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MY PERSONAL APPROACH TO 21ST CENTURY LEADERSHIP

Name: Dainius Puodžiūnas

Address: Vilnius, Lithuania

Occupation: Key Account Manager at F&B company

Richard Branson once said that “Leadership doesn’t have a secret formula; all

true leaders go about things in their own way”. This sentence brings me back to

my initial understanding about leadership which to be honest stick inside my head

but I was not so sure about exact meaning of it before taking opportunity to join

this wonderful course. After many hours spent online and exposing plenty of

leadership examples / theories I can only assume that nowadays there is no such

one model which would suit to all needs. Every of us have to be flexible and adapt

himself according to situation.

It is a perfect opportunity to create a personal framework based on my latest

findings from this course and I am sure it will help me to make my very own

positive impact on the world. I will try to present it like my/yours own “arrival” as

new CEO, so let’s start the journey !

TAKING ON A LEADERSHIP ROLE

Upon getting oriented as a new CEO and

taking responsibility to deliver company to

shareholder’s desired destination, it is crucial

to understand contextual fact base of the

company you taking lead (including financial

audit, specifics of the job, culture and vision

of the company, business environment and

former leadership style). The understanding

process should not be arranged as a deep

study of the old way of doing things and

deciding what to keep and what to modify-

nowadays leaders would opt for faster

acclimatization and understanding the context

instead of pointing what was bad or good and

not taking bold actions with no clear view.

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The team : company is nothing without a

good team and team is more that sum of its

parts (exceptional talents, etc.). 20th century

leadership position “CEO must be the

smartest person in the room” is fake as it is

impossible to know everything in the world.

Taking leadership position means the wisdom

to see “Big picture” and find the right people

to help you to reach the target.

Very important principle to follow : judge

others as you would judge yourself , so before

starting to make significant changes – talk to

your team , get understand their vision of doing

things around and try to imagine do they fit to

your strategy as the team players. People will

judge you as well considering your background

and former experience, so be prepared to face

uncomfortable situations and make a pause

before defining standards and setting

evaluation criteria for others.

At the same time you assessing your team

and starting your own “100 days plan”

working, focus on company free cash flow

which is “foundation-stone” of your future

success. And not to forget to create vision

how your success will look like, as what

get’s measured – get’s done!

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Every leader should set to-do list, which

helps to stick to own leadership style and

build–up general strategy to lead the team.

There are few major points to mention:

a) Finding and retaining the best talent in

the team and empower them to deliver

maximum results;

b) Making technology a competitive

advantage as digital appearance is

transforming business world;

c) Continuously enhancing the client

service as client has the „gold“ which

you need to take to your company;

d) Leader must maintain global focus of its

business on a day-to-day basis;

e) Develop the right corporate culture as it

fuels everything you do!

Being as a CEO today means standing in a “house of glass”, where everyone is able to see your

personal life and to be more precise : your private life partly belongs to your public position. In

conditions of super-transparency- communication and actions must be “crystal-clear” otherwise it

might negatively affect the life of company employees, cause losses to company stakeholders.

Information in today‘s digital world moves around instantly so CEO always must bear in mind

these questions : “who knows you… what do they know…what do they learn about you and lead

to some conclusion” ? No one business model today can rely on strategies that depend on keeping

secrets, so try to keep your strategy aligned to these points (see below):

Practical consideratio

ns Legalities

People’s sense what is fair

Life in a super-transparent communication era also means that

you might face a lot of challenges which needs your input as a

CEO. So if there any problems arise, CEO must be in the

frontline (media, etc.) to see what’s happening and how to

respond. You have to respond in ways that seem reasonable to

others and that are correct. If you trust your PR department only,

so you might not answer wrongly, but in this case probably you

will not deliver required answer (the truth). So choose carefully

the right source for your response in order to make it credible and

correct.

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So – you have arranged your own team of

individuals, what’s now? Can they deliver best

results just as being talented individuals, or we

need something more? We learned that we can’t

rely only on individuals only at 21st century, so

company leader must take responsibility to make

collaboration among these individuals working.

Great collaboration is characterized by some

specific traits, such as: collaborative problem-

solving and decision-making, “Open process”

and leadership of the process rather than the

group (people). It demands leader to know

leadership context (the community, nature of the

problems), skip the barriers to collaboration and

understand exact group’s capacity to collaborate.

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Benefits of collaborative leadership:- Sense of ownership builds commitment to common purpose;- More involvement in implementation;- Trust building;- Access to more and better ideas;- Creates the base of generating new leaders in the team

Difficulties of collaborative leadership:- Time consuming;- Because it demands the ability to face conflicts directly, it is not

for those who prefer everything calm;- It is also not acceptable for those who are doing their jobs great,

but still prefer that leader tell them what exactly to do;- It is also demands that leaders subordinate their ego’s

Picture below (source www.presentationgo.com)

describes the difference between Boss (20th century

leadership icon) and a leader (21st century leadership

idol) and gives us a hint to collaborative leadership:

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Do we know what drives our employees forward ? How they could set aside their own objectives and commit efforts to meet company objectives?

Here comes motivation and inspiration part for CEO, as desired outcome could be reached only with help of other people (team). In 20th century

motivation was based on various economic models which were continually developed. But are they still efficient in 21st century environment?

Principal-agent

theory

The employment

contract

Holmstrom and Milgrom theory

McGregor‘s Theory X and Y

Ouchi Theory Z

We can learn a lot from all these theories which might lead to conclusion

that financial incentives as the main motivation tool (fixed, payed for

performance, merit pay) are not longer recommended (but still widely

used) and Chester Barnard‘s idea to „create and sustain a culture of beliefs

and values that would support cooperation“ plays much greater role in

nowadays situation. CEO must find the key to make employees identify

themselves with the company and act in the name of it leaving their self-

interest aside and be prepared to sacrifice some aspect of themselves for it.

There is no secret formula how to rethink their approach to performance,

but we can use the examples from several FORTUNE500 companies

which focus on:

• Instant performance management;

• Evaluation in role not vs. someone

else;

• Asking how to get best value

out of the time and money

they‘re spending

CEO of Accenture Pierre Nanterme vision about employee‘s performance motivation:„The art of leadership is not to spend your time measuring, evaluating. It‘s all about selecting the person. And if you believe you selected the right one, then you give him freedom, the authority, the delegation to innovate and lead..“

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The CEO who select the right people to his team and delegates them to deliver best value, always

has some formal structure behind him which enable the governance for his actions. In business

world it commonly means Board of Directors (BOD) which represent the interests of company

shareholders and CEO is reporting to BOD. In normal conditions, BOD works with CEO towards

success, they provide some advice and insights (as non-investor experts can be board members)

and make big financial or acquisition decisions. It is up to CEO to decide to take or leave their

advices, but BOD has legal right to fire CEO, so company would prosper if CEO and BOD would

act like a team. The example which we had at Santa Monica Networks (SMA) make a very good

contrast between effective BOD (after Jim was able reconfigure it) and non-effective BOD which

was present on Jim Barton‘s becoming CEO of SMA. Effective board (by Ana Doutra) could be

defined as such a) which can work as a group, clearly understand their role and mission, b) and in

specialized individual roles such as succession planning, acquisitions and capital allocation. This

context helps to identify weak boards (SMA example), where board was non-strategic, detached,

board composition was poor with no dynamics and proper process management (eg. Board

member joins meeting unprepared, etc.).

To finalize with the BOD, I would like point our several topics to remember, which might help to

assure effective board (see below). By the way - most important thing for BOD is ensure that

company has best CEO, and being member of the board it is not a honor – it is WORK!

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Preparing for meetings is a must (use modern

systems, prepare your speech as the CEO and involve

company sectretary into the role)

Members roles and responsibilities must be

clearly defined (Chairman, other directors)

Board performance (well-balanced and sized board,

keeping agenda and following action points)

Succession planning (it is not appropriate simply to

recruit a friend of the chairman or so)

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We already made enough steps in our position

as being CEO that we already are able to see

“Big picture”, where CEO normally could

start steering company to desired direction.

But every change of direction from what have

worked in the past to what used to in the

future, involves change of the team (people)

who as the most of human-being aren’t so

good in changing. So what steps are required

to take for leading change ?

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Kotter International 8-Step Process clearly defines actions for leading change, which might be

used for our personal framework:

1. CREATE sense of urgency (exciting people to sign up to change their organization);

2. BUILD guiding coalition (group with power and energy to support collaborative change

effort);

3. FORM strategic vision and initiatives (vision helps to steer the change effort, initiatives to

reach that vision);

4. ENLIST a volunteer army (who’s are ready, willing and urgent to drive change);

5. ENABLE action (removing barriers);

6. GENERATE short term wins (produce, track, evaluate and celebrate accomplishments);

7. SUSTAIN acceleration (hire, promote and develop employees who can implement the

vision);

8. INSTITUTE change (point out the connections between the new behaviors and

organizational success).

The key to success of leading change is inherent of CEO’s actions in this process, where leader must : a) Show-up (being there); b) Speak-up (use

the power of voice); c) Look-up (for bigger issue, etc.); d) Team-up; e) Never give-up (everything look like a failure in the middle); f) Lift

others-up (share success).

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People is the most important asset of any company and it is concurrent part of any

company success in 21st century organizations.

Is this good option to build up teams just like choosing extrovert personality vs.

introvert ? Do we seek to hire such who would fit our required “uniform” and

would fit into system just like a “cog in the machine wheel” ? This course proved

for us that current competitive and fast changing environment requires to have

talents which probably would be totally different from others (they might be

considered as “weeds” in other communities, but in other context - their difference

might be very valuable!). The example of “SPECIALISTERNE” seems like a

triumph of justice in nowadays world where people with disability were turned to

special ability employees. The “Dandelion principle” (for someone dandelion is

just a weed, which spoil your grass while others consider it as a valuable plants

which might deliver medically proved benefits to your health) should be applied

in conditions where 21s century leaders building teams of outlier performers, who

can perform only in their accepted conditions.

Companies will prevail in the future business competition if they will be able to

produce valuable differences (innovations). If we have only “uniformed” people

working for us, we will not be able to innovate.

Future depends on unusual and unreasonable people, who wouldn’t adapt themselves to the world.

They will persists in trying to adapt the world to their needs. Therefore all progress depends on the

unreasonable man! (George Bernard Shaw)

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But how organizations should arrange their recruiting process in order not to leave

“talent on the table” ? Do we find idiosyncratic talents if we do not change our

attitude what in some cases makes a dandelion a weed, but in fact it is not

essential characteristic?

To avoid such mistake leaders must

focus to diversity of their teams which

adds complexity to organization in a

long run. Diversity should be based on:

• Fair distribution of gender in

leadership positions;

• Generation intelligence;

• Cultures and identity of their

employees;

• Integration people with disabilities;

• Granting LGBT rights

The CEO has to make an input into creation

of motivating environment for excellent

performers (manage the talent) as it is kind

of “red line” when defining those who

focused on capturing value (management

positions) and those who creating value

(creators, who need autonomy, has

competence and seeking for relatedness in

the process). CEO should understand that

excellent performers have no respect to

Status Quo, so applying right leadership

style might help to avoid organizational

shake-up situations.

*image from www.theredritter.com

First of all, leader must keep his head

cool and:

• Never get mad, deal with constant

stress (push your realistic

optimism towards, try to find an

order in chaos and stay focus to

the purpose);

• Be definite, do not vacillate and let

others talk;

• Try to keep your sence of humor

and learn to relax;

• Invite critisism and learn to take it.

Do not isolate yourself;

• Make your reputation prove that

you are able to help in crisis

If those on the left side might be

considered as personal actions, these

formal actions are crucial as well:

• Try to focus to a company cash

which will be needed to drive your

company from crisis;

• Face the reality and always

understand that things could get

worse;

• Never waste a good crisis and be

aggressive in the marketplace, as

crisis offers the best opportunity to

change the game into your favor;

• If there‘re sacrifices to be made,

leader shoud step-up first!

Your plan how to materialize company strategy might look easy to implement. But how the reality looks like? Is this really so simple? What

to do when you have to lead in crisis when things are not going as well as planned?

It was already mentioned that companies will prevail in the

future business competition only if they will be able to produce

valuable differences (innovations). What is the innovation?

According to Shannon Hessel (Assistant Professor, PHD

Copenhagen Business school) it is “the creation of valuable

novelty”. Novel and creation process are reflecting relevant

outcomes to the audience they aim to address and these

outcomes are unique, special and differentiated from other

offerings. Innovation can address organizations, processes and

various outcomes (products, services, etc.). We heard several

innovation stories during this course (Boeing’s Moonshine-shop,

IDEO) or SMA example even where engineering team faced

issues with “The Global systems integration” principle because

of some failures in the innovation and execution process.

So where company leader stands when we mean “Leading

innovation process” ?

* Image via https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/road-success-shortcuts-tom-glover

The leader who seeks continuous innovation and

understand it as the only chance to survive should set his

mindset for continuous learning and thinking “outside the

box”. Innovation spirit must be nourished within all

levels of organization and CEO should focus on:

• Invest in the best people and get them to work well

together;

• Let them make mistakes, generate variation and ask do

not repeat the process if you want to get different

outcome;

• Never be done innovating and do not stick to precise

timing as innovations emerge;

• Do your research and collect ideas for inspiration;

• Afford team autonomy and measure productivity

differently ;

• Be persistent and no not stop before goal is achieved;

• Collaborate with others for innovation

Photo: iStock

Collaboration with others might be realized in many ways (close collaboration, co-

creation) and the outcome depends of collaboration level. In close collaboration no

one person or idea dominates and it leads to balanced situation. Co-creation might

appear in many different forms which lead to different outcomes:

• Expert mindset driven co-creation could create novelty which exceeds customer

expectation (SMA example of cockpit design where they had problem to choose

between user driven innovation and manufacturer driven innovation);

• Participatory mindset driven co-creation would benefit those who will use

innovation outcome, but from my point of view – it sometimes might look as

improvement only at the end.

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We went for a mission to understand ourselves as the future leaders. It is an endless

task to fullfill, as today‘s world is packed with challenges which requires personal

adaptability and learning agility to cope with them non-stop. What is the most

important part of our leadership journey which could connect all these passed

sections together and make it happen in real ?

EXECUTION - or in other words – the discipline of getting things done. If we

do not get execution right, nothing else matters...

Execution is a discipline which acts like a systematic way of exposing reality and

acting on it. Famous entrepreneur Jack Welsh sees execution as „The People

process“, „The Strategy process“ and „The Operation process“. This vision might

us lead to understanding that execution has to be in company culture and it is up to

company leader to getting it right. In generally, leaders responsibility for execution

lays on few core processes like a) picking other leaders to execute (the main point

is to have right people in the place, but not to delegate tasks), b) setting the strategic

direction and c) conducting operations.

How to lead execution:

INVOLVE all responsible for the

strategic plans‘s outcome

ASK TEAM how they are going to

achieve their projected demand (on

their timely basis, costs, inventory

turns, etc?

SET MILESTONES for the progress

of the plan with strict accountability

for the people in charge (but do not

micromanage!)

Most of us believe that people are organization’s most important asset,

but only leader’s stewardship of the people process is what will

convert that belief to reality.

Execution is the part of the company strategy, so it must be driven very

carefully. Leader must treat his employees as he wants his clients should

be treated and when employees will feel empowered – the whole

organization will win. *image from http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-374185681/stock-vector-driving-execution-circle-stamp-word-cloud-business-concept.html

*image from http://www.theeyeworks.com/blog/comments/its-all-about-execution/

Execution is the key to success. Organizational culture is setting standards how the things will be executed and strong company culture depends

on corporate vision, strategy and communication based interaction among team members. Leader must understand current company culture if

he wants to transforming it’s culture because of needed change.

Failing in this will reflect in company results as it was with IBM case (a culture of

promotion with high levels of bureaucracy which led to this that IBM faced technological

discontinuity ) or General Motor’s “cost culture” with the upshot of it was that GM had to

recall 20M cars to fix major issue which caused fatalities (repair price per car was 1$, but

at the end there were enormous losses both financial and reputation concerned).

As the correct example I would point Richard Nolan who described Boeing’s corporate

culture as “explicit and implicit embodiment” where excellence is the only one standard

and they say that “how we do things in Boeing – that is how things get done”. This

example proves that company culture is one of the most important assets as reflected in

many company practices and traditions.

To summarize SMA corporate culture, the situation there was very similar to one as Gerstner found at IBM. Company strategy and culture was

very limited and demanded major change in order to survive. I would say that SMA combines similarities of Kodak case as well, where it is clear

that change is mandatory but it was to late (for Kodak) because of inability to transform company culture to change. Jim was able to unite his

team for shared purpose and started SMA to deliver solutions which should lead SMA to success in the future.

* Image from http://www.abcam.com/index.html?pageconfig=resource&rid=12566

The actions performed by a leader (CEO) at „the end of the day „ will start

working and might be measured in many ways and that is desired outcome as

(I repeat it again) what get‘s measured – get‘s done. Measuring your

performance as a leader allows self analysis of leadership style you‘re applying

and helps to identify possible threats or opportunities to your organization.

This - Managerial Grid - measurement method can not be taken as absolute

one, as it doesn‘t take work environment and other variables into

consideration, but it is still highly used in today‘s organizations.

Today‘s leader tend to build his own leadership style based on all theories

mentioned below adding his own unique approach to contextual base and

understanding leadership as :

• responsibility of all team members and community;

• diversity of ideas, views, creativity;

• synergy with team as team always outperform one individual;

• feedback as a vital ingredient to individual team performance and

possibility to team members to contribute in decision-making process;

• excellence as the only acceptable standart.

1. The great man theory

2. The trait theory of leadership

3. The skills theory of leadership

4. The style theory of leadership

5. The situational leadership theory

6. The contingency theory

7. Transactional leadership

8. Transformational leadership

9. Leader-member exchange theory

10. Servant leadership theory

10 Leadership theories to

remember

Responsibility will always be integral part of leadership. 21st century leader must

focus to creation of values in the organizations which are inseparable from

responsibility of everyone involved. When I say values, I mean not only tangible

corporation assets (cash, equity, property, etc.), but also human qualities which are

delivered by every person itself : humanity, decency, caring, fairness,

dependability, honesty and so on.

Failing to understand responsibility as the duty by leaders of this period, led us to

Global Crisis in 2008, where lack of government‘s regulations, humanity and

responsibility to the mankind in generall end-up with crash of banks and people

lives and caused huge losses around the world.

*image from http://spip.modkraft.dk/tidsskriftcentret/undersider/article/capitalism-in-crisis-1-2008

Another example which we had from Lord John Browne (former CEO of British Petroleum) case leaves many ambiguous thoughts when trying to

asses him as a leader and understanding his impact to meaning of leadership at all. From one side we see his efforts to change whole oil industry

addressing it as such which largely contributes to global warming and making BP global powerhouse with sense of developing good living

standarts and safe environment around the world. But from other side we also facing major BP disaster in Texas (another, Deepwater Horizon

disaster occurred after John Browne‘s retirement, but it still possible to link it to same „heritage“ which caused Texas blast at 2005) and personal

life issues which led to troubles for BP in public. This case demonstrates leader as the opportunist-dreamer who set many goals but do not have

solid plan how to achieve - execute it (if you don‘t have a plan for your goal- it is just a wish...).

To finish my own personal approach to 21st century leadership, I will go

back to introduction of the course video where Rob Austin (Professor,

PHD) quoted historical Abraham Lincoln speech in the Congress of

United States:

“The dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion

is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our

case is new, so we must think anew and act anew”.

This universal and visionary thesis keeps the meaning in current time and

proves the necessity for everyone of us - today‘s leaders – to demonstrate

personal adaptability and learning agility to cope with non-stop challenges.

My personal leadership statement after taking this course: I see myself as

the Servant who makes the priority to serve others rather than beeing

served. People follow out of love and gratitude and not for compulsion or

fear. When you will help others to reach their goals, you'll help yourself as

well. Questions in the left sided picture might serve as the framework to

build our own Authentic leadership, as that is the only key to success!

Thank you!

*image from https://vladimerbotsvadze.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/11-themes-of-servant-leadership

-leadership/)