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.
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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