the

landlord. Thus, you see the enormous

growth o the Apple App Store.

RB:Another model I think is very

interesting is Architect & Builders.

JQ: One o the case studies thatwe cite is Ratan Tata and the vision

to build the Nano car. He was the

architect with a bold ambition to

build a US$2,500 car to allow theamily o our the option o not having

to ride a motorcycle in Mumbai.

Then you bring all the builders, all

the suppliers, and they work in acollective and eective manner to

reinvent how you design componentsand how you can then, in a very cost-

eective way, manuacture a car.

RB: Has the shit in economic power

rom the West to the East and the nancial

crisis made a new view o leadership

more important?

JQ: When Im asked the question,

Why the book? I answer with

respect to my passion or leadership.When Im asked, Why now? I

respond with respect to the huge

shits that have occurred: the West-to-East shit, globalisation, the growingsignicance o the emerging markets,

the demographic changes in the

CEO and debating the attributes othat CEO. Collective leadership is

about choice; it requires the leader,the colleagues inside that organisationand the organisation itsel to committo taking action. There is then theopportunity to galvanise a group o

individuals rom diverse backgroundsto work together eectively to

accomplish shared goals and objectives.

RB: Is it about reducing the role o

the CEO?

JQ: I dont think we need to diminishthat role, but we need to be ocused on

what the objective is whether theobjective is truly collective leadership,with the organisation, the leaderand those that are being led workingtogether eectively. We try to deuse the

view thats out there that the command-and-control style is bad. We articulate

a view that command-and-control isgood in some circumstances and or

some business processes. In the book,we provide leaders with alternativemodels that have been provensuccessul As One archetypes rom which they can choose based on

their specic situation and challenges.

RB:Are there many companies that

adhere to these principles?

JQ: Weve identied 60 case studies owhat we viewed as successul collective

leadership. One o the really compellingbusiness cases or taking a new look at

leadership is the low levels o workerengagement you nd in a variety o

01 Jim Quigley takes a wide-angle lens to leadershi.

02 Ale: The cororate landlord.

Collective leadershipis about choice; itrequires the leader,the colleagues insidethat organisationand the organisationitsel to commit totaking action.


lEADERS DIRECT


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Pressassociation

marketplace, the shit in power between

public and private sector, the need

or public/private partnerships, and

the crisis in condence in businessthat the nancial crisis brought about.

The world has not only changed,

its shited. And i the world has

changed, then isnt it the right time

to take a resh look at leadership?

RB:As a leader yoursel, which o these

eight archetypes ts you?

JQ: I identiy most strongly with the

Architect & Builders archetype. I think

o mysel as being responsible or the

Deloitte brand overall, and thats why

the strategy that Im driving with theDeloitte organisation is theAs One

strategy. Thats the big idea, the big

ambition: can I cause Deloitte to come

together and behave as one, ocused

on delivering value to our member rm

clients, and become a machine that

doesnt have borders? There are no

unctional silos inside this aspirational

proessional services organisation,

and there are also no hard lines that

demarcate geopolitical boundaries

or particular marketplaces. Can we

bring the ull power o thinking andcapabilities o Deloitte together and

ocus on delivering value to our clients

wherever they choose to do business?

Like any CEO, I have the challenge

o communication. We went through

the DeloitteAs One diagnostic, and in

the metric related to shared identity,what we discovered wasnt a big

surprise: the strongest identity that an

individual Deloitte proessional has is

to his or her individual member rm,

not to the global network overall. So, as

Im driving strategy implementation,

I prepare a guide or local leaders

about what I want them to be doing

as theyre driving the implementation

o the strategy in their member rms.

The deeper you go in the organisation,

the more tightly connected people are

and the more strongly they identiywith their respective team, local

organisation and member rm.

RB: How important in that is a

core culture?

JQ: Fundamental. We couldnt even

talk about drivingAs One behaviour

without the strong underpinning o

a Deloitte culture. The rst part o

that is integrity in terms o how we

deal with each other. The second

is strength rom cultural diversity.

We believe in local routes and globalconnections or example, our rm

in China is Chinese, and the people

in China that are part o the Deloitte

amily are people who happen to speakMandarin. Then theres providingoutstanding value to clients. Werevery client-centric, client-ocused.And theres also the whole notion othe importance o people and peopledevelopment. All o that we outlinewhen we walk through the vision.

Were a successul organisation. Wegot to that seat on the back o a verystrong culture. On top o that, we makesome undamental market choices, ourundamental strategic choices that drivethe strategy-market leadership, ocused

market investment, operating globally,As One behaviour. As the architect, Iwant to allow that to rame the way thatmy builders, the leaders o the national

Youre notgoing to haveollowers ithey dontthink theyrerespected.

01

02

gettyimages


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THE AUTHOR

RICHARD [email protected]

Brass is a business andnance writer. He contributesto ublications worldwide,

including the FinancialTimesand The Times.

practices, the leaders o individual

lines o business, develop their strategyaligned with that agenda and that ocus.

RB: How much o a good CEOs role is

to set the culture rather than having hands

on the levers?

JQ: When I speak to the partners Ispeak only about values and culture.

Ill have a class o 500 new partners.My one-hour presentation to themis all about culture, all about values.

The only thing that bothers me aboutyour question is the idea o settingthe culture. Cultures grow up over

long periods o time. You have to

protect the culture, and you have tostrengthen and enhance it, but I dontthink you can do that by setting it.It comes as a result o many, many

years o evolution and growth.

RB: Theres no shortage o management

books. Why should someone go into a shop

and choose this one?

JQ: Because theyre very interestedin collective leadership, and I thinkcollective leadership is a dimension

o leadership that there isnt anything

written about right now. When peoplego into the bookstore and they see

books on leadership, theyll see booksthat, in some ways, are autobiographies

or biographies o people who have

been labelled as successul leaders.

The book spends time talking about

the attributes o those individuals and

the tactics that they put in place. What

weve tried to do here is not create a

collection o best practices, but rather

start a conversation concerning the

next practice. So someone should be

interested in this book i he/she believes

the world has shited. Someone should

be interested in this book i he/she

believes that the essence o leadershipis the ability to galvanise a group

o diverse individuals and create an

environment or them to work together

eectively to accomplish some shared

goals. I thats your ambition as a leader,

I believe this book will inorm and

assist in accomplishing that objective.

RB: Do you have any single piece

o advice or any leader to improve

his/her leadership?

JQ:The key is to simply broaden your

way o thinking about leadership.I believe that many leaders think that

leadership is all about productivity

can he/she drive greater productivity

rom the people in his/her charge?

Somebody else might think leadership

is all about creating a sense o belonging

and having this strong shared identity.

Others might say leadership is all about

purpose, about having commitment to

execute strategy. We believe you need

all three o those.

RB: What are your own key principlesas a leader?

JQ: The undamental point or me is

respect or the individual. Youre not

going to have ollowers i they dont

think theyre respected. Secondly,

youve got to have a strong and

eective work ethic. And you have

to be someone that people can trust,

someone that people are willing to

ollow. Where did I learn those things?

I learned those things in my home.

I also learned them in observing many

leaders, both at Deloitte and at clientcompanies. You can learn a great

deal by watching a successul leader

and the things that he or she does.

01 Emloyees o Tata Motors work onthe assembly line o a Nano car.

02 Ratan Tata, chairmano Tata Grou.

03 Motorcyclists ride down astreet in Mumbai, India.

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top managers but every employee.

Thereore we do three dierent

types o innovation at GEA.

One is at a very low level, which we

call ideas improvement programmes,

where every employee is encouraged

day by day to improve small things

around his work space, be it in

actories or in oces or wherever.

They collect points, the segmentpresidents get targets or the bonus

and we have annual award-winners

or the segments that have collected

the most productive ideas. The second

platorm is the pure R&D people,

who are sitting in labs trying to invent

things. The third platorm is innovation

being done together with partners,

in most cases with customers.

We make sure that the organisations,

the managers and the employees are

reminded every day that innovation

is the backbone, that it is the mostimportant thing or GEA to survive.

Also we as an executive board are

incentivised. A good part o our bonus

For an engineering company in arapidly changing world, innovationis central, and in this interview withRichard Brass, Jrg Oleas talksabout how to make innovating ahabit, what makes a leader andhow, when it comes to leadership,charisma just doesnt count.

Innovation is essential to what GEA does.

How can leadership oster innovation?

I you believe something is importantor the company, then you have to

show it on a daily level, to have it right

in everybodys mind, not only the

JRG OLEAS

THE LEADERSHIPGENE

Jrg Oleas

CEO

GEA Group

geagroup.com

Jg o h nceo n hn h xv Gea Gp n 2004,hn h k n hhng hpngh ky n h Gnn ngmgh n yn n pfngnng n n vng h ny. ty h ng h pnyn nnng n hng, nygghn n wn epnn us k np gh na n ln a.

PROFILE

03


lEADERSHIP REPORT


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is based on the amount o innovationwe are able to bring into the pipeline.

Once a year we have an innovation

contest, where every segment rsthas an innovation contest at theirlevel, and then we have a worldwide

innovation contest, like the Oscars,where the top 100 managers o GEAcome together and the best ideas arepresented and the segment presidents,together with the executive board oGEA, have to rate the ideas presented

by the ve segments, and then at theend we have an award. The winnersget a couple o hundred thousandeuros, but much more important than

the money is that they get a trophy.They are always very proud o it.

The whole thing is about culture. Wehave the innovation award and we havea development award, which is the same

procedure but or ideas in an early stage,where it will take three or our yearsbeore it will be sold to the customers,and we have several other awards. So

we really drive this culture, rom thedaily ideas improvement programmesto the big innovation contest, so thateverybody eels that this is something

very important or GEA. I youreally want to make it happen, i youwant to make sure that it is perceivedby the whole organisation as being

important, you have to do it in such away that every employee eels everyday that this is something important.

Do you think the role o the leader is more

to establish a culture as you have, rather

than to make specic directions?

Absolutely. I have a very rm beliethat youre managing a company well

i they dont need you any more. Theday the organisation doesnt need you,then you have done it perectly. I theorganisation needs you day by day,

then something is wrong. So I see mykey role in constantly assessing my topmanagers, talking to them, observingthem. I oten tell young high potentials

that when I go into meetings I cannot

judge the details o what theyre

discussing, nor do I understand aboutsome technical engineering details,

nor do I understand a lot o details

rom accounting, but what I really

ocus on is, when somebody presentsto me, to check whether he lives and

dies or what he is trying to convince

us, whether he really understands it,

whether he is inormed o all the detailsabout what hes doing, or whether

he is just repeating something that

he has heard rom somebody else.

I, as sometimes happens, a managercomes with bad news to a review

meeting, and i I have the eeling that

hes just reporting it and saying Well,

its bad luck, we have a deviation o

minus ve million, and some gures,then theres a Take it or leave it, thats

how it is eeling. On the other hand,

you have a manager who comes overwith the same ve million and almost

cries and is passionate that he didnt

make it, and you really eel that he hates

the situation he is in and he doesntwant to go through such a situation

again. I like that manager ten times

more than the rst one. I I eel that, i

they have bad news, that they personallysuer, and i they have good news,

that they enjoy it, having achieved

something great, thats a manager I like.But I also always say to our top

managers Focus on things that you

will remember or the rest o your lie.

I you achieve a high bonus thats nice

or you, but 20 years later when youtell stories to your grandchildren you

will never tell them that in the year

2010 you achieved a nice bonus. But

i you have made a new innovation,or i you have successully launched a

new manuacturing process in China,

or i you have made a nice acquisition,

or a much-needed and successulrestructuring, those could be things

which 20 years later you tell to your

children or grandchildren, or you tell

01 Jrg Oleas:Leadershi genetics.

02 The GEA Center inDsseldor, Germany.Youre managing

a company welli they dont needyou any more.

01

02


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next week to your riends. You willnever go and be proud and tell yourriends that ater ve years you got abig bonus, but i you have achievedsomething great which doesnt haveto be great volume-wise but it hasto have an impact in GEA, it has to

shape GEA then youre proud. Weconstantly discuss how top managersshould ocus on these things and noton detailed numbers and personalbonuses and these type o things.

Has anybody particularly infuenced your

approach to leadership?

Ive had good and bad examples obosses in my career. I learned romdierent bosses that so-called charismaand these type o things dont playa role. You can be a very good leader

even i youre very introverted andcalm and quiet. What is importantis it sounds simple but it is veryimportant that you do exactly whatyou say, that i you demand somethingrom people then you do it 130 percent yoursel. So i you demand some

behaviour rom your people, you haveto exaggerate with your own behaviour.

An example o this is compliance.We have o course very strict

regulations on compliance dontinvite customers out, dont give them

presents, dont accept presents, all

these things. But in order to make itclear that we really mean it, Im always

exaggerating. So i I am given even a

$2 pencil, I give it back. I never accept

a bottle o wine. Etcetera, etcetera. As

a top manager you have to exaggerate

when youre applying the standards

yoursel, in order to make sure that

the organisation does it 100 per cent.

We have developed leadership

standards or our organisation, all

o them equally important. Onesays that top managers have to have

the leadership gene, which we say

cannot be learned. You cannot train

somebody to like being number one

and to hate being number two. Either

he has that gene or he doesnt.

Number two is management skills.

This is something you can learn. Some

people are born with better genes and

some have to learn it more, but you

can learn it. How to delegate, how to

simpliy complex stu in order that

the organisation can digest it, howto run projects, how to be bottom-

line-driven or cash-fow-driven

all these things can be learnt.

When you go homeater work, ask yourselwhether you did somemicro-managementand nitty-gritty things,or whether you reallydid the things thatare important.

Number three is integrity dontdo to other people things that you

would not like them to do to you, even

though the temptation can be verybig. Be consistent and truthul in your

actions. It comes rom your parents,

it depends on how you have been

brought up, it is the infuence o your

amily in your childhood, which made

you this or that type o character.

The ourth thing is to be passionate

but not obsessed, because i you are too

passionate about certain things then

it becomes negative, and you become

obsessed, and when you becomeobsessed you tend to be blind to certain

things and all o a sudden, sometimes

without even knowing it, you start to

lter, to keep things out, because youre

so obsessed about certain things that

youre not open any more to accept

certain other realities and that can be

extremely dangerous or a manager.

Were currently discussing adding

a th one, which is creativity. I have

observed in my career that it is always

extremely good or a top manager

to be creative, not in terms o beingable to play the piano or paint nice

paintings, but to quickly nd solutions

or challenges, to nd options. I you

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THE AUTHOR

RICHARD [email protected]

Brass is a business andnance writer. He contributesto ublications worldwide,

including the FinancialTimesand The Times.

have a problem in ront o you, i thecompany aces a serious challenge

like, or example, the crisis in 2009,

then you have two ways to handle it.Either you have only one option and

you ollow that and i its the wrong

strategy then youre really dead, or you

have dierent options. To create options

means you have to be creative, to nd

several ways to solve the problem. That

is an ability that I have observed is

not given to everybody. Some people

have it and some people lack it, but or

the top manager its very important

because one o the tasks o a topmanager is to nd solutions every day.

We also give examples. You can see

in politics and history how dangerous

it is i a leader has the leadership gene

and the management know-how but

not a clean character. And there are

daily examples, not only in politics but

also in industry, where people have

the leadership gene but they become

obsessed, way beyond passionate, and

that can be extremely destructive.

By making such simple examples you

can explain it pretty simply to people.The higher you are in the

management levels, the more it

becomes about coaching, about having

01 The leadership gene

tp ng hv hv h hpgn, hh ynn n.

02 Management skillss pp nh gn n hv n , y nn .

03 Integritydn h pphng h y n

k h y.

04 Passionb pn n, y pn n hng hn ngv.

leadership standards

Jrg Oleas

a eeling or people, selecting the rightpeople, putting the right combination

together, because you can have two

excellent leaders that you know o,

but still the chemistry between them

sometimes doesnt work, and you have

to recognise that early enough in order

not to make a mistake, and try another

combination. You have these pieces on

the chessboard, and you know that this

one is like a knight and can move one

ahead and two to the let, and this one

can only move straight or diagonally,

and i you position them the right way,then the organisation is unbeatable.

Whats the most important piece o

advice you could give to another

manager about leadership?

Do things that youll remember

in ten or 20 years. Dont ocus on

the other things, as a top manager,

because they will spoil your mood,

take too much time and take you away

rom the big things which are really

important. When you go home ater

work, ask yoursel whether you didsome micro-management and nitty-

gritty things, or whether you really

did the things that are important.

01 Cooling towers being constructedat the RWE ower lant inGrevenbroich-Neurath, Germany.

02 Building a late heat exchangerat GEA pHE Systems in Sarstedt.

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When a philanthropic organisationfunds a new initiative, its often hardfor anyone involved to discern howthe project is working out, muchless improve it.Jeri Eckhart-Queenan andMatthew Fortibelieve that the rigour of corporate

performance measurement shouldalso be the standard in philanthropy.

As those who lead corporatephilanthropies and serve on boards

o non-governmental organisations

(NGOs) well know, measurement

is a hot topic these days. Funders

increasingly assess grantee results,

demanding to know what is being

achieved with their investment dollars.

And charities and NGOs increasingly

nd themselves measured, rated and

categorised based on their purported

eectiveness and eciency.

Yet one particularly valuable

orm o measurement is stillsorely underutilised. Perormance

measurement measuring the results

o initiatives in an ongoing way to learn

and improve is highly valued andwidely practised in the private sectorand even in parts o the public sector,but ew third-sector organisations(non-prots or NGOs) understandits benets, much less possess theknow-how to implement an eectiveperormance-measurement system.And unders, driven in part by a biasin the eld to use measurement asa tool to evaluate impact only at theend o an initiative, have not generallyencouraged grantees to engage inongoing perormance measurement,nor supported their eorts to do so.

Just as corporations do not waitor audited nancial statementsto manage protability, corporatephilanthropies and their granteesshould not wait or impact evaluationsto manage perormance. A well-runperormance measurement systemcan tangibly improve results or thepeople an organisation is trying tohelp or the cause it supports. It can

help leaders make better decisionsabout allocating scarce resources.It can support rapid innovation. Itcan also lower the cost o learning.

CASESTUDY

Ten ThOusand

sTrOng


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w g 10,000 Women, G s g , g l bs. 10,000 Women $100, -y y g j . t g

22 g i, c,bz, ng, tky, ag r. ey 70 g , 50 y x g. i kg j yg , g.

10,000 WOMEN,FIvE LESSONS

01Begin with the end in mindb kg y, g y y .w g, g y.

t q : g , , g g y k ? u g y g y , g yg. w yg y g, y g, g y f g y g k y .

w 10,000 Women, . a d h p,G h c egg,x, e g g qy , , . b , g g. s ky gg g g j.

sy, y : o y, 10,000

aFrican Fashion desiGn, laGos, niGeria.


TEN THOUSAND STRONG


22/25

Just as corporationsdo not wait oraudited nancial

statements to manageprotability, corporatephilanthropies and theirgrantees should not waitor impact evaluationsto manage perormance.

y g. F x, c -xg ( g) g y g c .

05Get better at measurement over timew x, g y . t g x , zg gy y .

10,000 Women y.d gy , y g ; gy y , it y y g y g.t g g y; y g , qy g . cy, g y , g y .

i g, c x. ag gd i, l Zz, c - y y qg , , . i g g , y c , qy, g y k g g ky y.

, g --kg. F x, g , (- ), ( ), - k qy g .t y f y, g g. m, qy , .

04Ensure that all contributors beneftrg g, x y . t g y g, , g g g. s y , - y .

i , - g y g y y k. t y, y y ,g , ,. m y k y , , y, y.

c i, 10,000 Women g g yg a,g y k ,y, y . i g , c fy g y .

a c Z ex db cg ( y p sy e)x, w y, k g yg y k . w g c y g k g . t, , y c k y

x j. bg (g , ) gg g. t y g y y, y k g g g.

02Anchor measurement in yourtheory o changew y , g k, h,xy, ? ag q g g y g yg g, ,g q g .

o y x g , , g y ( ), () ( ). i

j g; y g .

10,000 Women y g g , g xy yg . a m c G v, j g bz y,F d c, : w qky kg s [] . F x, y 90 s g k y 12. w k . t k qk j k , x g y.

03Create a culture o measurementh - g ? ty 10,000 Women g, . Make sure you have the commitment

of top leaders. G s y 10,000 Women y y kg . dg x kg .

Plan opportunities to review data,learn and improve. t


lEADERSHIP REPORT


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THE AUTHORS

JERI [email protected]

Eckhart-Queenan leads theBridgesan Grous global

develoment ractice.MATTHEW [email protected]

Forti is a Bridgesancase team leader.

Both serve on the rmserormance measurementsteering committee. To learnmore about the 10,000Womeninitiative, go towww2.goldmansachs.com/citizenshi/10000women/

Funders critical role

Funders can and should play a critical

and collaborative role in utilisingperormance measurement. They

can encourage grantees to get clearabout the impact they intend to createand to develop a rigorous theory o

change or getting there. Next, theycan provide grantees with the resources

they need to develop an internalmeasurement capacity, signalling a

recognition that measurement shouldoccur throughout a programmes

lie cycle, not only at the end.Funders can also create open

environments or grantees to sharetheir results, good or bad, in thespirit o mutual learning. They

can acilitate shared measurement

01 Custom shoe design andmanuacturing, Beijing, China.

02 packaging manuacturing,Hyderabad, India.

systems in which grantees delivering

similar activities and/or working with

similar beneciaries agree to sharemetrics, data systems or both.

Finally, corporate philanthropists,

well versed in the practice o

perormance measurement, can lend

their expertise and time, as well as

their unds, to help grantees build

and manage eective systems. As

Powell puts it, We decided at the

outset to make a strong investment in

measurement given how committed

we were to impact. Seeing how quickly

weve been able to learn and adjust really

validates this decision. With strongerprogrammes, the women leaders we

work with are creating more jobs and

greater change in their communities.

01

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TEN THOUSAND STRONG


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LEADERSHIP BOOKS

ESSENTIALREADINGIn the feld o leadership,as in other felds, there arethe good, the bad and theugly. Rob Goffeeshareshis choices o books thatexamine leaders andleadership rom all angles.

On Becoming a Leader:

The Leadership ClassicRevised and Updated

Warren Bennis

Leaders are always imortantto an organisation, eseciallyin uncertain and challengingtimes such as these. Bennisreminds us that the best leadersserve as anchors and guides.He has always asserted thatleaders are not born, but made.In this classic guide, aterdening the qualities o a goodleader, he oints out those whodemonstrate these qualities and

ollows with useul strategies oran asiring leader. He makes theoint that great leaders do notimose ideological constraintswhen roblem solving. Theyseek creative and thoughtulsolutions that address thecircumstances o each dicultroblem. Bennis advises boardmembers to listen careully tothe one who nds the courage toseak the truth he or she islikely to be the next leader. (304pages, Basic Books, 2009)

The LeadershipChallenge

James M Kouzes andBarry Z posner

In every organisation, there arethose eole who seem to emerge

as natural leaders. They makesuggestions, oint out areas oineciency and have vision. It isu to the leaders o organisationsto emower these trailblazers toseak u. This tye o leadershican be taught and emulated.Kouzes and posner oer a eldguide or anyone who ndshimsel in the osition o creatingeveryday heroes in the work lace.In short, management must buildcommunity, turn inormation intoknowledge and, most imortantly,rovide direction and suortduring uncertain times. Comanyleaders must be the video as wellas the audio or the messagethey want to broadcast to theiremloyees. Its not just a job;its a calling a leadershichallenge. (416 pages, JosseyBass, 4th edition 2008)

Organizational Cultureand Leadership

Edgar H Schein

Consider the ollowingsituations. How does theculture o hysicians who highlyvalue autonomy infuence

the discussion surroundinghealth care otions in society?What tye o leadershi doesan executive demonstratewho values returns orstockholders above all else?What questions arise when weconsider the cultural attitudeso scientists whose holy grailis innovation in the eld ogenetic engineering? Each othese examles highlights thereality that cultures do existwithin dierent roessionalworlds. Schein believes leadersneed to understand the cultural

assumtions grous bring toa discussion beore they canacilitate communication withinorganisations, esecially withinvery diverse multiculturalgrous. (464 pages, JosseyBass, 4th edition 2010)

Leadership

James Macgregor Burns

Burns roosed in thispulitzer prize-winning studyo leadershi that the mostimortant quality a leader can

ossess is the ability to insireothers to rise to the challengeo working or the greater good.He was the rst to introducethe concet o transormationalleadershi, the idea that thebest leaders are those whoinsire others to work togethertoward the achievement ohigher aims. This classic, rstublished in 1978, continues toinsire thinkers and students oleadershi. It should be requiredreading or anyone who hoesto lead any organisation. (544pages, HarperPerennial, 2010)

Leaders We Deserve

Alistair Mant

While James Macgregor Burnssees the good in leaders,Mant looks at the darker sideo leadershi. He asks whatroels some dubious ordangerous leaders to rise toositions o ower. In a Jungianexloration, he has createdarchetyes such as the mother-dominated entrereneur RonaldReagan and the religious zealot,the Ayotollah Khomenei. (256

pages, Wiley-Blackwell, 1985)

Men and Women of theCorporation

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

In this book, rst ublishedin 1977, Kanter looked at thecareers o those in cororationsand how they were shaed bythe distribution o ower in theorganisation. Not surrisingly,she discovered that only aminiscule number o womenheld ositions o leadershi.Kanter writes in the aterword

to this edition that, in the1990s, the cororate culturewas transormed and, out onecessity in an evolving globaleconomy, adoted fexibility inall areas o ersonnel. This newglobal vision oened doors orminorities as well as women.It is no longer a white mansworld, and the whole organisationbeneted rom this change inculture. (416 pages, Basic Books,revised edition 1993)

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02The Prince

Niccolo Machiavelli

Oten regarded as the rst trueleadershi book, The princeshocked its readers with itsroosals o ruthless action and

the suggestion that a leadersends justiy his means. Writtenin the early 1500s, at thetime Cesare Borgia, the DukeValentino (The prince) claimedower in eastern Italy, the bookencourages risk taking andambition. Machiavelli admiredand assisted Borgia in an erawhen the only way to ascend toower was to be born a rince.Eventually, he aid a high riceor his admiration; he wrotehis amous work while in exile.Machiavelli, a resected scholaro Italian history, also authoredThe Art o War. (260 pages,Capstone, 2010)

A Journey

Tony Blair

This engaging account o TonyBlairs tenure as prime Ministeroens with his conession that,beore being elected to thehighest oce in the land, hehad never held any osition ingovernment. He came to oceas the victorious leader o theLabour party ater Labour hadlost our elections in a row. Blair

suddenly saw himsel as theerson who was the owner othe resonsibility, the ersonnot exlaining why things werewrong but taking the decisionsto ut them right. He was theman in charge while, he admits,he knew nothing about howgovernment really worked. (736pages, Hutchinson, 2011)

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THE AUTHOR

ROB [email protected]

Goee is proessor oOrganisational Behaviourat London Business School.

Tao Te Ching

Lao-Tzu

Tao Te Chingis a guide to virtue,understanding, humility and,ultimately, eace. This classicby Chinese hilosoher Lao

Tzu was rst ublished in thispenguin Books translation in1963. Since then it has heledWesterners areciate how yinand yang the olar orces onature are interconnectedand interdeendent. The twooles are comlementary andin constant motion, interactingwith a whole system. Lao Tzuinstructs students to surrenderto the fow, because to resist it isutile. (96 pages, Penguin, 2009)

A Long Walk to Freedom:An Autobiography ofNelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

As one o only a ew black Aricanlawyers, Mandela writes that

he did not seek a lie in ublicservice: instead, he accetedthe calling o a struggle againstthe aartheid governmento South Arica. This act obravery resulted in 27 years oimrisonment, the loss o twomarriages and searation romhis amily. Yet, his generous siritendured. It is an insiring storyo the belie in ones country andthe ower o servant leadershi.(748 pages, Abacus, 1995)

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ESSENTIAl READING

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