|
Executive Interviews: Interview with John P Kotter on Leadership
October 2006
-
By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary
John P Kotter Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School. 
-
Do you think, with most of the business
school students not having work
experience, that a leadership course can
be taught while they are MBA students
or should this be done later in executive
development programs?
I think the answer is both—in the
MBA program and in executive
programs. You would approach the
topic differently depending on
whether it is a young man or
woman, who had a little or no
business experience, or it is a 40-
year-old manager. For example,
without any leadership experience
there are many things that are simply not going to be appreciated
and
|
|
understood because students
do not have the context to understand what is being taught.
Showing them things that they can't
quite understand or giving them
information that will inevitably go
in and out of the short-term memory
will obviously be a waste of time.
Nevertheless, you can do a few
things even with young people. You
can help them intellectually
understand what leadership is and
why is it more important nowadays.
You can get them to pay more
attention to the development of
their own leadership skill in their
early careers. In executive
education, if it is not just a narrow
course on IT, for example,
leadership should be much more
built into the program. The students
can handle more, ask better
questions, etc. Give it to them. -
How should a very successful leader
plan for his succession? Should the
successor be chosen by the board or the
successful leader?
It has to some degree be both. If
someone has been a terrific leader at
the top of an organization, and he or
she is not insecure, it is only natural
that as a part of their legacy that
they will want to make sure their
organization does not collapse after
Interview 5
they leave. If they are insecure, they
might like to let the firm collapse to
demonstrate to others how great
they were. Leaders who have
maturity and security will, in their
final years, pay a lot of attention to
people who might succeed them.
They will do so not just as a part of a
once-a-quarter succession planning
meeting but constantly, every day of
the year. A board's role is to demand that the
CEO put succession on the board
agenda not just a year before he/she
is going to retire, but starting at least
3 or 4 years before retirement. And a
good Board will not have short
discussions on succession once a
year. Their job is to listen to what
the current CEO has to say, ask
questions about what he and other
people in the firm are doing to
develop talent, listen to who he/she
thinks is on the long list of people
that might be the next CEO, and
through those many discussions
judge whether sufficient activity is
going on in between their
infrequent board meetings so that
there will not be a problem at the
last moment. CEO's and their
Boards too often either ignore
succession until the last minute or
do a poor job of handling this
important challenge. -
What are your comments on succession
planning at Nike, Southwest airlines and
British petroleum?
My answers would have to be based
on data that I can't have total faith in.
I try not to talk about things that I
don't clearly understand. That's just
the way I look at the world. Although
I have some thoughts on all three of
these situations, it would be too
much speculation and I don't like
speculation.
1.
Leadership and Entrepreneurship Case Studies
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
|
