A truly great leader can flex his leadership style to meet organizational demands.
These examples help you understand why.
by John Dyer for IndustryWeek
A truly great leader can “flex” from post to post on the Leadership Spectrum (see below) depending on the current need to help the organization achieve greatness. This is a rare ability that only a select few are able to master. In fact, if a company discovers leaders in their midst who can demonstrate success at each of the posts (and knows when it is appropriate to move to a different post), the CEO/owner/organization president would be wise to do everything they can to mentor, coach and promote these folks if they want to achieve greatness. However, what about the leaders who are successful at a specific post but find it difficult to shift their approach to other parts of the spectrum?
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to speak with several company executives about the people they have tasked with leading their improvement efforts. They shared with me that the Leadership Spectrum diagram helped them to better understand why some of the leaders in their organizations might be struggling. In each case, the employee being discussed was considered to be an exceptional leader when utilizing a specific style (but unable to flex), yet they were struggling to successfully change the culture so lean and Six Sigma could flourish. Some of the scenarios discussed include:
- A Post 4 leader hired into a Post 1 organization – A successful leader was hired from a company that had a team-based, improvement-focused culture for many years (Post 4). This person was brought on board to infuse the same culture in an organization that had struggled to make any significant change for the past decade. The organization had been led (somewhat successfully) by a dictator (Post 1) and the employees were comfortable doing what they were told to do. In fact, when the previous leader gave them a task, the employees took great pride in getting the job done as quickly as possible. However, change was slow and they were still using old, out-of-date technologies and obsolete, poorly defined processes that caused costs and quality issues to trend in the wrong direction. The new Post 4 leader immediately started setting up teams and asked the employees to take more responsibility for resolving quality and delivery issues. Since trust had not been established, the employees had no training in how to improve processes, and fear of failure hung heavy in the air, the resistance to change prevented any meaningful improvements from occurring. After 18 months of constant battles with the employees, the new leader decided to resign, a Post 1 dictator was hired, and the organization went back to the old way of doing things. Continue Reading….
