The Importance of Leading: Avoid the Traps

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Jeffrey Tobias in Innovation

Excellent new report from McKinsey on the importance of how important leadership is in the workplace. McKinsey looked at nearly 12,000 daily electronic diaries from dozens of professionals working on important innovation projects at seven North American companies. They selected those entries in which diarists mentioned upper- or top-level managers. There are four traps that the report highlights:

Trap 1: Mediocrity signals: While the rhetoric is that the organisation is innovation and entrepreneurial, the action of leaders signals complacency and mediocrity. How many time have we seen this happen. One of the challenges, of course, is that managers get promoted not only on their ability to lead, but also on their longevity within the organisation. Do they make great leaders? Not necessarily. Do they promote innovation and entrepreneurship? Why should they. For many, innovation and entrepreneurship equals risk – and why take risk? Mediocrity is a safer, risk-free path.

 Trap 2: Strategic ‘attention deficit disorder’: The survey found too many top managers start and abandon initiatives so frequently that they appear to display a kind of attention deficit disorder (ADD) when it comes to strategy and tactics. They don’t allow sufficient time to discover whether initiatives are working, and they communicate insufficient rationales to their employees when they make strategic shifts.

Trap 3: Corporate Keystone Kops:  The research found that many executives who think everything is going smoothly in the everyday workings of their organizations are blithely unaware that they preside over their own corporate version of the Keystone Kops – fictional policemen so incompetent that they ran around in circles, mistakenly bashed each other on the head, and fumbled one case after another. Some leaders to the farce through their actions, others by failing to act.

Trap 4:Misbegotten ’Big, Hairy Audacious Goals’: At some companies, however, BHAG statements are grandiose, containing little relevance or meaning for people in the trenches. They can be so extreme as to seem unattainable and so vague as to seem empty. The result is a meaning vacuum. Cynicism rises and drive plummets.

The report concludes: As an executive, you are in a better position than anyone to identify and articulate the higher purpose of what people do within your organization. Make that purpose real, support its achievement through consistent everyday actions, and you will create the meaning that motivates people toward greatness. Along the way, you may find greater meaning in your own work as a leader.

I totally agree.