Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis.

Name:Nikhat ParkarMMS BRoll No:62

“When the economy recovers, things won’t return to normal – and a different mode of leadership will be required”.

• BY RONALD HEIFETZ, ALEXANDER GRASHOW, AND MARTY LINSKY

Introduction.

The task of leading during a sustain crisis-whether you are the CEO of a huge company or a manager heading up an impromptu company initiative- is treacherous.

Crisis leadership has two distinct phases:-

Emergency phase.

Adaptive phase.

Crisis leadership-

1)Emergency phase-

When your task is stabilize the situation and buy time.

2) Adaptive phase-When you tackle the underlying causes of the crisis and build the capacity to thrive in a new reality.

In this process they change key rules of the game, reshape part of the organization, and redefine the work people do.

Hunker down- or press “Reset”

The danger in current economic situation is that people in positions of authority will hunker you down.

They will try to solve the problem with short term fixes.An organization that solely depends on its senior

manages to dealth with the challenges of risk failure.That risk involves wrong conclusion.Tightened controls.Drawing on familiar expertise to help their organization

weather the stormThe whole organization is not to be changes but only

adaptability should be there in the organization.

Adaptive leadership

Instead of hunkering down, they seize the opportunity of moments like the current one to hit the organization’s reset button.

Uses the turbulence of the present to build on and bring closure to the past.

They change key rule of the game.Reshape parts of the organization.Redefine the work people do.

Today's leadership task

“Leadership is an improvisational and experimental art”.

Skills required by the executives to reach their position of comfort:-

• Analtycal problem solving.

• Crisp decision making.

• Articulation of decision making.

Foster Adaptation.

Executives faces three competing demand in today’s world:-

They must execute to meet today’s challenges.

They must adapt what and how things gets done in order to thrive in tomorrow’s world.

They must develop “next practice” while excelling at today’s best practice.

Embrace disequilibriumInvolve orchestrating the inevitable conflicts, chaos,

confusions etc so that disturbance is productive rather than destructive.

Paul levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess medical center, in Boston tries to adapt to industry changes.

The game requires you to create a “culture of courageous conversation”.

Keeping an org in a productive zone of disequilibrium is a delicate task , you must keep your hand on the thermostal.

Depersonalize conflicts.If the heat is consistently too low, the people wont

feel the need to ask uncomfortable questions.If the heat is too high, the organization risk a

meltdown. People are likely to panic and quit.

Generate leadershipMust use leadership to generate more

leadership deep in the organisation because “stability is a liability, not an asset, in today’s world”.

The future of the organization depends on the executives at lower level.

Mobilizing everyone to generate solutions by increasing the information flow.

Sharing the experience the people learn from innovative efforts.

Taking care of yourself

The work of leadership demands not only critical adaptive responses within and surrounding your business, but also your own thinking and emotions.

Appropriate displays emotions can be an effective tool for change, especially when balanced with poise.

Being optimistic and realistic.

How GE Teaches Teams To Lead Change.

• Leadership, Innovation, and Growth (LIG) is a 4 day program conducted by General Electronic for it’s employee every year initiated by Jeffery Immelt

• Aim was on expanding business and creating new one’s than on making acquisitions

• LIG was successful because of following reasons

1. Managers were able to reach consensus on barriers to change and how to attack them

2. Participants were encouraged to break hard as well as soft barriers

3. Simultaneously working on long term and short term goals were addressed

Introduction.

Need for LIG

• The growth playbook which is basically an annual report mainly consist of past data and actions

• It no longer would help to look ahead. So there was a need for a program where in employees get a room to project ahead

• It basically aimed to think about organic growth and opportunities, innovations, growth etc.

• In short the purpose of LIG was to make innovation and growth as much of a religion at GE as six sigma had been under Jack Welch

The Structure

• Speakers at the sessions were a blend of external gurus and internal thought leaders

• Cases used at LIG are always work in progress and are about reality

• After listening to gurus participants disperse to rooms and critically discuss

• Around 20 hours are kept aside for the same

• 20 minutes are reserved on Day 4 for teams to present action plan to Immelt

The value of team training

• LIG’s team based approach addresses shortcomings inherent in individual focussed approach used by traditional management education program

• LIG was radical departure for GE, because it removed intact leadership teams from exigencies of their businesses

• It allowed them to discuss the white space in a candid, introspective fashion for whole 4 days

Barriers to change

• Reassessment of almost everything was done by the participants

• Power Gen whose products include gas turbines, steam and wind turbines realised that they will be soaring their profit

• But their discussions took back seat and they realised that people are becoming carbon conscious and hence old rules don’t apply

• Government policies and taxes may reduce their profits

Managing the present and the future

• Delegation of the responsibility to the subordinates

• Empower people encourage them to experiment and help them to develop new skills

• Individuals and collective roles are important for organic growth so they should make a note of where and how they spend time

A vocabulary of change

• Planting seeds was the vocabulary adopted which motivated people work for future fruits

• They came up with charts and boxes which made work more creative and interesting

• One box holds the projects of incremental innovation

• Other holds the projects which includes taking existing technologies of company to new markets

Link between the articles

• First article clearly states that the leaders have to act according to the change

• They should also take people into consideration while adopting the change

• This alignment and protection during crises creates a sense of comfort and attachment to the organisation

• While second article talks on the need for exploration and innovation

Path Goal theory would go best with the article

Since situation demands leaders to answer the questions raised by the people in panic situation

Leadership style is effective on the basis of how successfully leaders support their subordinates’ perceptions of:

• Goals that need to be achieved

• Rewards for successful performance

• Behaviors that lead to successful performance

The leader can affect the performance, satisfaction and motivation of a group by

Offering rewards for achievement of goals

Clarifying path for achievement of these goals

Removing obstacles that hinder performance

Contd..

Leadership behaviour

• Directive: the leader gives specific guidance for performance

• Supportive: the leader is friendly and shows concern for subordinates

• Participative: the leader consults with the subordinates and considers their suggestions

• Achievement oriented: the leader sets high goals and expects his subordinates to achieve high level of performance.

Self leadership

• This idea was advocated by Charles Manz and Henry Sims.

• This process involves two fold strategy of 1. leading oneself to perform naturally

motivating tasks 2. managing oneself to do work that is required

but is not naturally rewarding

• Self – leadership requires an employee to apply the behavioral skills of self-observation, self-set goals, self-reward, and self-criticism.

Super Leadership

• A super leader is someone who leads others to lead themselves.

• Productive thinking is the corner stone of super leadership.

• It requires practicing self-leadership oneself and modeling it for others.

• Super leadership has the potential to free up manager’s time, because employees are encouraged to manage themselves.

Benefits of super leadership

• High team performance and flexibility

• High follower development and self-confidence

• High team creativity and innovation

• High long-term performance

• High ability of the team to work independently in absence of leader