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Values-based leadership

Guest post by: Terry Lee

Article Overview: Dr. Terry Lee is Director of Leadership Psychology Australia, an international consulting group integrating psychology with their research into transformational leadership to produce high performance cultures and strategies. They work with global companies including Cisco Systems, Honda, Fuji Xerox, Fosters, CSL and Wesfarmers. Terry was formerly the head of the leader group at Mt.Eliza Business School in Australia. For further detail see their website:leadership.com.au

Values-based leadership

Values-Based Leadership

Values are at the core of an organisation’s culture and its leadership is the expression of that culture and its embedded values. Ideally, an organisation will clearly identify the values that best reflect the way it operates, the way it makes decisions and the way it relates to people. In other words it will delineate the values that lie at the core of its operations, its structure, its relationships. In this sense the values are at the heart of what gives a place its special feel, and these then are the basis of its particular culture.

For an organisation to be coherent, there needs to be a shared understanding of what these values are and what they look like in actual behaviour. Ideally it means that there is an acceptance that people can, and want, to be held accountable for the way they live out the values. Living the values is the key because there is widespread recognition now that the consistent, authentic expression of these values will determine the extent to which the business will be able to realise its business strategy.

The leadership team, and the senior leaders, are critical in this regard because they collectively and individually show the way. They take the lead by the way they model the behaviour and demonstrate their commitment to the strategy. The key point is that for a strategy to be successful, it needs to be implemented in a disciplined and rigorous manner throughout the organisation by everyone. The behaviour of the senior leaders is a powerful example that eventually flows down throughout the entire organisation

For these leaders to take the lead in living the values, they need to:-

• Have open minds
• Understand the relationship between values, culture and strategy
• Make the commitment as a group to walk the talk
• Enact the values at meetings and in their daily work
• Provide feedback to each other and be mutually accountable
• Develop skills in communication, discussion and dialogue
• Confront problem issues and do so in a way that is consistent with the stated values

In other words, the leaders need to be skilled in interpersonal processes and in small group facilitation. This calls for astuteness and emotional intelligence and a recognition that in the future organisations will have to become places where people shine and where they work together to share their knowledge and expertise. This will be important because in a world where our people are our competitive advantage and our intellectual capital is our real worth as a business, then creating an organisation that is good for people will simply be good business.

And what does this mean for an individual as a leader?

It raises a number of issues about the organisation of the future and the context within which leadership will be enacted. Whilst the senior leadership team is critical to the development of strategy and to the development of an enabling culture which will deliver the strategy, there is increased awareness today of the necessity, in a general sense, to spread leadership throughout all levels and branches of the organisation. The best in the world are the best at building leadership in all of their people. They excel at dispersing leadership so that all members especially those in direct contact with customers act like leaders. Leadership now means less giving orders and more using one’s initiative to make decisions and take actions which move the organisation in the direction of its vision.

To accomplish this, leaders will need more skill than ever before and the ability to act in ways that in the past would have seemed contradictory. In the new organisation the uncertain will become common experience, the paradoxical will be common sense and the supremacy of knowledge will become common wisdom.

Yet in one sense there is nothing common about these ideas other that that they are about to become commonplace. They require sophisticated leadership skills, which go to the core of the leader. They involve as much of the “who” of the leader as the “what” he or she does. They will rest on a foundation of trust and will be dependent upon the leader’s ability to influence people and to influence the development of culture.

With the levels of turbulence that are anticipated in the coming business environment, organisations will need the strategic and structural agility to seize an opportunity or to respond rapidly to changed circumstances. To be fleet of foot and possess strategic readiness will be a fundamental requirement for survival. The structure and indeed the strategy may be relatively easy to change but the real agility may well be required in the culture, in the people side of the business and change in this area cannot be directed it can only be influenced.

Until the 1980’s the leader would build for endurance, putting in place structures and systems that delivered certainty and consistency. Programs were implemented to improve effectiveness through better targeting and efficiency was tackled in a gradual, incremental way. These approaches were cautious and often created cultures which were strong and durable yet highly resistant to change. In this environment a managerial style or directive leadership approach was considered highly desirable.

As the pace of change accelerated into the 1990’s, organisations tried to move to more charismatic leadership styles, which sought increased effort through vision inspired motivation of people. Much of this tried to over-ride culture and did not fully comprehend the depth of cultural resistance to change. Some organisations sought turnaround leaders who were specialists in “trimming the fat” and who in turn bred cynicism and mistrust within the culture with too little time to adjust.

The legacy as we enter the new millennium is a greater appreciation of the role of culture in change and the importance of individual discretionary effort in genuine high performance. Whilst all organisations globally are looking for transformational change, there is recognition that the only way to achieve significant change and sustainable high performance will be through real organisational transformation generated by leaders who can influence people and cultures. It will be breakthrough leaders, leaders who are skilled in the process of mindset change, who will truly lift human performance, as they remove the barriers to human growth and potential. The real blockers to human potential, once those of structure and culture are removed, are the blockers in the mind.

The characteristics of such leaders are:-

Intellectual flexibility and heightened learning ability
The greatest danger for leaders is believing that only they know the answers. The myth of indispensability and a rigid mindset is the path of the dinosaur and a quick road to obsolescence. It is essential that during periods of rapid change that leaders are open to new ideas and can challenge, anticipate, learn and adapt.

Emotional maturity
The leader needs to be aware of his/her own emotions, their changes, their intensity and how they are influencing perceptions and decision-making on a day to day, moment to moment basis. The leader needs emotional control and also the empathic skills to monitor the emotions in others. Being at the mercy of rampaging emotions is another way to lose influence and to lose respect.

Judgement
Leadership has always required good decision-making. In the past it could be data based and rational processes were valued. Whilst rational processes are still important, it is increasingly important for leaders to have a kind of informed intuition”. Strategic leaders now need to be able to make decisions without all of the information they would once have required. Action has to be taken in the absence of certainty and in the knowledge that objectives, targets and strategic imperatives can be quickly superseded.



Integrity
Now more than ever the character of the leader is paramount. With dispersed authority in flatter organisations and with the need for workers to share their knowledge and learnings, trust is indeed the oil of operations. Leaders generate trust and the extent to which they generate that trust will determine the extent of knowledge sharing. Walking the talk can no longer be just rhetoric and leaders will increasingly be the mentors and cultural indicators of the organisation.

Political savvy
Leaders need to be masters of power and influence and be able to use both in working with and meeting the needs of a range of external and internal stakeholders. They need to access the grapevine and the formal channels so that they can build coalitions of support and so that they can get a good barometer on the changing mood of the organisation. They also need to highly skilled communicators who can enlist and engage, act on advice and remove impediments to strategic performance.

Optimism
Managers in the past were more inclined towards pessimism, to look for downsides, for reason why things wouldn’t work. These “black hats” as Edward De Bono would term them have now been joined by the yellow hats of optimism, looking for opportunities and possibilities. The leader today is more likely to have a “yes” in the heart rather than a “no”, but has the flexibility to use both as required. Where the risks are low, the optimist gives the go ahead, where the dangers are great the pessimist proceeds with caution.

Passion
Leaders are passionate about a cause and are able to inspire people to great efforts in pursuit of a noble purpose. They are in this way able to generate the levels of energy required to overcome the inertia of habit and past practice and produce real change. Leaders are enthusiastic and energetic and are able to self motivate even during the most demanding times. They place high priority on the mental, spiritual and physical fitness required to perform consistently at high levels.

It is clear that there is no script for certainty, no defined roadmap for the future, no simple prescription. It is likely that leaders will need a range of tools to navigate the uncharted and turbulent waters that lie ahead. They will need them in their toolkits not only for the sake of their own careers, but also to build the strategic, structural and cultural agility their organisations will need for the future. The ability of leaders to influence people and cultures will be the key. Central to this will be the leader’s personal style and the way they communicate and model the vision, values and purpose of the organisations in which they work.

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