Building a culture to create value vital for leaders
THE most successful organisations are not those led by leaders who are charismatic and visionary, but those who create a culture of delivering outstanding value, according to a recent study.
“In today’s Vuca world – that is to say, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – a business leader needs to build a culture that is driven to create value, and to transform personal vision into the organisation’s purpose,” Steve Mullinjer, Asia-Pacific leader at Heidrick & Struggles, a provider of executive search, leadership consulting and culture shaping worldwide, said last week.
Mullinjer was also the co-leader of a two-year research collaboration with a leading business author that gave birth to “The Success Formula: How smart leaders deliver outstanding value”.The research project explored how senior executives around the world can improve value delivery in an era of unprecedented volatility and change.
Andrew Kakabadse, a professor of governance and leadership at the Henley Business School in the UK and the author of 43 business and leadership books, embarked on a global study with consultants at Heidrick & Struggles to examine the link between leadership and sustainable business value. Together, they interviewed more than 100 chairmen, board directors, chief executives and senior executives in the public, private and third sectors in 14 countries.
“Our research clearly shows the importance of culture and purpose in an organisation that successfully delivers the leader’s strategy,” he said.
Smart leaders who sustain success over a long period were found to drive strategy in an “evidence-led” approach instead of a “strategy-led” one.
“Even in the age of big data, many important decisions are still based on prejudices, preconceptions, entrenched beliefs, outdated worldviews and even ego,” he said.
“In contrast, smart leaders create an evidence-led culture in the organisation that generates sustainable value.”
According to the success formula, three qualities are essential for value-delivery leaders:
n Not just diversity, but diversity of thinking: Increasing the diversity of a leadership team in terms of gender, ethnicity and other demographic factors undoubtedly leads to more creative and broad-minded thinking. High-performing organisations, however, recognise that these benefits will not stick unless the organisation creates a process around diversity of thinking to instil a culture that welcomes wide-ranging experiences, viewpoints and interests.
n Leadership through alignment and engagement: The effective implementation of a strategy requires top-down engagement and alignment, as well as bottom-up feedback within the organisation to test and modify the strategy. During this process, leaders need to facilitate engagement so that people are willing to voluntarily invest their efforts to position the organisation to achieve its strategic objectives.
n Evidence-led action: Effective leaders critically examine evidence and interrogate the issues through quality data. They recognise the importance of contextual (soft) evidence as well as intellectual (hard) evidence, and seek to test any strategy before it goes live. They make a habit of debating the evidence with their teams to challenge their thinking.
