...is to move from a single leader to a leadership team.
I have now worked for over 100 leaders in organizations and their senior teams... close and hands-on. The biggest constraint I see leaders face is maintaining a senior management team instead of developing a senior leadership team.
Managers complete tasks, control budget, use their authority to achieve objectives, manage their subordinates, and bring stability to operations. This is all good. But, it is not what a senior leadership team does.
Leaders wield their personal power to inspire people to do more than they know they can, evoke higher levels of performance than people believe they can achieve, and introduce change that transforms performance even if it is disruptive.
When I first entered the World Bank in 1989 I saw what I called the Lone Genius Model: brilliant individuals were empowered to achieve incredible results. These people truly were great. They were able to do things most mortals only dreamt of. They could plan, execute, and deliver projects that required tens of millions of dollars, sometimes hundreds, to be realized. They could envision social transformations and midwife them into existence.
They also often made huge messes. So it was not unusual to have retinues following them around, cleaning up their mistakes and putting things right after they mucked things up. It was an effective way to create miracles, which often were the result.
But, in the late '80s and early '90s something else began to happen and it was due to technology. It was not a deliberate intervention but a by-product of new ways of working. Teams of extraordinary (but not quite genius) professionals began to collaborate first using simple email and later new inventions like Lotus Notes.
These high performing teams of extraordinary professionals out-performed the lone geniuses. And the system shifted. Not because it was orchestrated by anyone, but just because the results were coming from a different source. It was exceptional to behold: teams of smart people working together in packs.
When a leader relegates his or her senior team to management responsibilities, they sacrifice the collective intelligence and sophisticated interplay of behavior that is dormant in the hearts and minds of their closest allies. The single most powerful transformation a leader can introduce is to turn his senior team into a group of leaders.
I was once called in to help transform a team of 18 managers into a leadership team. They were responsible for software testing and had reached 100% compliance. But, they wanted more. They wanted to become world-class. They wanted to move from being a cost center to being a profit center.
Their second step was to articulate exactly what it meant to be world-class in their domain. We made a list of the core competencies required - there were eleven of them. And then we identified three levels of performance: the basics, excellence, and world-class.
For example: in software testing itself:
Basic - Thorough understanding and being able to hold your own in a conversation with any subordinate or peer in the field.
Excellence - The skill and capacity to step in and do the work of anyone anywhere in the system and do it with 100% compliance.
World-class - Be the global thought leader, write the book that is used in universities and offices across the globe.
They succeeded. Within 12 months this team became a powerful profit center, bringing in exceptionally large contracts and delivering on them with stunning performance.
The first step was that they had to want it and want it badly.
They had a leader who wanted it dearly and created an environment where their professional yearnings were cultivated. He was a veteran airplane gunner and knew what teamwork was. He sought with all his might to achieve the same level of rapport and interdependence he experienced in the air as a gunner. As a result, his team able to cross a threshold and achieve a level of never before realized performance.
Many leaders say they want a leadership team, but they really want to hold the reins alone. They are missing out on the single, most powerful transformation their organization can experience.
