From the category archives:

Leadership

Is Leadership About Nature or Nurture?

by Daria Steigman on June 25, 2009

Do you have what it takes to be a leader? And is this even the right question to ask?

John Ryan, president of the Center for Creative Leadership and a former superintentent of the U.S. Naval Academy, has a great column in Business Week that posits that leadership has as much to do with environment as it does with innate abilities. He writes:

If you live in a culture where your colleagues believe you can be a leader and help you develop the skills you need, you will enthusiastically embrace the mantle of leadership… [R]egardless of your occupation, you will view yourself as a leader at home, at work, and in your community. But if you live in a culture that assumes leadership is not for everyone, is dependent on whether you have innate leadership skills, and that leadership is defined by your job title rather than your actions, you will have an entirely different view.

With this concept in mind, Ryan then suggests that organizations need to look at how they manage employees and whether their corporate culture permits risktaking.

This is interesting stuff, not least because of its implications for entrepreneurship. If we applied Ryan’s model to the typical entrepreneur, would we find a similar mindset?

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Wal-Mart Vice-Chair on the Crux of Leadership

by Daria Steigman on May 26, 2009

Great interview with Wal-Mart Vice Chair Eduardo Castro-Wright about leadership and what they don’t teach you in business school. The crux of leadership: trust. Leadership is “about being able to get people to go to places they never thought they could go,” he said in an interview with the New York Times.

Other highlights:

  • “You can accomplish almost anything in life if you do not care who takes credit for it. So I’ve tried to do more of that. And I’ve tried to do less of the things that make business more complex. I really like simplicity.”
  • “I think that business schools could do more to prepare kids to deal with the often more difficult side of business management and leadership. The balance of courses is probably weighted to the numeric side of business as opposed to the people side of business.”
  • “I honestly believe … that cultural differences, which are so often touted as the rationale for making decisions in business, are grossly overrated, and that human behavior really doesn’t have a language. It’s pretty much the same everywhere.”

And my personal favorite, in response to how people make business more complicated than it is: “I think that all of us read far too many business books…We have a very clear view of what we do for consumers around the world. And we can describe our complete strategy in 10 words.”

Read the entire interview here.

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Fresh Voices, Outside Perspective (aka: What Every Business Can Use)

by Daria Steigman on May 6, 2009

It’s never a good idea to get too caught up in our great ideas, inventions, and innovations. Ask Tropicana, the most recent brand to get wrapped up in its righteousness without stopping to take the pulse of its community.

Businesses need fresh voices and outside perspectives. And not just from outside, but from the inside out. Including the membership of their boards.

As I talked about here, there are some really good reasons why solopreneurs and small business owners should consider serving on boards. But there’s also a reason why corporate boards should be looking at entrepreneurs and small business people. We’ve typically done it all, from strategic direction to sales to marketing to finance and so on.

I’ve always wanted to serve on a corporate board. But how to get noticed? I haven’t cracked that code yet, but here’s a great post on the Washington Post Leadership Blog that talks about financial fluency and other skills you need to bring to the table.

Any suggestions?

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Six Reasons Why You Should Serve on a Board

by Daria Steigman on May 4, 2009

I love boards. Not sawed lumber, though I imagine that comes in handy if you need to build shelter from the rain. But those management structures that are designed to provide guidance, oversight, and strategic direction to an organization.

I believe that all solopreneurs and small business owners should get some kind of board experience. I’ve served on (and ran) both my 270-unit condominium association board and that of the rather-large IABC chapter in the Baltimore-Washington region. I’m now serving on a business advisory board for a student-run group that initiates and implements micro-development projects in Washington, D.C.

The best boards are run like businesses; and, like any business, they offer an opportunity to gain valuable skills. Boards also challenge us to test our limits and reach beyond our comfort zones.

So here are six big benefits I gained from serving on boards:

  1. Financial management skills, including building and managing million-dollar-plus annual budgets.
  2. Contracting, including bidding out large projects.
  3. Personnel management, including hiring and firing, and dealing with a sexual harassment claim.
  4. Project management (large-scale construction and renovation projects).
  5. Teamwork, including learning how to build consensus.
  6. Leadership.

Next post I’ll talk about my secret board desires. But now I’d like to ask you: What have I left out? What skills and insights have you gained from serving on a board?

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Will Firing GM’s CEO Force Change?

by Daria Steigman on April 1, 2009

Did GM’s CEO have to go?

There’s been a lot of discussion about the government’s move to replace Rick Wagoner as a precursor to any wholesale restructuring by the troubled automaker. My own opinion: He had to go. Reinventing a business is hard work, and it typically requires a leader who comes from outside and is prepared to make the tough decisions. Despite being one federal bailout away from bankruptcy, Wagoner and his team were 1) slow to recognize they had a big problem, and 2) unable to come up with a plan for moving forward.

Wagoner’s departure has also generated a lot of discussion about leadership, what it means and what it takes to be successful in the business world. The Washington Post asked a panel of academics, ex-politicians, and one labor leader to weigh in on the question: Is removing the top leader the best way to signal that dramatic change is imminent and inevitable?

Here’s a sample of what they had to say:

Noel Tichy–”Wagoner failed to make the judgment calls on people, strategy or in the crisis… The real challenge will be to find a transformational leader from outside GM. Otherwise, we will simply be getting a cultural clone.”

Paul Portney–”When things go even moderately well, it has been a handful of people…who benefited the most… Simple fairness requires, then, that when things go wrong, the responsibility ought to be borne by that same group of people.”

Andy Stern–”Accountability, sharing in the pain and gain, is a tried and true American value.”

Mickey Edwards–”Sometimes the problem is not with the failure of leadership at the top, but a failure of responsible leadership by those who undertake it to bring about a change… [Firing Wagoner will] send a message but it won’t immediately transform the assembly lines or panic suppliers and unions into concessions they don’t believe to be in their best interests or sustainable.”

Warren Bennis–”This isn’t like firing a coach after one bad season. This is the top leader who’s been losing every season of this decade.”

Read all their opinions here. Then come back and tell me what you think.

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