|
Executive Interviews: Interview with Jay A Conger on The Making of a CEO
January 2009
-
By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
Jay A Conger Henry Kravis Chaired Professor of Leadership at Claremont McKenna College in California and Visiting Professor at the London Business School 
What are the 10 definite qualities that
you would like to see (in order of priority)
in leaders and managers?
It is very difficult to prioritize leadership
qualities. It is a bit like saying
which planets are the most important
in the solar system. They all play a
major role. For example, I would
place the quality of being a visionary
as critical, but if you lack an appreciation
for the effective implementation
of your vision then the vision and
you will fail. That said, clustered at the top of the leadership qualities is
the strong sense of strategic vision followed
by an ability to communicate the vision and core values in an inspirational
manner.
|
|
The leader must
consistently rolemodel the critical behaviors
that he or she wishes for followers
to embrace. It is important to
have the ability to read or ‘situation
sense’ your environment and people
extremely well along with a deep appreciation
for talent and especially
complementary talent. You must possess
a reasonably high sense of selfawareness—
most importantly
around your own gaps or weaknesses.
Finally, you must be willing
to be challenged with alternative perspectives
on issues. After a reasonable
review of these perspectives, you
must be decisive. Are leadership styles influenced by
national cultures?
Yes, to some extent, cultures do influence
leadership styles. For example,
Scandinavian cultures foster a very
strong collaborative and team oriented
style. Other cultures prefer paternalistic
and directive styles. You have outlined five rules for setting
up a succession management
system – that will build a steady, reliable
pipeline of leadership talent – in
one of your celebrated articles (“Developing
Your Leadership Pipeline”,
HBR, December 2003). Can you share
with us what those five rules are and
how should companies institutionalize
those into their DNA?
What we found was that certain companies
developed deep and enduring
bench strength by moving beyond
succession planning as a mechanical
process. They combined two practices—
succession planning and leadership
development—to create a longterm
process for managing the talent
roster across the organization. The
two practices usually reside in separate
functional silos and do not connect,
but they are natural allies as they
share a vital and fundamental goal,
which is to get the right skills in the
right place.
Rule One: Make Development the Focus
The fundamental rule—the one upon
which the other four rest—is that succession
management must be a flexible
system oriented toward developmental
activities, rather than a rigid
list of high potential employees and
the slots they might fill. By marrying
succession planning and leadership
development, you get the best of both:
attention to the skills required for senior
management positions along
with an educational system that can
help managers develop those skills
over time.
Rule Two: Identify Lynchpin Positions
Where succession planning historically
focuses only on a few select positions
at the very top, leadership development
usually begins in middle
management. Collapsing the two
functions allows companies to take a
long-term view of the process of preparing
middle managers to become
generalmanagers,with all of the steps
in between, often reaching down into
the director level.
Such systems should focus intensively
on lynchpin positions—a select
set of jobs that are essential to the
long-term health of the organization.
They’re typically difficult to fill, rarely
are individual contributor positions,
and they usually reside both in established
areas of the business and those
that will be critical to future success.
Rule Three: Make it Transparent
Succession planning systems have
traditionally been shrouded in secrecy,
in an attempt to avoid
demotivating those who weren’t on
the fast track. The idea was that if you
didn’t know where you stood (and
you stood on a low rung) you would
continue to strive to climb the ladder.
This line of thinking worked well in
an older, paternalistic age, and secrecy
has its advantages, from the
CEO’s perspective. It allows for lastminute
changes of heart without the
need to deal with dashed expectations
or angry departures. But when
the employee contract is based on
performance—rather than loyalty or
seniority—you’ll get more out of your people if you let them know where
they stand. In short, reward the high
performer and shock the low performer.
1.
The CEO Compensation Controversy Case Study
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
|
