Top to Bottom!!!

Seven reasons for failing the top job... .....

• Most CEO failures are self-made and so CEOs need to guard against their own weaknesses


• Clarity in direction and communication are key to CEO success


• In addition, effective media campaigning and flexibility in leadership style can also evade CEO failure

Many would agree that the race to the corner office is not as trying as the fight to stay on! In the recent past the corporate world has witnessed many leadership failures making one think twice before jet setting for the most coveted office in business. Leadership failures are never isolated in nature and have a whole story around them. This also means that before the doomsday leaders, unconsciously though, begin to drop hints about the coming disaster. One of the most obvious tell tale signs of failing leadership is when the leaders begin to change their leadership styles for want of better command and control over the organisation. Besides, there are other signs too that signal the coming disaster. While the symptoms are obvious, the causes continue to elude human logic. Analysing keenly one realizes that leadership failure can be because of many reasons that may otherwise seem harmless but can lead to bigger problems.

An understanding of the reasons for leadership failure can help leaders stay cautious of their own mistakes and provide timely corrective measures or ensure sufficient preparedness for the onslaught.

Raison d'être

An analysis of corporate leadership failures shows that there are seven reasons for failure. These reasons have been found in leadership failures across the globe and so are applicable to every leadership style. However, they do not represent the causes in totality. There may be other reasons for leadership failure, but these seven reasons are most common.

Poor show at the bottom-line

The first and foremost reason that sets the bomb ticking is dismal bottom-line figures. Business is all about padding the bottom-line with impressive numbers and making a notable financial report. Leaders, who fail to uphold this basic responsibility, instantly get the crowd against them triggering anti-leadership sentiment. The case of Chuck Prince the CEO of Citigroup is a good example of how CEOs who fail to show impressive bottom-line growth are asked to leave.

Boost communication efforts in tough times

A constant crib of employees especially in tough times is that leaders tend to become unapproachable by shutting themselves out from others in the organisation. Experts believe that leaders should do just the opposite. Closing communication channels in tough times leads to rumour mongering and creates unnecessary nervousness among employees, which further effects their performance by making the entire act more complicated.

Leaders should open up in tough times and share with others the proposed plans and business ideas for revival. Open communication not only gives others hope but also makes them feel like a part of the solution. Passing wrong information to employees and other shareholders can prove to be extremely fatal for organisational well-being. The case of Jean Paul Vortron, the Chief Executive of Fortis, the Dutch financial services company presents an example of how wrong communication can come heavily on executive leadership. Earlier in the year the shareholders were reassured of their dividends but later the dividends were cancelled without any word from the management. This made the shareholders both angry and curious about the company’s credibility.

Leaders should therefore communicate the facts and not fabricate information for short-term gains. A good explanation by the leader gives employees, shareholders and customers a clear sense of what to expect in future. Misleading shareholders boomerangs with twice the force. So leaders beware!

Do not undermine shareholder support

Investor confidence is an important prerequisite for leadership success. Therefore, undermining shareholder support can land CEOs in big trouble. Appointing non-executive directors can help CEOs keep shareholder support as non-executive directors would represent shareholder interest by ensuring that CEO decisions are not shot down for lack of concern towards shareholder interest.

Ego battles and boardroom confrontations

Another reason why CEOs are forced to step down despite a good performance record is their endless confrontation with the Chairman or other important members of the board. Fred Kindle, the Ex-CEO of ABB is a victim of the boardroom battle. Kindle is credited with exemplary performance both on professional as well as personal front. However, his continous battles with the Chairman went against him compelling him to step down.

The case of Fred Kindle reflects strongly on the need to maintain cordial relations in the boardroom and build tolerance to criticism. CEOs must appoint facilitators to bring out issues that are sensitive and may result in inconsolable differences.

Merger blinding

Many CEOs succumb to their own ambitions. The case of Carly Fiorina, of Hewlett-Packard is an example of just how CEOs make over-ambitious promises and later step down because they fail to deliver. Mergers and acquisitions make for a perfect success strategy if executed well. However the strategy could well backfire with double force if it fails to push up profits. Thus, CEOs should stop from making unrealistic promises and focus on performance by leveraging parameters that lie within their performance radius.

Media fabrications

Media campaigns can have very serious repercussions for CEOs. From attacking corporate leaders for their fat pay packages to their personal friendships, media is indeed what it takes to become both popular and unpopular. So, CEOs should be skilled at media management and should hone skills that would enable them to use media to their advantage.

Rigid leadership style

CEOs should be flexible and adaptive. If their signature leadership style fails to work for them in a given situation then they should be quick to adopt a style that they believe would work better, Rigidity in leadership style can be detrimental to CEO success making flexibility an important success parameter.

In addition to the earlier causes, there are other pitfalls to CEO failure too. However, the previous reasons represent the most common pitfalls as they account for more than eighty per cent of CEO failures. CEOs thus need to guard against them and make their moves with clarity and precision.

Reference:
The ManageMentor

Obama and his Management Mantras.

Obama is one of the most radical management innovators in the world today. Obama's team built something truly world-changing: a new kind of political organization for the 21st century. It differs from yesterday's political organizations as much as Google and Threadless differ from yesterday's corporations: all are a tiny handful of truly new, 21st century institutions in the world today.

Obama presidential bid succeeded, in other words, as our research at the Lab has discussed for the past several years, through the power of new DNA: new rules for new kinds of institutions.

So let's discuss the new DNA Obama brought to the table, by outlining seven rules for tomorrow's radical innovators.

1. Have a self-organization design.

What was really different about Obama's organization? We're used to thinking about organizations in 20th century terms: do we design them to be tall, or flat?

But tall and flat are concepts built for an industrial era. They force us to think - spatially and literally - in two dimensions: tall organizations command unresponsively, and flat organizations respond uncontrollably.

Obama's organization blew past these orthodoxies: it was able to combine the virtues of both tall and flat organizations. How? By tapping the game-changing power of self-organization. Obama's organization was less tall or flat than spherical - a tightly controlled core, surrounded by self-organizing cells of volunteers, donors, contributors, and other participants at the fuzzy edges. The result? Obama's organization was able to reverse tremendous asymmetries in finance, marketing, and distribution - while McCain's organization was left trapped by a stifling command-and-control paradigm.

2. Seek elasticity of resilience.

Obama's 21st century organization was built for a 21st century goal - not to maximize outputs, or minimize inputs, but to, as Gary Hamel has discussed, remain resilient to turbulence. What happened when McCain attacked Obama with negative ads in September? Such attacks would have depleted the coffers of a 20th century organization, who would have been forced to retaliate quickly and decisively in kind. Yet, Obama's organization responded furiously in exactly the opposite way: with record-breaking fundraising. That's resilience: reflexively bouncing back to an existential threat by growing, augmenting, or strengthening resources.

3. Minimize strategy.

Obama's campaign dispensed almost entirely with strategy in its most naïve sense: strategy as gamesmanship or positioning. They didn't waste resources trying to dominate the news cycle, game the system, strong-arm the party, or out-triangulate competitors' positions. Rather, Obama's campaign took a scalpel to strategy - because they realized that strategy, too often, kills a deeply-lived sense of purpose, destroys credibility, and corrupts meaning.

4. Maximize purpose.

Change the game? That's 20th century thinking at its finest - and narrowest. The 21st century is about changing the world. What does "yes we can" really mean? Obama's goal wasn't simply to win an election, garner votes, or run a great campaign. It was larger and more urgent: to change the world.

Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things - tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things.

And to do that, you must strive to change the world radically for the better - and always believe that yes, you can. You must maximize, stretch, and utterly explode your sense of purpose.

5. Broaden unity.

What do marketers traditionally do? Segment and target, slice and dice. We've become great at dividing markets into tinier and tinier bits. But we're terrible at unifying them. Yet Obama succeeded not through division, but through unification: we are, he contended, "not a collection of Red States and Blue States -- We are the United States of America".

Obama intuitively understands a larger truth of next-generation economics. Unified markets are what a world driven to collapse by hyperconsumption is desperately going to need. We're going to need not a hundred different kinds of razors - and their spiralling costs of complexity and waste - but a single razor that everybody, from the slums of Rio to the lofts of Tribeca, is overjoyed to use.

6. Thicken power.

The power many corporations wield is thin power: the power to instill fear and inculcate greed. True power is what Obama has learned wield: the power to inspire, lead, and engender belief. You can beat people into subjugation - but you can never command their loyalty, creativity, or passion. Thick power is true power: it's radically more durable, less costly, and more intense.

7. Remember that there is nothing more asymmetrical than an ideal.

Obama ended his last speech before the election by saying: "let's go change the world." Why are those words important? Because the world needs changing. A world riven by economic meltdown, religious conflict, resource scarcity, and intractable poverty and violence - such a world demands fresh ideals. We must mold and shape a better world - or we will surely all suffer together. As Obama said: "we rise or fall ... as one people."

In such a world, forget about a short-lived, often meaningless "competitive advantage". It's a concept built for the 20th century. In the 21st century, there is nothing more asymmetrical - more disruptive, more revolutionary, or more innovative -- than the world-changing power of an ideal.

Where are the ideals in your organization? What ideals are missing - absent, bankrupt, stolen - from your economy, industry, or market? What ideals will you fight and struggle for - and live? Because the ultimate problem with industrial-era business was, as Wall Street has so convincingly demonstrated, this: there weren't any.

That seventh lesson is the starting point for tomorrow's radical innovators - because it's the thread that knits the others together. And it's where you should start if you want to use these seven rules to start building 21st century institutions - whether businesses, non-profits, social enterprises, or political campaigns.

As a young brown American, I couldn't be more deeply or powerfully inspired by the "defining moment" of an Obama presidency. Yet, the seeds of a new challenge have been planted by that victory: for us to harness the lessons of his quiet revolution.

What to Avoid When Choosing a Successor?

Choosing a great successor is one of the most important accomplishments that a CEO can achieve. It is often presented as a paint-by-numbers process during which executives concern themselves with abstract concepts such as strategic fit, core competencies, and long-term shareholder value. However, the process of evaluating potential successors can often be as influenced by emotions as it is by logic! From a behavioral (or human) perspective, when evaluating potential successors, we should first look at ourselves.

Beware of the following three classic mistakes leaders make when considering potential successors. All three can cloud our objectivity and diminish our ability to evaluate candidates.

1. Why Doesn’t He Or She Act Like Me? As a rule, successful human beings tend to “over-weight” their own strengths and “under-weight” their weaknesses when evaluating others. The more successful we become, the more we can fall into the “superstition trap,” which, simply stated, is, “I behave this way. I am a successful leader. Therefore, I must be a successful leader because I behave this way.”

All successful leaders are successful because of many positive qualities and in spite of some behavior that needs improvement.

As a leader, take a hard look at your own strengths and challenges. Recognize that you will have a natural tendency to forgive even large errors that resemble your weaknesses and to punish even small flaws that occur in your area of strength.

After making a list of your strengths and challenges, list the strengths and challenges of your potential successor. As hard as it may be, try to think like an objective outsider. Challenge yourself to recognize that the behavior that you feel is most important for the company may really be the behavior that is most important for you.

2. Why Doesn’t He Or She Think Like Me? It is hard for successful leaders not to believe that their strategic thinking is the right strategic thinking. As you proceed in the succession process, you are going to have to let go. It can be very hard to watch your successor make decisions that are different from yours. It is especially tough since, as long as you are still the leader, you have the power to reverse the decisions.

Your successor—not you—will manage your organization in the future. As hard as it may be, you have to let him or her begin to make a bigger and bigger difference in developing strategy. As long as the organization will be headed in a positive general direction—and achieving results—try to recognize that your successor’s different path may actually turn out to be a better path.

3. Why Doesn’t He Or She Respect and Appreciate My Friends? We all tend to overvalue input from people that we personally like and respect and undervalue the opinions of people whom we don’t love as much. Face it: your successor’s personal preferences are probably different than yours. As such, he or she will likely choose other trusted advisors.
Invariably when transition occurs, some of your friends may lose status or power and may end up leaving the company. This can be tough—both for them and for you.

The Bottom Line: Respect your successor enough to let him be himself, follow his own path, and choose his own key advisers.

Reference:
Marshall Goldsmith

Coach CEOs Through Stress for Success.

Stress for Success...

In times of crisis, the natural response is to buckle down, lie low and try to maintain the status quo - which, in many cases, means the bottom line. The unfortunate side effect is learning and development initiatives, especially at the senior management level, often decline.

According to Dr. Peter Warshaw, a vice president at RHR International, a group of corporate psychologists, now is the time to offer CEOs and senior managers developmental support so they can navigate the company through current stormy conditions.

"In very turbulent times, these are the most meaningful developmental experiences that executives have," Warshaw said. "If their organizations provide them with a little bit of support, a little bit of reflection, and a little bit of a safety net, the development of our executives through this is going to be really, really tremendous. Talent development, HR folks and line managers need to think about [this] as a real opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons."

Warshaw outlined a few key pieces of advice talent managers can convey to their senior leaders to help them help their companies:

1. Lead and manage effectively.
"Crisis leadership is one that's not dictatorial, but people are really looking for leaders to put stakes in the ground and say, 'This is what we stand for,'" Warshaw said. "It's very difficult and challenging to lead with both the demeanor of being calm and in control and at the same time invoke a high sense of urgency in the organization. [But it] is extremely important."

2. Clarify the message.
"If the only message that is coming from the C-suite is 'cut costs' - which is certainly an important one, it's very reactive - it sends fear and trepidation throughout the organization," Warshaw said.

CEOs and senior managers should reiterate what the company stands for and explain that, for the company to continue to stand for that, layoffs or budget cuts are unpleasant requirements. However, this is not the time for grand vision, Warshaw said. Keep it simple and current.

3. Swap scenario planning for strategic planning.
"The whole idea of strategic planning is out the window. What the best CEOs and CFOs are doing these days is what we call scenario planning," Warshaw said. "They're working out the scenarios in advance and asking the 'what if' questions: 'What are we going to do if our revenue drops 10 percent?' 'What are we going to do if our revenue drops 30 percent?' [They should have] those plans at least reasonably thought through so that if the bottom drops again, they're prepared, and they're not running around like chickens with their heads cut off and having knee-jerk reactions that may be damaging to the company."

4. Ask for help.
"This is not the time for executives to go off alone or make the decisions in a singularly top-down way," Warshaw said. Typically, it's very difficult for CEOs to ask for help, he said, but it's critical right now. There are two kinds of help that should be sought: internal and external. Internally, CEOs should meet regularly with senior teams to make sure they have the best thinking at the table. They also should hold one another accountable for their actions. Externally, CEOs should cultivate relationships with advisers, board members or even groups of other CEOs so they can let their guards down, engage in self reflection, talk about their concerns and get emotional support, Warshaw said.

"It's those people outside the organization that are particularly helpful around things, CEOs and other senior executives can't really show and disclose within their organization," he said. "Not reaching out doesn't necessarily mean disaster, but it is a recipe for disaster."

5. Develop new skills.
"Executives are being forced to develop new skills by necessity," Warshaw said. For example, one leader might be very analytical and make decisions based reports only, while another might be more intuitive and listen to his or her gut.

"In these turbulent times, neither one of those styles is sufficient," he explained. "People who are analytical have to learn to be more intuitive, and people who are intuitive have to be more analytical [while also] rely [ing] on the best thinking of their teams to help balance that out."

Reference:
Agatha Gilmore
[About the Author: Agatha Gilmore is a senior editor for Talent Management magazine.]