Issue 8

Leadership developmentOctober 2011

APS Human Capital Matters: Leadership DevelopmentOctober 2011, Issue 8

Editor’s note to readersWelcome to the eighth edition of Human Capital Matters—the digest for time poor leaders and practitioners with an interest in human capital and organisational capability. This edition focuses on Leadership Development.

Enhancing the skills and performance of leaders has been the focus of public service reform over many years. The renewed focus on public sector leadership across developed countries is in response to the demands of an increasingly complex, fast-paced environment and in recognition that senior public servants are at a critical juncture between strategy making and strategy execution in government. The APS Reform Blueprint also recognises that improving government performance, agility and efficiency rests partly on the quality and capacity of public service leaders, thereby placing particular weight on the importance of developing the capabilities of APS leaders.

Leadership and leadership development is the subject of a significant and varied body of research and literature—from early models of leadership which focused on studying the individual leader and their characteristics to a greater focus on the leader in their context and the relationship between leaders, their peers, followers and culture. Much of the contemporary leadership development literature focuses, not on teaching leaders skills, but on helping leaders to learn through their experiences and relationships, in addition to classroom-based learning.

The Australian Public Service Commission’s Strategic Centre for Leadership, Learning and Development has been established to take a strategic and coordinated approach to developing leadership capability across the APS. In April 2011, the Secretaries Board was briefed on and agreed to support ongoing funding for the implementation of the APS Leadership Development Strategy. Implementation of the strategy will help build leader capability in the context of both enduring requirements on senior public servants and increasingly complex challenges and heightened citizen expectations.

The APS Leadership Development Strategy has drawn heavily on a combination of extensive consultation across the APS and a review of contemporary practice and research. A number of the key documents used to inform the strategy have been included in this edition of Human Capital Matters. These articles deliberately do not enter into discussions on defining leadership or debating whether it is born or made; rather they focus on the development of leaders through the exploration of three key questions:

What is the nature of leadership for a changing world? What capabilities do leaders need in this evolving context? How do we best develop these capabilities for individuals and organisations?

About Human Capital MattersHuman Capital Matters seeks to provide APS leaders and practitioners with easy access to the issues of contemporary importance in public and private sector human capital and organisational

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capability. It has been designed to provide interested readers with a monthly guide to the national and international ideas that are shaping human capital thinking and practice.1

Comments and suggestions welcomeThank you to those who took the time to provide feedback on earlier editions of Human Capital Matters. Comments, suggestions or questions regarding this publication are always welcome and should be addressed to: humancapitalmatters@apsc.gov.au. Readers can also subscribe to the mailing list through this email address.

Bernard M. Bass and Ronald E. Riggio, ‘Transformational Leadership’, 2nd ed., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey, 2006.The authors provide a clear understanding of transformational leadership and review the sizeable body of research that the transformational leadership model has stimulated in a relatively short period of time. They attribute the burgeoning interest in transformational leadership to its emphasis on intrinsic motivation and the positive experience of its adherents, many of whom find it a more appealing approach than the social exchange process of transactional leadership. Transactional leaders, in a definition made popular by James MacGregor Burns in 1978, lead through social exchange; for example, business leaders promise financial rewards in exchange for high-level performance. Transformational leaders, in contrast, inspire their employees to achieve what are often extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity. Transformational leaders also help potential leaders to grow into the leadership role and elicit high-order performance from their employees.

The book analyses transformational leadership within the broader context of the Full Range of Leadership (FRL) model. The latter includes transformational leadership as the most effective, or optimal, level of leadership, with transactional leadership (based on rewards and disciplinary actions) as the mid-level, and laissez-faire leadership serving as the basis for the ineffective, or suboptimal, level. It contains 15 chapters. Chapter 1 (Introduction) defines the key concepts used throughout the volume. The second chapter examines the structure and measurement of transformational leadership and the FRL model. It also includes analysis of tools used to measure transformational leadership, chiefly the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). Chapter 3 looks at the contribution made by transformational leadership to employee commitment, involvement, loyalty, and work satisfaction. The fourth chapter reviews research on the link between transformational leadership and performance.

Chapter 5 explores the ways in which transformational leadership helps employees to cope with stress during crises, emergencies and other extreme situations such as natural disasters. The sixth chapter examines how contingencies—sudden changes in the external operating environment, for instance—can influence the effectiveness of transformational leadership. Chapter 7 explains how organisational cultures can be described and understood in terms of both their transformational and transactional qualities—transformational cultures appear to be more adaptive (the chapter also explores how such leadership is influenced by the wider culture of the nation, territory, or region). The eighth chapter assesses the large and growing literature on transformational leadership and gender; women leaders, for example, tend to be more transformational than men. Chapter 9 explores the implications of transformational leadership for the organisation’s image,

1 Regular readers will note that this is the first issue of Human Capital Matters in which monographs germane to the development of the subject are being reviewed. The books are Bernard M. Bass and Ronald E. Riggio, Transformational Leadership (2nd ed., 2006) and Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (eds), Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice (2010).

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policies, and strategic planning as well as its impact on recruitment, selection, promotion, personnel development, and management education. The tenth chapter looks at the issues surrounding the development of transformational leaders, as influenced by data, counselling and feedback, and as generated by formal training programs based on the FRL model.

Chapter 11 reviews research into the correlates and predictors of transformational leadership, for example, the influence of traits and beliefs. The twelfth chapter examines the influence on leadership behaviour in all sectors of status, rank or means of acquiring a leadership position. Chapter 13 discusses the role and importance of transformational leadership in empowering more junior employees to perform better. The fourteenth chapter considers whether or not there could be effective substitutes for transformational leadership—in shared or team models, for instance. The final chapter proposes areas for future research in transformational leadership.

As a typology of leadership behaviour, the transformational approach is in general better suited to 21st century needs because managers are required, in an age of globalisation, innovation and competition, to transform organisations in non-traditional ways—among them carrying employees with them in their attempts to drive capability improvement or increase profits (or both). But transactional leadership approaches still have a role to play in generating high performance in sections of the workplace where high-order results are necessary in achieving efficiency and effectiveness. A function for both seems assured, but, as the authors are at pains to emphasise, within an environment in which leaders engage in ‘authentic’ transformational leadership. This leadership approach has at its centre a genuine concern to forge approaches characterised by qualities such as trust, which themselves can generate ‘inspirational motivation’ in employees. The authors also conclude (Chapter 10, pp. 142–167) that the elements of transformational leadership can be taught, developed and learned. This book, first published in 1998, is a well-written and comprehensive survey-analysis of the subject and one likely to be of value to scholars and practitioners as well as the reader looking for a scholarly but not intimidating examination of traditional leadership.

Bernard M. Bass is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus based at the Centre for Leadership Studies at Binghamton University in upstate New York, and Professor Ronald E. Riggo is based at the Kravis Leadership Institute, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California.

John Benington and Jean Hartley, ‘“Whole Systems Go!” Improving Leadership Across the Whole Public Service System’, National School of Government, Sunningdale Institute, Ascot, UK, 2009 (Report), 33pp. This report was commissioned by Britain’s National School of Government and the Public Service Leaders Alliance (now known as Public Service Leadership). It addresses the question: ‘What would it take to create more effective leadership of the whole governmental and public service system?’ The authors argue that today’s challenging economic times are propitious for considering this question. However, economic challenges are not the only catalyst for change. The world is in the throes of a far-reaching geopolitical transformation which requires a radical re-design of key elements of public sector capability, including leadership development. The authors base their analysis and recommendations for improvement on research by the University of Warwick Business School and set these out in seven propositions for reform:

Proposition 1: The need for new paradigms of governance as a complex adaptive system and new practices of political, managerial and civil leadership across the whole public service system.

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Proposition 2: The necessity for new patterns of ‘adaptive leadership’ to tackle tough, complex, cross-cutting problems in the community, where there may be no clear consensus about either the causes or the solutions to the problems.

Proposition 3: Whole systems thinking and action which includes the capacity to analyse and understand the inter-connections, inter-dependencies and inter-actions between complex issues, across multiple boundaries—between different sectors, services and levels of government.

Proposition 4: Leadership development programs need to join up in order to address whole system challenges, with the Centre supporting this through new organisational and financial architecture.

Proposition 5: Leadership development programs must translate individual learning into organisational and inter-organisational action and improvement—an approach which would require completely different starting points from traditional leadership development programs.

Proposition 6: Strengthening leadership skills and capabilities for working across the whole public service system will necessitate radical innovations in practice (e.g. fast-track graduate entry, mid-career movement innovation, the establishment of corporate leadership top teams).

Proposition 7: The above commitments to action-oriented leadership development across the whole public service system need to be counter-balanced by an equally strong commitment to ongoing analysis of the changing context and serious reflection on developments in leadership practice—both positive and negative.

At the time of writing, Professors John Benington and Jean Hartley were Fellows of the Sunningdale Institute, the National School of Government’s high-level public policy research facility, based at Sunningdale Park near London.

Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow, ‘The Theory Behind the Practice’, (Chapter 2 of their book), ‘The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organisation and the World’, pp. 13–41, Harvard Business Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 2009 The chapter explores the concept of ‘adaptive leadership’, which is defined as ‘the practice of mobilising people to tackle tough challenges and thrive’ (p. 14). It rests on a number of assertions about the key elements of adaptive leadership. These include several drawn from the field of evolutionary biology. For example, successful adaptive change builds on the past rather than jettisoning it; organisational adaptation occurs through experimentation; adaptation relies on diversity; and adaptation takes time. Among the principal arguments of the paper is that the most common cause of failure in leadership derives from treating adaptive challenges as if they were technical problems. What is the difference and why does failure ensue from this misdiagnosis? Technical problems, however complex, can be resolved through the application of authoritative expertise and the organisation’s current structures, procedures and ways of doing things. Adaptive challenges can only be addressed through changes in people’s priorities, beliefs, habits and loyalties.

In order to drive adaptive change effectively, a leader must be able to provide 1) direction; 2) protection; and 3) order to his/her organisation and employees. These are the key prerequisites for successful adaptive leadership. The contrast between the narrower technical problems approach and the more ambitious adaptive leadership one is reflected clearly in Figure 2.3 (p. 28).

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Direction Technical—Provide problem definition and solution; Adaptive—Identify the adaptive challenge, and frame key questions and issues.

Protection Technical—Protect from external threats; Adaptive—Disclose external threats.

Order Technical—Orientation: Orient people to current roles; Adaptive—Disorient current roles, and resist orienting people to new roles too quickly

Conflict: Technical—Restore order; Adaptive—expose conflict or let it emerge. Norms: Technical—Maintain norms; Adaptive—Challenge norms or let them be

challenged.

The authors acknowledge that technical and adaptive challenges often have common elements; they are not always easily distinguishable—most challenges are mixed with technical and adaptive elements being intertwined. However, they stress the need for a strong commitment to addressing problems in pursuing an adaptive strategy and flexibility to change tack when such a strategy is clearly failing.

Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky are co-founders and Principals of Cambridge Leadership Associates (based near Cambridge, Massachusetts). Alexander Grashow is a Director of Consulting Practice at Cambridge Leadership Associates.

Manfred Kets de Vries and Konstantin Korotov, ‘Creating Transformational Executive Education Programs’, INSEAD Business School (Faculty and Research Working Paper, No. 38), 2007, 31pp http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=2760The authors discuss the design of transformation executive learning/development programs. They draw extensively on their experience as teachers and consultants in doing so. A transformational program presupposes a change in the participant’s behaviour which produces personal or organisational benefits (or both). In order to understand the transformational process they posit three triangular conceptual frameworks: 1) the mental life triangle; 2) the conflict triangle; and 3) the relationships triangle. The first shows that cognitive and emotional processes need to be taken into consideration in order to create changes in behaviour. The second triangle describes the sources of thoughts and feelings that may produce anxiety and cause defensive reactions which prohibit change and productive use of talents. The final triangle explains how a person’s previous experiences create patterns of response that are repeated throughout life and can become dysfunctional.

The paper also outlines five major challenges in designing executive learning/development programs: 1) selecting participants; 2) identifying the focal issue on which participants need to work; 3) the creation of a safe transitional space that facilitates the change process; 4) utilising the group dynamic to foster transformation and internalisation of change; and 5) addressing

the educational implications for educators and facilitators. The authors also identify possible areas for future research, for example, the effect of courses on executives’ identity and behaviour as they return to their organisations. In addition, the writers describe (pp. 26–28) the workings of their ‘Laboratory for Executive Change’ initiative, a once-yearly event which 20 very senior executives from around the world attend to better equip them to deal with their most pressing individual and workplace challenges (it consists of three five-day periods with intervals of approximately seven weeks between each one, and a final three-day module six months later).

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Professor Manfred Kets de Vries is Director of the Global Leadership Centre at the INSEAD Business School, Fontainebleau, France. Konstantin Korotov is Assistant Professor, European School of Management and Technology, Berlin.

Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, ‘Advancing Leadership Theory and Practice’, Chapter 1 of Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana (eds), ‘Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice’, Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts, 2010, pp. 3–27. This wide-ranging book has been written to fill a major gap in leadership publishing, teaching and analysis—‘to stimulate serious scholarly research on leadership’ (p. 3).The editors argue that, notwithstanding the myriad of books and articles written about leadership theory and practice in the broader marketplace, there is a dearth of rigorous research, journal articles and doctoral programs dealing with leadership as a discipline. This publication, based on the Harvard Business School Centennial Colloquium, ‘Leadership: Advancing an Intellectual Discipline’ (2008), is designed to assist in framing an agenda for future research by bringing together contributions by eminent scholars in fields as varied as economics, sociology, history and international relations.

The volume explores leadership comprehensively and from many directions, among them its development as a discipline, the areas leadership research most needs to address if it is to develop as a well-grounded subject, the fostering of individual leaders and the most critical challenges facing today’s leaders. Any review of a book of this length (822 pp) must perforce be selective; accordingly, it is proposed to examine a number of key chapters from its five sections which reflect the main strands of today’s leadership thinking, especially as they relate to the development of leaders.

Section 1 looks at ‘The Impact of Leadership’ (pp. 3–119). Its four chapters examine the question, ‘Does leadership matter? And if so, in what way? (p. 10). Chapter 2, ‘When Does Leadership Matter?’, (pp. 27–65), analyses the extent to which leadership can influence organisational performance. Its authors conclude that, although leadership influence can vary considerably across organisations (in this case companies), it is almost invariably a significant factor in improving organisational performance. Chapter 3, ‘Revisiting the Meaning of Leadership’ (pp. 65–107), explores two contrasting major foci of leadership scholars; for one group, leadership has become too tightly connected to a concern with improving organisations’ economic performance or efficiency; for the other, economic considerations are important, but just as significant are elements such as infusing trust and meaning into the leadership-employee relationship.

Section 2 examines ‘The Theory of Leadership’ (pp. 119–335). The contributors to its eight chapters review and discuss leadership research across the major disciplines of organisational behaviour, psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, economics, history and political science. Surveying leadership research in organisational behaviour from the mid-twentieth century to the present, the authors of Chapter 5 (pp. 119–159) identify a ‘“definitional quagmire”’ (p. 12) characterising interpretations of the personality of the leader, the process of leadership, the impact of leadership, and leadership performance. The authors of Chapter 6, Jennifer A. Chatman and Jessica A. Kennedy (pp. 159–183) examine the main psychological perspectives on leadership, with particular reference to the key capabilities needed to support effective leadership in organisations and at the group level. Chatman and Kennedy posit three critical capabilities for organisational leadership that are distinct from the commonly cited personality or intelligence

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dimensions: a leader’s diagnostic abilities, behavioural flexibility, and unambiguous signalling of intentions. At the team level of leadership, the authors describe three key tasks: convening the group and developing identification, coaching group members, and setting group norms. Walter A. Friedman, in Chapter 11 (pp. 291–305) claims for history a central role in providing perspective for the study and teaching of leadership. The international relations theorist, Joseph S. Nye, Jr in Chapter 12 (pp. 305–335), identifies the interconnection between leadership and power and advises leaders to combine the use of both hard (coercive) and soft (attractive) forms of power—in effect, to meld these into a form of ‘“smart power”’.

Section 3 explores ‘The Variability of Leadership’ (pp. 335–433). The section’s three chapters comprise three papers which look at the question as to whether key characteristics and/or capabilities are required to ‘make’ an effective leader, or whether there is no one ‘universal model’ of good leadership—that generally leadership must be seen as being contingent on any given situation and the leader concerned. However, as the editors point out in their introduction, it is difficult to envisage what leadership is if it is not largely composed of a core set of functions and behaviours that straddle most situations. Their approach for addressing this (one explored in each of the three chapters) that looks at both what is core and what is contingent across a range of important situational and personal contingencies. The contingent factors and influences dealt with are: the extent to which contingent leadership varies across national and cultural boundaries (Chapter 13, pp. 335–377); contingencies that stem not from the environment but from the identity of the leader, in particular, perspectives of leadership effectiveness based on gender identity (Chapter 14, pp. 377–411); and the need for employees’ values and expectations to align with those set by the leader, (Chapter 15, pp. 411–433).

Section 4 discusses ‘The Practice of Leadership’ (pp. 433–657). Its six chapters examine some of the most significant practical challenges facing leaders. These include: how to cope with the complexity of the CEOs role, how to build effective senior leadership teams, how to lead in an age of globalisation, how to make critical leadership decisions, how to mobilise social movements that can address some of society’s most pressing problems, and how to drive innovation. The editors identify (pp. 20–21) one major theme from this section. While the word ‘leader’ evokes an image of someone with capacity and skills of a high order—someone who can organise, mobilise and drive change—the reality is that today’s leaders must contend with all manner of constraints—the expectations of myriad constituencies, internal and external pressures, difficult employees, their own personal limitations, and the availability of the necessary resources to drive the change agenda such as time, information and money. This tension between ‘agency and constraint’ (p. 21) accentuates the importance more than ever of how to develop leaders best suited to today’s world. This is the focus of Section 5.

Section 5 (Chapters 22–26) examines ‘The Development of Leaders’ (pp. 657–789). Scholars of leadership still concern themselves with the age-old question: Are leaders born or made? Most are in agreement that they are made, though innate factors can influence predisposition to development as an effective or an outstanding leader. Some scholars focus on what have been defined as the ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ dimensions of becoming a leader. The former concerns the cognitive capabilities, or the ‘multiple intelligences’, the leader needs. These include five types of intelligence: analytical, practical, social, emotional, and contextual. ‘Doing’ emphasises the behavioural or skills dimensions of becoming a leader, for instance, developing better problem solving, communication, conflict management, or adaptive skills. A contrasting approach within this context is the focus on ‘being’. Advocates of ‘being’ emphasise that leadership is more a matter of developing the identity of a would-be or existing leader so that he or she interacts to a greater extent from that identity or sense of being (Chapter 22, pp. 657–679). The authors of this chapter (H. Ibarra, S. Snook, L. G. Ramo) argue that fostering leadership skills is inextricably linked to the development of the leader’s self-concept or identity as a leader.

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Although their emphasis varies, leadership scholars generally agree that ‘knowing’, ‘doing’ and ‘being’ all contribute to leadership development. In answering the question, then, as to how leaders can be developed from these (and other) standpoints, the papers in this section suggest that the task can (and should) be approached in multiple ways. Evidence indicates that experience is a key factor in shaping an individual’s leadership capacity. Morgan W. McCall, Jr, in Chapter 23 (pp. 679–709) stresses the importance of organisations ensuring that their employees get the right experiences at the right time in order to accelerate their development as leaders. This is not to downplay the importance of formal leadership initiatives argues Jay A. Conger, who reviews a half-century of structured leadership learning and development initiatives which have been designed to build leadership capability (Chapter 24, pp. 709–739). In Chapter 25, pp. 739–769, Bruce J. Avolio explores how scholars and practitioners can best accelerate the development of positive leadership. Finally, in Chapter 26, pp. 769–789, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey apply adult development theories to the concept of leadership development. They assert that both thinkers and practitioners have overemphasised leadership and underemphasised development in their analyses. Their solution? To anchor prescriptions for developing leaders more firmly in what is known about how best to develop the ‘meaning-making’ self in adulthood.

Jay A. Conger (Chapter 24) divides leadership development approaches into four categories (based on an extensive survey going back to the middle of last century):

1. Individual skill development.2. Socialisation of the corporate vision and values.3. Strategic interventions that promote a major change throughout an organisation.4. Targeted action learning approaches aimed at addressing organisational challenges and

opportunities.

There would appear to be a greater role for more imaginative approaches such as ‘Knowing’ Doing, Being’. Organisations could also strengthen the leadership development equation by increasing the focus on fresh ways of working. Approaches might include leaders inspiring staff through initiatives designed to engender more trust, and increasing scope for employees to innovate. Such approaches have been canvassed in this book which is in itself a considerable innovation in the scholarship of leadership. It will surely prompt widespread changes to organisational and individual practice and enable leaders and aspiring leaders to better serve their organisations and the public.

Nitin Nohria is Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Rakesh Khurana is the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at the Harvard Business School.

Shaul Oreg and Yair Berson, ‘Leadership and Employees’ Reactions to Change: The Role of Leaders’ Personal Attributes and Transformational Leadership Style’, ‘Personnel Psychology’, Vol. 64, No. 3, 2011, pp. 627–661.The article contains the results of a study undertaken in the Israeli school system which examined the attitudes of 586 employees (i.e. teachers) and 75 leaders (i.e. principals) towards change. More particularly, the authors analysed the role of leaders’ personal attributes and transformational leadership behaviours in explaining employees’ intentions to resist a large-scale organisational change. The study found that teachers’ intentions to resist the change were negatively related to their principals’ openness to change values and transformational leadership behaviours, and positively related to their principals’ dispositional resistance to change. In

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addition, principals’ transformational leadership behaviours moderated the relationship between teachers’ dispositional resistance and intentions to resist the change.

The authors’ assessment of the role of leaders’ personal attributes (i.e. traits, values, behaviours) in explaining employees’ intentions to resist the organisational change also produced other significant findings. First, by increasing their awareness of their personal orientation toward change and of the implications that this orientation may have on their employees, managers may become more aware of how their interaction with staff can shape employee attitudes to organisational change. To assist in this process, HR departments could introduce training and mentoring programs designed to help employees (and leaders) to cope better with the difficulties they may experience during major change. Leaders could also profitably identify employees disposed to accept change and harness their support in driving change. Transformational leadership approaches can range from the charismatic to the low-key, but other means may also prove effective. HR departments, for example, can assist by forging a culture that promotes change through workshops, training sessions, and other group and individual tools of communication.

Shaul Oreg is based in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Haifa, Israel. Yair Berson teaches in the Faculty of Education at the same institution.

Trina L. Soske and Jay A. Conger, ‘The Shifting Paradigm of Executive Leadership Development’, 2010 (Article), 32pp.The paper surveys the field of executive education approaches and outlines the main foci of contemporary leadership development studies and initiatives, one which has burgeoned over the past two decades. Until recently, as the authors point out, business-school executive-education programs and consultancies that provide these services have enjoyed double-digit growth rates year after year. Consequently, most corporate learning and development functions expanded to encompass senior positions with supporting staff focusing almost exclusively on executive and leadership development.

The authors assert that the one-sided approach to leadership development and widespread unsatisfactory outcomes calls for a shift in emphasis from individual-leader development to collective leadership capability. This new approach will necessitate radical changes in the overall executive development framework, a new definition of leadership, and a change in the mechanics of how programs are designed, governed, measured, and implemented. IBM is used as an example to illustrate the benefits which have accrued from this new approach.

In explaining why they believe current approaches fall seriously short, the authors provide a number of explanations. These include: leadership is too often perceived as an ‘individual act’, rather than as an element in an interconnected process which includes all levels of employees; executive development rests overly on a preoccupation with formal development programs; leadership learning is often dominated by teachers with little line experience rather than by those with current (or recent) agency leadership experience; and the focus on individual leadership development is frequently inconsistent with the aim of the program, for example, programs are often commissioned to address issues relating to overarching organisational change (culture, mind-set), whereas their content is frequently focused on abstract concepts and frameworks.

The solution proffered by the authors is to shift the emphasis from individual-leader development to collective leadership capability—not to replace the former but to use both where most appropriate. This would involve both leaders and employees working collaboratively within an interactive process to achieve group goals. The authors compare the old (individual) and new (enterprise or collective) approaches according to five criteria:

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The New One—enterprise-wide and strategic; The Old One—functionally specific (HR) and more tactical and behavioural.

The New One—more integrative and systemic. The Old One—more siloed and disconnected.

The New One—executive development is regarded as a vehicle for achieving a higher-order organisational goal. The Old One—development is regarded as being an end in and of itself.

The New One—acknowledges the primary responsibility of the executive corps to improve performance and promote change. The Old One—focuses on the question of what leaders must do differently as individuals to bring about change.

The New One—asks where does the organisation need to go, how is it going to get there and what can we do as leaders to make this happen? The Old One—focuses on how executives’ 360-degree assessment data looks compared to the competencies in their leadership model; what strengths they can build on, and what weaknesses do they need to shore up?

Table 1.1 (p. 12) sums up concisely how the elements of the two approaches compare. In essence, the authors describe the difference in methodology as follows: ‘... the new frame directs efforts in service of a mission-critical goal, while the old one often now amounts to programs in search of a purpose’ (p. 11).

This paper has been published under the auspices of the international management consulting firm, Oliver Wyman. Trina L. Soske is a partner in Oliver Wyman Leadership Development. Professor Jay A. Conger holds the Henry R. Kravis Research Chair in Leadership Studies at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California.

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