Star-Lite

Organizations, within the private sector, seek to capture, coax, entice, the best and brightest talent on the planet. These individuals are viewed as the "future" of all private sector organizations where innovation represents one of the primary keys to success. They represent the energy and talent needed to propel any organization to new heights and low them to retain or runaway with the lion's share of the market. Who wouldn't want that? But, can these young, inexperienced, stars really live up to the challenge? How many of them successfully avoid political derailment and make the ascent to the top?

Over the years these forward thinkers are often referred to as "Upcoming Stars" or "The Best and Brightest". Although few, they represent your bench strength, your leadership talent pool. And while many of them will enter the organization, often times fresh out of college, at the middle management level. Yet, several of them will simply fall by the waist-side.

Overall one could reason that the process of bringing up new talent should work. After all, organizations spend thousands of recruiting dollars to draw this talent out almost as if to imply that money is no object when the future of the organization is at stake. But, the facts remain,the process is in need of improvement.

In 21st century leadership vernacular, remember we are developing a new language, we should consider them "stars waiting to be lit", hence the title "Star-Lite". Truth be told, it doesn't matter how energetic and bright they are in the early years within the organization. Equally important is the degree to which they feel they will rule the world and turn the organization on its head, shake things up or make things happen, they are full of knowledge. But, their new terrain is rough and they don't even know how to go about discovering the bitter or sweet morsel that will aid in their own success.

According to a Harvard Business Review article, "How To Keep Your Top Talent", May 2010 "Practically every company these days has some form of program designed to nuture its rising stars...But...our recent research shows...that nearly 40% of internal job moves made by people identified..."high potentials" end in failure." By the time new stars arrive on the business scene they have forgotten most of what they learned in school and lab case studies regarding organizational life and corporate politics. The latter of which is probably far more detimental to their long term success.

So, what can an organization do to give these "Star-Lites" the extral help they need and improve the likely hood that they will succeed? One reformation step would be to provide them with an organizational "culture coach". The primary role of the cultural coach would be acclimate the new "Star-Lite" to his/her surroundings, help them understand how things get done, especially on the frontline. These frontline relationships should not be taken for granted during the early days. People have long memories. Get to know them and treat them well.

A cultural coach's role would be different from that of a mentor. While the mentor "shows them the ropes" and allows them to make key strategic connections higher up in the organizational pyramid, the cultural coach would be responsible for introducing them to others within the organization and pass down the history of the organization through story telling. This activity could take place on a formal or informal basis, meet and greet, lunches, coffee, etc. The knowledge gained through these efforts will pay dividends for them in the long run when they are faced with the tough task designed to showcase their talent. Knowing who's who and who can help goes a long way in getting things done. But, who in the organization will fill the role of cultural coach?

Let's answer this question in the reverse. Let's identify who shouldn't fill the role--the executive staff members (i.e. directors or above). The individuals most qualified to fill the role of cultural coaches are those who have been with the organization the longest (cultural "history" coaches)regardless to position, but no higher than middle management. The cultural coach, in good standing, has a wealth of knowledge in relationship to how the organization "really" functions on the frontline. They can tell you who's who, who knows who, and who's on who's side, all of which are important organizational facts.

Of course, deliberately placing them in such an environment means they will get an ear full of stories about the way things use to be, and where the organization is today, laced with a few things you might not want them to know. But, the reality of it is, the faster they can begin to decipher the way things really work and how things get done the sooner they can move from "Star-Lite" to "Star-Bright".


Challenge Round: There are several reasons why individuals in organizations are resistent to change. And much of this resistance is visible at the top. I'm beginning to believe that it has more to do with the "Power" struggle and less to do with other overarching theories about individual or collecitive aversion to change itself. Because of the "Power" struggle within an organization people choose not to communicate. They choose not to understand. They choose not to respect the other person and they choose to retain their opinions of self an others.

Let's reason, with the intellectual IQ that exist at the top of any organizational structure these geniuses know what needs to be done, same as any other group in the hierarchical structure. But, they choose not to relinquish any of their "Power" especially if means they could potentially end up with less in the process. At this point, the greater good appears to be null and void.

And the easiest way to avoid willingly giving up "Power" is to make sure you don't spend too much time communicating with the other guy. And when in his/her presence, do all you can to highlight even the slightest difference of intellect, talent, abilities, likes, dislikes, etc.--just keep up the fight, no talking, no chance of working things out and coming up with a better, more equitable plan that may leave you holding the short end of the stick.

What are your thoughts?

The Tangible Measures of Leadership!

Over the years organizational leadership has not been easily defined and lacks clear tangible measurements that can be used to weed out those, in positions of leadership, who do harm to those who give life to the organization-its people.

Should we blindly accept the fact that everyone in a position of authority is a leader? If you rest your case on the simple statement that "anyone who has followers is a leader" then your answer would have to be "yes". And, with that I am inclined to agree. However, if we agree that there is but one simple definition of a leader then the differentiator critical factors such as impact, effectiveness, or success, to name a few, all of which are subjective in nature.

So, what do tangible measurements of a positive or negative, good or bad, effective or ineffective leader look like? Can positive or negative behavior characteristics be identified and used as a baseline for rating the overall effectiveness of a leader within the organizational setting? According to Donald T. Phillips, the author of Lincoln on Leadership, "Since leadership skills are expressed rather abstractly, there is a great need for simple, concrete illustrations. Tangible examples make the difference; people relate to them".

I've been pondering why leaders are not held as accountable for the way in which they fill their roles as leaders of others. Why is ineffective leadership of people within organizations so easily overlooked? Yet, leaders who fail to met the monetary obligations of the organization are ultimately removed. If you can't sale the product, or get the product out the door, or cost the organization too much money with no clear returns, you're out. However, you can mismanage the people for a very long time, heck you may never be discovered. And because the current definition of what leaders should do is quite vague, some leaders may not even realize the error in their ways.

More so now than ever before, I'm beginning to buy into the saying that "if it's worth doing it's worth measuring", so let's get out the measuring rod. Just like other critical success factors in business can be measured--so can leadership. One way to start is by creating examples of demonstrated leadership behaviors. For example if spending one-on-one time developing staff members is important to the organization then the frequency of such activity can be measured. Does the leader spend 5% of his/her time developing staff or more? The quality of the interaction can be measured by expert observation, outcomes--changes in staff performance or by the staff members themselves with tools like 360 degree feedback. Bottom line, it's measurable.

Challenge Round: I'd like to invite you to share some of your examples, scenarios, of measurable leadership behaviors that fall on either side of the spectrum or somewhere in the middle. Tell me of a situation or time when you were the recipient of, witnessed, or demonstrated positive or negative leadership behavior. What was the situation, who was there (position in the organization)? What was the impact, or impression, on you?