Handy Notes for the Busy Leaders: Reflections on Leadership-In-Action

By Dr. Pierre Casse

This book is based on Professor Pierre Casse’s ten years of teaching, consulting, and writing case studies at the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO. Many of the key issues explored have been the subject of much discussion and debate during training programs and special events such as the SKOLKOVO Master Classes on Leadership. They have also been published electronically under the title SKOLKOVO BE in Trend.

The BE in Trend series was published as a monthly teaser and attracted quite a few followers who found Professor Casse’s direct approach to exposing the very real challenges, which leaders in the field face day to day, stimulating. Many of the issues raised are ones that leaders are reluctant to talk openly about.

This is not a book full of advice and guidelines but is rather an exploration of some of the most provocative issues in a way that is intended to encourage leaders to reflect and determine how these issues might apply to them, their teams, and organisations. It is indeed a very leader-friendly composition aimed directly at the busy leader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Dec 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543494099

Dr. Pierre Casse

Dr. Pierre Casse is a full Professor at the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO and holds the leadership chair at IEDC-Bled School of Management (Slovenia). He was (until June 2017) a visiting Professor at the IAE University Aix-en-Provence (France), as well as at the Kellogg School of Management (Chicago - USA). He held the “Suez Chair of Leadership” at the Solvay Business School (ULB-Brussels) from 2004 to 2006. He was an IMD Professor from 1986 to 1994. He is the “Dean Emeritus” of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership (Steinbeis University-Germany). His areas of expertise include Organizational Behavior, the Global Market and the Cultural Diff erences, International Negotiations and Strategic Leadership. Professor Casse has published (alone or in cooperation) more than 10 books in the areas of multicultural management, leadership, intercultural negotiations, and philosophy and business among them, Th e Making of Culture (2003), Th e One-hour Negotiator (2005), Philosophy for Creative Leadership (2007), Th e Philosophical Leaders (2009), Challenging Leadership (2012), Testing Leadership (2014), Learning Leadership (2015), Leadership Without Concessions (2016) and Negotiation for all (2017) He serves as a consultant to many multinational companies and he is the CEO of “Business Innovation Network” (BIN-Switzerland) and President of a Private Foundation (Belgium).

Book preview

PART 1

LEADING YOURSELF

Failure

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts

Winston Churchill

Why do so many leaders fail?

The problem with leadership in the world today is that there are relatively few really effective leaders. Whether you are focusing on public or private sectors, it is a challenge to find a leader who is a good example of what really effective leadership should, or could, be.

On the other hand, there is no shortage of prominent leaders, ready to stand in the spot light and claim to have what it takes but then when you look at their records of achievement, or speak to those who look to them for guidance, encouragement and support, their claims ring hollow. Their self-concept is not consistent with reality.

However, if you take the leader at his/her word and invest your trust and commitment, more often than not, in time, you will begin to feel like someone who has invested in something that was inconsistent with what was advertised. For most products, if such a situation arises, then you simply return the item to the shop and collect your refund. However, in the case of your commitment to a leader who fails to live up to expectations, you feel conned and betrayed.

Given the current climate in the world of leadership, the fundamental questions that must arise in the mind of every leader:

Why do so many leaders fail to perform as they should?

What is it that prevents leaders from being the best that they can be?

Attempting to answer such questions will of course depend on the specific demands of each particular situation in which the leader will find themselves. Nevertheless, if we consider leadership in the general context, we would propose the following 3 fundamental reasons for why so many leaders fail:

1. Most organisations are over-managed and under-led

Leaders pay far too much attention to management and not enough attention to leadership. As a result, most organisations are over-managed and under-led. This distinction between management and leadership has been the subject of much discussion over the years and few people would disagree that there is a difference between these activities. So, let’s be clear on the distinction:

As the above distinction makes clear, management is the operational side of coordinating collective effort whilst leadership is the strategic side. Most leaders, many of whom reach the top through many years of experience in the organisational world, are more comfortable with management activities. The inevitable result is that they lead organisations which stifle creativity and innovation and fail to make the best use of the talents they have available to them.

2. The power game that leaders play can prove problematic

Leaders are far too obsessed with looking good. They are not as interested in their performance as a leader as they are in the way they are perceived by those who have more power. So, their priority is to play the political game to their advantage rather than being the best they can be, so as to improve things for the greater good. The fundamental problem is that the more power you have, the more power you want and when you get it, you have to protect it. And of course, while the leader invests their time, energy and creativity in playing the power game, they are not leading their teams and organisations.

Furthermore, there are two other problems arising from the power game which have profound implications for the leader’s performance. Firstly, power is rather like a warm blanket that shields you from the cold reality outside. When you have power, people look up to you and want to impress you. They tell you what they think you want to hear even if it is not an accurate reflection of reality. Over time, as more and more people fall at your feet, you start to believe the hype. The more you believe, the further you become detached from reality.

Secondly, as you accumulate more power, you become obsessed with hanging on to it. Over time you become paranoid, seeing everyone around you as a potential threat. You become isolated, unsure of who to trust. Under such circumstance, it is inevitable that you will lose touch with reality.

3. Levels of trust in organisations is very low

Many leaders are reluctant to empower their people to do what they know must be done to achieve success. Whilst they should be enabling, encouraging and supporting their people, they are in fact prohibiting, de-motivating and inhibiting their people from making progress. The reason is often that leaders just don’t trust their people. Leaders become convinced that people can’t make progress unless they take a hands-on approach to their role as a manager. A decrease in the level of trust is an inevitable characteristic of the over-managed organisation. Most leaders are not very good at empowering their people. If people do not feel that they are trusted then why should they commit to the organisation?

Whilst most leaders will emphasise the need for increased productivity and improvements in efficiency, they fail to realise that simply explaining this alone is not enough. They must go further and create the proper environment so that people can do what is necessary to meet the objectives they have been set.

What should the leader do?

Leaders must regularly assess their performance and continuously question their assumptions regarding the issues highlighted above. One approach would be to carefully consider the following 3 questions:

Enjoyment

Without the element of enjoyment, it is not worth trying to excel at anything

Magnus Carlsen

Do you enjoy the leadership role?

In the course of my work as a consultant and leadership development specialist, I am often left with the distinct impression that many leaders don’t really enjoy the leadership role. On occasion, I may even ask the question directly and when I do, more often than not, the leader will hesitate before attempting to answer. It is as if they are uncertain as to how to respond. Perhaps many leaders never give it a second thought. The question we are invariably left considering is:

What is the point in being a leader if you don’t enjoy the challenge?

I often find that people hold such romantic ideas as to what it would be like to be in the leadership position but when they eventually get the promotion, they realise that the job is not so glamorous after all. In effect they were seduced by the idea of being a leader only to discover that being the leader is not without its complexities.

It is my perception that too many leaders spend too much of their time and energy doing work that they don’t enjoy. It is astonishing how many people devote themselves to professional activities which are not in line with their deep life aspirations. This is not a good recipe for effective leadership. So why are so many leaders prepared to do a job that they don’t enjoy? Some potential reasons come to mind:

1. The pressure and stress of work

Leadership is challenging and stressful work. As a leader you have limited resources with which to achieve your objectives and you know that if, or when, you achieve them, the pressure will increase. Moreover, you have to try to maintain an effective balance between the demands of the task and the demands of the team. Unfortunately, as many leaders know, these two issues are not always in