Reflections on leadership: performing at our best

Tera Allas@TeraPauliina

Director General, Strategic Advice, BIS

Leading with purposeJanuary 2014

2

Today’s discussion

• What is “leadership” and why is it important?

• What type of leaders perform the best?

• What skills do leaders need?

- Prioritisation- Influencing- Self-awareness- Resilience

• What are the challenges and what to do about it?

3

By definition, real leaders have followersCoercive leadership:“What can you do for me?”

Enabling leadership:“What can I do for you?”

Leader as

“tyrant”

Co

mm

and

Co

ntro

lD

irec

tio

n Su

pp

ort

Which model do you think

will have more followers?

Leader as “servant”

What do you think is the dominant

emotion in each?

4

Good leadership makes a huge differenceEmployees’ mental state as a function of capabilities and challenges

Source: Novak & Hoffman 1997, “Measuring the flow experience among web users”

Level of capability

Lev

el o

f ch

alle

ng

e

Optimal

perform

ance (“flo

w”)

Boredom and disengagement

Anxiety andburn-out

Apathy

The leader’s role is to help teams perform “optimally” in the current moment and to build capability for the

future

Companies in the top 100 “great places to work” outperformed the stock market by 2.3-3.8% p.a.

* http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2054066

5

Today’s discussion

• What is “leadership” and why is it important?

• What type of leaders perform the best?

• What skills do leaders need?

- Prioritisation- Influencing- Self-awareness- Resilience

• What are the challenges and what to do about it?

6

One check list summarises the 7 “C”s

The 7 “C”s•Clarity•Commitment•Courage•Confidence•Competence•Compassion•Curiosity

Characteristics of effective leaders: one check-list

7

Effective leaders make long-term choices

16

19

12

16

17

13

9

20

12

13

14

30

Setting direction and strategy

Making operational decisions

Reviewing organisation'sperformance

Managing stakeholders

Managing and motivatingpeople

Managing short-term issues

Effective timeoptimisers

Ineffective timeoptimisers

Average % of executive time spent on different activities

Sou

rce:

McK

inse

y re

sear

ch in

ass

ocia

tion

with

Pro

fess

or R

ober

t Kap

lan,

20

12: “

How

sen

ior

exec

utiv

es c

an u

ser

thei

r tim

e m

ore

effe

ctiv

ely”

8

Today’s discussion

• What is “leadership” and why is it important?

• What type of leaders perform the best?

• What skills do leaders need?

- Prioritisation- Influencing- Self-awareness- Resilience

• What are the challenges and what to do about it?

9

BIS staff are telling us they need better prioritisation support from their leaders

Quotes and input from staff on prioritisation

“Prioritisation is hard but that’s not an excuse to

dodge it”; “We need to be honest about constraints”

SCS Awayday

“Could management please decide the priorities and stick to them for more

than a day?!?!”

ESBR Pulse Survey

“To prioritise, we need permission for risk taking

and saying ‘no’ without negative consequences”

G6/G7 events

“We need to match resources with demand”; “Prioritisation should be

led from the top”

Conversations

51% of BIS (vs. 65% for High Perf. CS orgs)

agreed* with: “I have an acceptable workload”

People Survey 2011

* Sum of “Agree” and “Strongly agree” responses

10

Actions speak louder than wordsPrioritisation by Dilbert

11

Rational argument is one way to influenceList of different influencing tactics

11

• Appealing to friendship (asking for help)

• Socialising

• Consulting

• Appealing to values

• Modelling

• Alliance building

• Exchanging (trading/negotiating)

• Legitimizing (using authority)

• Stating (making a direct request)

• Logical persuading

Source: Interpersonal and Interactive Skills, McKinsey & Company, Inc.

Are we over-relianton the intellectualinfluencing tactics?

12

Self-awareness helps hone your impactItention – Action – Impact: self-observation over time helps get this right

Intention Action Impact

Example 1

Help team member improve his/her

presentation skills

Provide detailed unsolicited feedback on how he/she could have done better

Team member loses confidence and motivation to improve

Example 2 Ask the team member how they thought the audience reacted to his/her presentation

Team member reflects on own performance, may ask for advice

Critical to have trusted sources of constant feedback for yourself

13

Research points to 5 sources of resilienceTypes of emotional intelligence are key to long-term successful leadership

Source: Centered Leadership, McKinsey & Company, Inc.

14

Today’s discussion

• What is “leadership” and why is it important?

• What type of leaders perform the best?

• What skills do leaders need?

- Prioritisation- Influencing- Self-awareness- Resilience

• What are the challenges and what to do about it?

15

Shaping your role can be key to successSources of positive and negative energy at work

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1633319.Managing_Your_Self