What Makes The Leader of the Pack

 

Great leaders are workhorses, not show horses

By Sam Bell FIML
The Institute of Managers and Leaders  General Manager Corporate Services and Research 

 

In June ‘the suspended schoolboy turned disruptive CEO’ was finally removed from his post at CPA Australia. Alex Malley left the membership-based accounting body with a payout of $4.9 million of members’ equity, a board without a quorum and no obvious leadership succession plan.

It was a sad finale for Malley who, after seven-and-a-half years as CEO, arguably left CPA Australia in a sustainable financial position, with strong brand recognition and a growing international profile. No one should doubt Malley’s passion and commitment, although some may question his delivery method and other aspects of his leadership.

Malley also seemed to be able to do what others have failed to do – position the CPA qualification as a stepping stone to roles in management and leadership. And he was able to attract large cohorts of international students to the CPA brand. This undoubtedly propelled the organisation beyond its home market and gave many international students the hope of a job in Australia (even if the truth was that these jobs were rather more difficult to come by than they were perhaps led to believe).

Much of what Malley espoused about leadership related to his own experiences. Of course, it’s somewhat ironic then that his personal leadership style ultimately played a part in his untimely exit.

Leadership style is the way that a leader provides vision and direction, sets strategy and motivates people. This doesn’t mean that leaders should accept the status quo or shy away from change. Far from it. They must navigate choppy waters and create new directions in search of success. But this must always be about ensuring that the emphasis is on the organisation and not on them.

I can’t help but think that Malley’s leadership style falls short of what US business consultant Jim Collins would describe as that of a “Level 5 Leader”. Collins describes Level 5 leaders as those who espouse a “blend of extreme personal humility with intense professional will”.

What separates these leaders from the pack is, according to Collins, their “personality attributes”. There are the attributes that typify these leaders. They are self-confident enough to set up a succession plan; are humble and modest; show unwavering resolve and diligence — more plough horse than show horse. Last but not least, they give credit to others and take full responsibility for poor results. They also attribute much of their success to good luck rather than personal greatness.

Collins believed that for great leaders, leadership is more about who they are, rather than what they know. Contrast this with the now very public allegations of millions of dollars of CPA Australia funds being used for the promotion of a TV show and a book that didn’t seem to be too related to an professional membership body focused on accounting standards.

Whatever the truth of the CPA ‘case study’, I think that we would all agree that good leadership is not about the self-promotion of the leaders. Especially when it’s the leader who is making the decisions about the promotion. Indeed, Jim Collins found that it is precisely those CEOs, who create big public profiles, that tend to run the most unsuccessful companies.

This brings us nicely to the Institute’s new Chartered Manager designation, which assesses leadership qualities through a robust competency framework that doesn’t try to define a ‘preferred’ leadership style. It instead acknowledges that every individual has their own way of doing things. But the framework does capture the core competencies that are vital to developing your own leadership style and supporting your management skills. This is the thinking that lies at the heart of the new designation, which is sets out three core stages of management:

• How to manage yourself effectively — this should be learnt early on in your career and constantly developed.
• How to manage others and establish trust — these capabilities should be developed before you take on management roles ,but are typically developed at junior and middle management levels.
• How to manage the business and think strategically — this should be continually learnt and is most needed at senior levels.

I’m currently undertaking the Chartered Manager assessment and I’m finding the reflection process on my leadership style and skills to be extremely rewarding. It has also revealed the gaps in my knowledge and practice. It’s both extremely rewarding and personally challenging, as it should be.

Leadership isn’t supposed to be easy. In fact, self-promotion is the easy part of leadership. The real tough stuff is the actual leading.

The Leadership Road Less Travelled

 

With a new name comes a new resolve for the Institute of Managers and Leaders to treat leadership more holistically, as seen in our latest book, Leadership Matters: 7 Skills of Very Successful Leaders

By David Pich

 

As you can probably imagine, over the past two years as chief executive of the Institute of Managers and Leaders (formerly the Australian Institute of Management), I’ve heard an awful lot about leadership. I’ve also been asked a lot about it and I’ve read a lot about it. I’ve spoken to the Institute’s members – and lots of other managers and leaders – about leadership. That’s an awful lot of conversations about leadership. And so there should be: leadership matters.

After all of these conversations and discussion about leadership, there’s little doubt in my mind that it’s best defined as being a unique blend of inspiration and perspiration. But a rarely acknowledged issue is that the vast majority of today’s thinking around the topic of leadership is focused on leadership > from the inspiration perspective. While undoubtedly important, this perspective is what I think we all might agree is the ‘sexy stuff’ of the leadership debate.

Today we’re living in a post-psychology world. We’re surrounded by – and the debate about leadership is dominated by – soundbites and memes and by reality TV. These days every person and their dog (or indeed their cat) has a blog, a LinkedIn profile, an Instagram account, a Pinterest page and a Twitter feed about leadership.

We’re bombarded with images and quotes telling us that leaders  must be resilient, authentic, brave and emotionally intelligent. We’re reminded that leaders must listen, reflect, sympathise, empathise and every other form of ‘ise’ you can think of.

All of this is what I like to call the LGS stuff – or the leadership guilt stuff.

It’s the stuff that makes us as leaders feel inadequate. Of course, it’s the stuff that sells coaching sessions, self-help courses and lots and lots of books, and let’s face it, keeps people like Tony Robbins in business!

It’s all absolutely true of course. A leader does need to be resilient, authentic, brave, emotionally intelligent and all the other things. There is absolutely no doubt that all the leadership guilt stuff is important in making in good leader become a great leader. It’s true there are personal attributes that leaders must develop and hone to improve their leadership. And it’s absolutely true that myriad books, coaching options and indeed Tony Robbins-inspired courses can – and do – assist.

And it was this observation that led to the Institute’s first book on leadership for a number of years.

Leadership Matters: 7 Skills of Very Successful Leaders tackles the real work of leadership. It looks at the nitty gritty, the tough stuff. It’s about the leadership grunt rather than the leadership guilt.

So, why did we decide to take the leadership road less travelled with our first book under the newly named Institute?

The answer lies at the heart of the rebrand of the Institute. The newly named Institute will focus on setting the standard of management and leadership competence and striving to see this standard accepted nationally. At the heart of this will be a focus on the things that managers and leaders actually do to mark themselves as great managers and leaders. This focus, by definition, is about the perspiration of leadership.

In short, you can be the most resilient person it’s possible to be. You can be acutely aware of yourself and in touch with your own emotions and feelings and you can be as bold and brave as the next manager and leader. But this alone won’t guarantee you success in the profession that is management and leadership. Having the ‘right’ personality and behavioural traits will only get you so far. If we’re going to set the standard for management and leadership competence and if we’re going to accompany managers and leaders on their personal leadership journey, we must look at leadership much more holistically.

We must include the hard work, the heavy lifting, the tough stuff. This is exactly what the book does. It tackles the perspiration of leadership. It does this by considering seven of the core skills that contribute to successful leadership. There are others of course. But the seven skills detailed in the book are those skills that, in researching the book, the Institute’s Policy and Research team found were ubiquitous.

The seven skills of very  successful leaders are:  Setting strategy; Defining culture; Leading people; Making decisions; Ethical leadership; Inclusion; Networking.

CHAPTER 1: SETTING STRATEGY

The Institute’s book starts where successful leadership typically begins – with a plan.

Successful leaders have a plan. They have a vision and a direction, and they know where they’re going and why they’re going there.

Successful leaders tend not to wing it. They don’t make a habit of guessing or second guessing. On the contrary, they set out on a path with a relatively clear view of where they’re going and how they intend to get there. Of course, good leaders need to be flexible in the execution of their plan, but they never lose sight of the ultimate objective that lies at the heart of their strategy.

A good example of the power of plan – or a dream – is seen in the leadership of Martin Luther King.

MLK had a dream – he had a vision. He knew what the future could look like. He could see the possibilities.

Of course, as leaders we can only dream of having a mere fraction of the impact MLK had, but to be successful we can perhaps take a little leaf out of his leadership book.

 

CHAPTER 2: DEFINING CULTURE

Successful leaders must focus on getting the environment right so that they – and their team – can deliver the strategy.
Culture is absolutely key, but it’s all too often ignored because it’s too often placed in the too-hard basket. At its heart, culture is about people. It’s about the people we work with and the teams we work in. These people and these teams are all absolutely crucial to the success of a leader.

The culture a leader creates will determine the success of the strategy and ultimately the success of the leader.

This chapter of the book asks leaders to think about their business, their team and, more broadly, their organisation. It asks what the core strategy is and whether the culture is aligned to that strategy. Are the recruitment, reward, recognition and reporting policies and processes aligned to support the strategy? Of course, if the culture doesn’t support the strategy, change will be required.

Institute of Managers and Leaders latest book, Leadership Matters: 7 Skills of Very Successful Leaders.

CHAPTER 3: LEADING PEOPLE

This chapter is possibly the definng chapter of the book. In terms of successful leadership, it’s the BIG ONE, the piece de resistance. There can be no doubt that a leader leads.

In one sense, managing is easy. Managing is about knowing the processes and implementing them. It’s about  dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. It’s about following the rulebook and ticking the boxes. But leading people is something  else entirely.

Leading – and leadership – is about recognising and celebrating individual differences, motivations, skills and experiences. It’s about balancing the individual, the team, the plan, strategy and the vision. And then working hard to keep the all of these often competing demands in balance while delivering.

CHAPTER 4: MAKING DECISIONS

That leaders make decisions is an obvious statement of fact. But successful leaders make the right decisions and they make those based on sound research and wise counsel.

In this chapter we argue that successful leaders typically understand the decision-making process. They weigh up the options, they narrow things down, they analyse and — of course — they agonise. But after all of this, they make a decision. There is, of course, another thing that successful leaders do when making decisions . . . they consult. This aspect of decision making means they identify those experts they can trust and rely on and then they ask questions and listen to the answers.

CHAPTER 5: ETHICAL LEADERSHIP

In essence, this chapter urges managers and leaders to be ethical. Always.

Effective leadership is based on the principle of leading by example. Successful managers and leaders cast a shadow that others walk in, find comfort in and seek to copy. As such, leaders must set the bar for what’s right and what’s wrong and this bar needs to be set much higher than many of today’s leaders chose to set it.

The role of a leader is to set the standard of behaviour that others look up to. When it comes to ethical behavior, successful leaders must walk the talk.

CHAPTER 6: INCLUSION MATTERS

This chapter argues that successful leaders celebrate, support and encourage diversity and inclusion.

Leaders must look to the future while keeping a sharp eye on the present. And they must recognise the future is likely to be different. Leadership is about recognising this and celebrating this difference – and embracing it. Leaders must prepare now for that future.

Successful leaders are coaches and mentors. They are inclusive. They involve and include people regardless of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability or colour and they operate without prejudice and with an innate sense of fairness.

CHAPTER 7: NETWORKING IS WORKING

This chapter supports a long-held view of the Institute. We believe that successful leaders get out of their offices; they meet people, they network. A successful leader has a significant group of people he or she can turn to, rely on, and be with.

No leader is an island, they must keep up to date and well across the latest thinking, technology developments and people. They need get out there, get known and be seen.

To coin a phrase I personally find really quite dreadful, to be successful in the modern world, leaders do need to put some time into their personal brand. Of course, this doesn’t mean that networking and connecting socially always comes easily to every leader, but leaders recognise the power that comes from of having a finger on the pulse of knowledge and information.

In this way, the Institute believes that successful leaders recognise that networking is working.

 

 

Other Life: Didier Moutia

THE BEST OF CARE

By Susan Muldowney

Didier Moutia AFMIL began volunteering with St John Ambulance when he was 16 and says the decades of experience have provided valuable management lessons.

“In a typical job, you do things because you’re getting a pay packet,” he says. “At places like St John, people are volunteering their time, so you have to think about how to make them engaged with what they’re doing and how you can achieve a consensus. It gives you a whole set of different skills that you can use in your corporate life.”

St John Ambulance is a self-funding charitable organisation that provides first aid services, training and equipment in more than 40 countries. Active in Australia for more than 130 years, it has about 16,000 volunteers and the training they provide has resulted in 500,000 first aid certificates. Moutia started as a St John cadet and says the experience led to his career in nursing.

“I really liked St John’s approach and how they managed patient care. It was very holistic and they were all extremely knowledgeable yet humble at the same time. They were able to communicate with patients and their family members in a way that gave them reassurance and broke down information so they could digest it. It got me thinking that nursing could be for me because I liked the people side of it.”

“If someone is struggling, we try and identify that early on and refer them to an appropriate resource.”

After working as a theatre nurse, Moutia joined medical software company InterSystems in 1998. “I’m still doing something that I did in nursing, which is influencing outcomes for patients, but I’m doing it by delivering the technology that assists and supports it,” he explains. “I bring a bit of realism to what we do. I make sure that what we deliver to a clinician is something that’s very usable and saves them time but ultimately improves patient care.”

Moutia has held various positions at St John, including commissioner in NSW, and is now peer support coordinator for the state. “If anyone needs peer support or if there’s been a critical incident, such as a patient having a cardiac arrest, my job is to make sure that whoever was involved gets the peer support they need. As a minimum, we would call them to see if they’re OK after the incident. If someone is struggling, we try to identify that early and refer them to an appropriate resource to help them.”

Volunteer work occupies about 20 hours of Moutia’s week and he says balancing it with his day job comes down to careful planning. “I just have to be really organised with my diary,” he says. “I’ve been volunteering with them for so long it’s just part of my life now. I have a philosophy – when you’re doing one thing, do it really well. In other words, I try not to multitask. When I’m at work, I’m at work. When I’m at St John, I’m at St John.”

Top five gifts of an exceptional Mentor

By Duncan Fish, Executive Coach & Interpersonal Skills Expert at The Engaging Executive.

The term Mentoring is quite popular, but what does it mean to you? In my opinion, the role of a Mentor is to espouse wisdom from a position of experience. The term ‘Mentor’ is derived from the story of Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus, King of Ithaca, had to leave his son to fight in the Trojan War, and entrusted the care of his household to a man named Mentor, who served as teacher and overseer. I have both had Mentors and been a Mentor to others in my career. It is a very rewarding process, and I have often learned as much from the Mentee as he or she has learned from me. So in this article I wanted to define, what I believe, are the top 5 gifts of an exceptional Mentor.

 

Sharing Wisdoms

Often I get asked, ‘What is the difference between a Coach and a Mentor’. Depending on the style of coaching in question, I would suggest that a Coach does not need to be an expert in the topic of a coaching conversation.  A Coach’s role is to use thought provoking questions and structure to enable someone to come to his or her own conclusions. Whereas a Coach will not usually give ideas or suggestions, a Mentor is expected to do this.

I currently have a Mentor, named David. This man is several stages more advanced in his business thinking than I currently, and has wisdoms well beyond mine. In fact, I chose this man to be my Mentor as he works in a similar style of business to mine and has traveled the same road. What are currently hurdles and challenges for me, are things he has already overcome. So the first gift of an exceptional Mentor is ability to pre-empt future roadblocks and help you circumnavigate them.

 

Challenging Limiting Beliefs

I see my life in two halves: before I met John and after I met John. John was the man who became my Mentor when I was 25 years old. Having not done very well at school, I was still carrying a lot of baggage and believing I was an academic idiot. As I had not gone to university at that point in time, I used to feel intimidated by anyone who had a university degree.

One day John took me to one side and had a conversation which changed the entire course of my life. He could see I was passionate about helping people, and he could see something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. One day he said, ‘Duncan, you would make a great Psychologist’. I replied, ‘I can’t, John. That would mean going to university and I am too old, too dumb, too poor and too scared’. However, John was an exceptional Mentor and he could see that I was being held back by my limiting beliefs. So he challenged me on all of these issues; he challenged me until I started to think differently. One by one he questioned my beliefs and probed and disentangled the story I had been telling myself all those years. That challenging  my beliefs about myself gave me the impetus to go to university, become a Psychologist, start my own business and go on to become an Author. The second gift of an exceptional Mentor is to enable a winning mindset.

Join the Institute of Managers and Leaders mentoring program

Opening Doors

Another role of a Mentor is to create networks for the Mentee. It can be hard work for Mentees to get access to the people they need to advance their careers. In a world of email and geographical dispersed teams, you can’t always just ‘bump into’ the people you need. Although this is a rule of thumb, a Mentor is normally at least two levels above the Mentee. As such, a Mentor is normally well connected due to his or her more strategic role. That often means operating beyond his or her own silo and forming relationships more broadly.  Whilst we like to believe, and should, in meritocracy, if you can’t get on board with the fact that having the right connections help, you are missing 50% of the equation. So the third gift of an exceptional Mentor is to open doors and enable connections.

 

Being Impartial

With the role of a Mentor comes great responsibility. It can be easy to get wrapped up in the role of being the ‘wise sage’ and living your life vicariously through the Mentee. However, you always need to remember, it is not your life and you are not the one who has to live with the consequences.

A Mentor always needs to appreciate that they are an outsider in the scenario. As such, they may only ever hear one side of the situation – that of the Mentee. Part of the role of the Mentor is to question this version of the truth to ensure that the Mentee is thinking from a number of perspectives. It can be dangerous for a Mentor to take sides. In fact, it could put them at odds with the Mentee’s own manager, especially if the Mentor and manager both work in the same organization. Hence, the fourth gift of an exceptional Mentor is to be objective and not take sides.

 

Goal Setting and Follow Up

When becoming a Mentor it is important to have an objective of the sessions. One of my personal gripes is seeing Mentoring sessions turn into coffee catch ups that go nowhere and then fizzle out. I have helped several organisations to set up formal Mentoring schemes and the ones that work are nearly always the ones that adopt a goal setting philosophy.

I always advise that the first session is a planning session, and that there should be an agreed number of sessions that the Mentor and Mentee contract to keep. This can be revised on an ongoing basis. In the same way as coaching, the Mentee should be required to set goals for between the sessions and to be accountable for completing the tasks agreed with the Mentor. The Mentors role is to help refine these goals, based on their wisdom, but not to set them absolutely. After all, they are a Mentor not a Manager. Saying that, the Mentor needs to ‘keep the Mentee honest’ and ensure they follow through on the agreed goals. So the fifth gift of a Mentor is goal setting and accountability.

 

 

Duncan will also be speaking at the Canberra Masterclass event ‘Decoding Leadership: From Specialist to Leader’ on the 15th September 2017.
Book Now to hear more from Duncan and many other professionals from the Canberra area at this full day interactive event.
Be quick! Early bird pricing is available until Friday 18th August 2017.

 

 

 

Leadership and implementing creativity in the symphony orchestra

By Vincent Ciccarello, Managing Director, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

For decades, leadership and management literature has pointed to the relationship between the conductor and members of a symphony orchestra as a commendable paradigm of organisational teamwork, collaboration and the alignment of resources to a common vision.

But when it comes to implementing creativity, an orchestra is actually more akin to a team of elite athletes: spectators (the audience) may long for flashes of individual brilliance (for example, a breathtaking solo) but, at the end of the day, it’s the ability of the team to execute the game-plan (score or composition) as envisioned by the coach (conductor) that really matters.

Similarly, the sporting team’s coach and players, and the orchestra’s conductor and musicians, must ultimately deliver performances in line with goals and strategies set by the Board and management.

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra with conductor Nicholas Carter.

The sporting analogy doesn’t end there: most sporting teams and orchestras have a well-established hierarchy and leadership group; and there are the expectations of a host of internal (staff, volunteers) and external stakeholders (fans, subscribers, sponsors) to consider.

It is the primary responsibility of the leadership of these organisations to create the conditions and environment for peak performance – through the recruitment and retention of the right people to the right roles; by making available the necessary physical resources; developing a strong organisational culture; the careful management of workload and injuries; and so on.

ASO Managing Director Vince Ciccarello congratulating Juris Ezergailis at the Adelaide Town Hall stage – following the 2016 final Master Series.

Fostering a climate of trust and excellence encourages individuals to realise their potential; but, in reality, sporting teams and orchestras must demonstrate an extraordinary collective discipline to succeed. A champion team will always beat a team of champions…

Symphony orchestras primarily exercise creativity through the music they choose to perform, the composers they choose to commission and in the way they respond to the conductors they choose to lead them.

In most cases, this is a consultative and collaborative process, in which the musicians – collectively or through their representatives – have a voice in the orchestra’s artistic program and ambitions.

It’s a process that usually starts with the orchestra’s senior management and chief conductor but it’s not entirely straightforward. It requires a vision for the business, the ability to clearly articulate it and the skills to build a case to bring people along with you; while at the same time being open to the aspirations of the team, being willing to listen to feedback and recognising that not all of the company’s knowledge, history and wisdom – or even good ideas – reside in the C-suite.

In order to balance the artistic health of the playing group with the organisation’s commercial imperatives, a long-range view is required – and that means no matter what happens on the stage or on the field, for the leadership team, it’s not enough to take it one week at a time.

 Vincent Ciccarello will be speaking at our Adelaide TEL event ‘Lifting the Curtain on Leadership in Arts and Entertainment’ on the 23rd of August 2017.

 

Book Now to hear more from Vincent and others about what is needed for leadership in the arts today.

 

 

 

 

 

10 signs you lack emotional intelligence

Good leadership relies on high EQ. But how do you know if you are an emotionally intelligent leader? By Nicola Heath

It’s not just a buzzword. In the modern workplace, emotional intelligence often outranks technical ability.

“Businesses don’t want to hire people just based on their IQ,” says Ushma Dhanak, a HR specialist who runs Collaborate HR, a consultancy offering HR support to SMEs. “It’s all about how to manage people, how to lead people, how to read your own emotions and how to use that skill to read the emotions of others and respond accordingly.”

EQ is the “X-factor” that creates effective leaders, says Dhanak. Studies have established a strong link between emotional intelligence and business performance. It’s also linked to employee engagement. “If a business has a highly-engaged workforce, it means there are more people or leaders managing them with higher EQ,” she says.

Emotional intelligence has been on the radar since 1990, when psychology professors John D. Mayer of University of New Hampshire and Peter Salovey of Yale coined the term in a research paper.

In 1998, Rutgers psychologist Daniel Goleman linked emotional intelligence to leadership in an influential article published in Harvard Business Review titled ‘What Makes a Leader’. Without emotional intelligence, he wrote, “a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.”

Today Dhanak runs EQ workshops for a range of clients including the Australia Federal Police, marketing and advertising companies and dental practices. “We use emotional intelligence techniques to help the business manage HR issues, and focus on the leadership teams to really make them aware of how they’re feeling and what that impact is having on their team.”

 

What’s your EQ?

Workplaces lacking in emotional intelligence are often plagued by problems such as micromanagement, a lack of trust and bullying.

To help leaders gauge their own emotional intelligence, Dhanak has created a list of 10 signs that an individual lacks EQ:

  1. You are easily stressed and irritated
  2. You treat people rashly and unfairly
  3. You are wrapped up in your own world
  4. You are over-confident
  5. You fear change
  6. You take failure badly
  7. You get into conflicts easily
  8. You interrupt and don’t listen
  9. You find fault with others easily
  10. Your relationships break down

 

The first step of Dhanak’s training is a self-assessment, a 10-minute online test that scores respondents across 26 competencies of emotional intelligence, including innovation, creativity and service orientation.

Based on those results Dhanak develops a coaching plan that can be delivered one-on-one or in a series of workshops run over a six to 12-month period.

Many traits contribute to emotional intelligence – empathy, flexibility, honesty, resilience, positivity, the ability to listen – but one of the most crucial is self-awareness. It’s important to understand your strengths and weaknesses and be better prepared for situations when these will be exposed, says Dhanak.

“Can you name the emotions you’re feeling? If you are not aware of what emotion you’re feeling you are not going to be able to read it and explain it to other people.”

Want to know more about Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?

Join our webinar on the 30th of August where we discuss the neuroscience behind WHY Emotional Intelligence is so important, as well as practical tips to boost your EQ & take your leadership to a new level.

Book today

 

 

A Bank of Knowledge

 

What makes Shayne Elliott and his trusted team tick?
The ANZ boss tells all

 

Self-acknowledged introvert Shayne Elliott seems one of the least likely big-bank chiefs, but his career has followed a path that is familiar to his fellow bankers. The ANZ CEO is a bank ‘lifer’, joining Citibank New Zealand as a management trainee in 1985. Within seven years he was the head of derivative sales in London. And after spells in the US and Egypt, he found himself in Australia in 2001, as the chief executive of Citibank, Corporate Bank. In 2009, he joined ANZ, becoming CFO in 2012. And in early 2016, he was appointed to the top spot at ANZ, where he leads a team of about 50,000 employees. CEO of the Institute of Managers and Leaders, David Pich, interviewed Shayne Elliott at a recent Outstanding Leaders event.

 

David Pich: How would you describe your own leadership style?
Shayne Elliott: Well, I think I’m probably an introvert. I’m actually quite shy although, funnily enough, I’m actually reasonably comfortable speaking to 500 people. I’d probably rather do that than speak to two, because there’s more distance when you’re speaking to a room [of people]. When I was CFO my team made fun of me – it was suggested that I do performance appraisals in a 500-seat auditorium, [as] that was a much more engaging conversation than having a one-on-one [with me]. I think there is a shift away from that big, charismatic, loud leadership style to one that is probably – and again, I’m not saying that’s wrong – to a more grounded, humble leader. I think good leaders are able to shift. Sometimes you do need to be really directive about what you’re doing, depending on what the crisis might be at the time, or the team. But at other times you need to be more visionary. So I think, actually, good leaders are able to change their style for the moment and the objective. But in general, my preferred style is to be quite consultative. I lead more by example and by describing what we’re trying to achieve.

 

DP: Talk us through some of the different styles in your leadership team, and how you interact with them.
SE: Over the last 18 months I had the opportunity to build my team. There are 12 of us on my direct team, and of that, a third came from outside the organisation, including two of them this calendar year. We have a couple of people we’ve promoted from within, and only one of the team has the same job they had a year ago. So I’ve got people who’ve been around a long time and really know what they’re doing, who don’t need a lot of hand holding or direction, and it’s more about just being clear about expectations. Then I’ve got some people who have never worked in a bank before so they need a lot more coaching and time. I have people with big opinions, and they think differently and challenge us all the time, and my job there is to actually give them space to be creative and listen to what they say. And then there are others who are naturally reserved, who need time, who digest a lot and are really thoughtful and quiet, and take time to come to a conclusion. I need to give them time and space, and not rush them, or rush the overall team to a decision without allowing them the benefit of that time to digest.

 

DP: There is an elephant in the room we need to get to: the bank levy. [Announced in the federal budget in May, it applies to ANZ, Westpac, National Australia Bank, Commonwealth and Macquarie. The policy was introduced on 1 July and is expected to raise $1.6 billion in the first year.] I’ve read much of what you said about the federal bank levy, and you seemed relatively fair about how you approached that. Your comments were very measured. The South Australian bank levy, when it was announced, raised some hackles. You’ve just used the word “immoral”. Or was it “unethical”? Would you like to explain that, and why you shot off the fence?
SE: I think the federal bank levy is wrong. I don’t think it’s good policy. I think it’s unfair to pick on an industry because they’re successful and say, “because people don’t like you, because you make a lot of money, we’ll tax it”. I don’t think that’s right. But, on the other hand, it has the support of all sides of politics. The people are represented by the parliament, and the parliament, across all parties, have agreed and support this. And so, our approach was to use our efforts to really have private conversations with the treasury and the government, to just talk through the implementation. We thought that was more effective than just banging the table. Actually, in my opinion, banging the table and shouting loudly would just reinforce people’s views that the banks are out of touch. Bringing in the state levy is different. Not everybody agrees with it. What is happening there is a wealth transfer underway from the rest of Australia to South Australia. I don’t think that’s right. And so what we said was, 94 per cent of our shareholders and customers do not live in South Australia [yet] they are being asked to absorb this. Because when people say, “Oh, you should absorb it,” that means the shareholders and the customers pay. It’s not a huge number. It’s not the money. It’s the principle. So we have to stand up for those stakeholders. That’s why we felt strongly about it, and felt we had to say something.

 

DP: One of the roles of a leader is to explain things in relatively simple terms for those who might not necessarily understand it. What do you think a few attributes of successful leaders are?
SE: Being able to listen and take feedback. I don’t just mean personal feedback. Yes, that’s important, but also ‘listen’ to what’s happening in the environment around you. One of the areas where leaders fail is in locking into a strategy or a view. The worst thing you can do is fall in love with your own strategy, because you rationalise staying the course when maybe you should listen and maybe you should change. Another [attribute of successful leaders] is having people who are very good at being self-aware, who understand their own weaknesses and mitigate that by hiring the right people in the team.

 

DP: Who are the leaders you have admired over your career?
SE: I’m not one of those people who has a big hero. I look at companies that I admire, and they tend to be those companies that I see as being talent factories. The obvious candidates are Procter & Gamble, GE and Hewlett-Packard. You could go there and learn how to be a manager and leader, and then go on to other companies. That’s extraordinary. The number of CEOs who’ve come out of those companies, Procter & Gamble and GE in particular, is extraordinary. At ANZ we want to be known for a number of things, but one of them is as a talent factory, and a company that creates great leaders. I think it’s a huge opportunity for us, actually, because I don’t think enough companies do pay attention to it.

 

ANZ board chairman David Gonski

DP: Quite often I think that leaders, when they get into leadership positions, they forget or they overlook the importance of managing upwards. What’s your relationship like with the ANZ board and the chair David Gonski? How do you manage upwards?
SE: I think, unfortunately, that term ‘managing upwards’ has a really bad connotation. It sounds manipulative. And maybe there’s a better way of stating it. [As a leader] you actually have to manage all your stakeholders, and they’re [the board and chair] just an important one. The reason I stepped out earlier [during the interview] was because my chairman was on the phone. So I think answering their phone calls is a good start. You have to build a really strong working relationship. I’m really lucky with David [Gonski]. He is very open and transparent. He always answers his phone. We speak formally once a week. And there are weeks where we speak once a day and many times a day, like this week. So I think it’s just about having openness. I have really worked hard with my board. I’ve actually never had a board before [so] I asked some people for advice. The advice was that it’s better to over-communicate, keep people aware of what you’re doing and thinking. Make sure that, with the board in particular that you don’t get into a transactional relationship. [Make sure] there is time for reflection and discussion, and open dialogue.

 

“I’m really lucky with David Gonski. He is very open and transparent. I think it’s just about having openness. I have really worked hard with my board.”

 

DP:  You’ve talked about the importance of embracing social media. What do you see as the pitfalls of social media for leaders?
SE: Our business is digital. Money has actually been digital for a long time and all we’re doing today, when we talk about digital, is giving people the tools to be able to see , manage and move their money on their phones or in another digital way. So I think it’s important that our people are interested in technology. We’re not a technology company, we’re a bank. But a big chunk of what we do is about technology. You cannot be successful in banking today if you’re not interested in technology. I don’t think it’s acceptable to be a senior executive in a bank today and say, “I’m not on Twitter. I don’t use social media”. You’ve got to be there, because that’s the way that people live today, and that gives you all sorts of insights into people’s experience of life, and what they want. And more and more, our customers’ expectations of us are set by their experiences on social media. What are the pitfalls? Well, Donald Trump can probably tell you more about this than me, but the pitfalls are that it’s in real time. It’s really hard to retract. It’s fraught with danger.

 

DP:  How would you describe the culture at ANZ?
SE: It’s a learning culture, a culture that is interested in technology, and a culture that is, ultimately, diverse and welcoming and team-based. Banks historically have very compliant cultures. There’s a pretty good reason for that, because of what we do for a living. We’re good at following rules and, you know, that can sometimes get in the way of being a learning company and an innovative and technology-focused company. So that’s part of our challenge, getting the balance right.

 

Freedom Fighter

 

In the Institute of Leaders and Managers new book, Leadership Matters, Transparency International boss Cobus de Swardt explains why he’s just as passionate now about combatting corruption as he was fighting the scourge of apartheid in the 1980s.

 

Transparency International is a global movement that brings together companies, governments and business to fight corruption on a worldwide scale. Operating in more than 100 countries, its headquarters are in Berlin. Managing director Cobus de Swardt was born and raised in South Africa, where he was jailed for refusing to undertake compulsory army service. He eventually fled South Africa for Australia under significant personal danger. He has headed Transparency International since 2007.

 

David Pich: I think in future years people will look back on this decade and the word corruption will be commonly used. What do you define as corruption?
Cobus de Swardt: I view corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private and personal gain. This comes in many forms. One of the most significant ways to fight corruption is to fight for greater transparency – that’s why we’re called Transparency International.

 

DP: What do you define as transparency?
CDS: Definitions of concepts such as transparency, corruption, accountability and integrity are actually dynamic and evolving. It comes back to your opening question really. The last few years have seen definitions shift and transparency [as a concept] is developing faster than all the others. Some people [now] refer to a much more radical transparency. I believe that in five to 10 years’ time from now, this will, again, move quite dramatically. Five years ago, little attention was being paid to things like statutes of limitations, so governments could relatively easily do deals on arms or whatever [in the knowledge that] the statute of limitation would last for 30 years or more. But if that statute of limitation is five or 10 years, it becomes a very different issue even at a government level. So transparency is about making things much more difficult to hide and bringing things out into the light. In South Africa, as young [anti-apartheid] activists in the 1970s and 1980s we always wanted to have the right to speak the truth to those people in power, but now I think that [situation] is being reversed. We now want those in power to speak the truth to us! The notion of transparency being much more instant, much more direct, and dramatically more open. For example, if you look at corporate reporting, even four or five years ago companies didn’t want to report on their activities on a country-by-country basis. They would say, “Here’s our overall global financial statement”. It was very difficult to tell what was happening at a country level. That debate about transparency now seems like it happened two decades ago, but it didn’t, it was only five years ago. And now country-by-country reporting has become project-by-project reporting.

 

DP: What do you think can be done to see ethics and integrity placed at the heart of decision-making in leadership?
CDS: I think that it starts with the leader. Regulation and rules need to be in place of course, but leaders must constantly think about the values they want to promote. This question is at the heart of sound leadership. It’s much easier for a leader to think about the outcomes they want to deliver, but leaders need to constantly think about the underpinning values to these outcomes. If you think about social policy in general, I would argue that most social policies are often quite devoid of a strong value-driven framework. It’s often the same with leadership. Many leaders are driven by outcomes rather than values. That needs to change.

 

DP: I agree that many organisations are focused on outcome and output. A lot of a leader’s decision-making is linked to output, not to value. I think that ethical leadership is about a much stronger link between outcome and value. Decision-making is such an important part of successful leadership, don’t you think?
CDS: I do think there’s a very strong element that whatever you do you should at all times feel comfortable with that decision. If, for whatever reason, your decisions were to become public knowledge, would you feel comfortable with that? That’s the test of sound decision-making. In my role at Transparency International, I often have companies say to me, “Oh, this corruption thing, it’s so complicated, our people don’t know what to do because the laws are so . . . ” And I typically say, “Just use common sense”. I recommend using ‘The New York Times test!’ Ask yourself, if the decision I make were to appear on the front page of The New York Times, would I still do it? Probably 99 per cent of times you would say yes, but it’s the other one per cent that you need to think about. Being an ethical leader is about passing The New York Times test 100 per cent of the time.

 

Take Two – Asterisk and Reward

Ben Luks MIML had just been appointed as marketing, product and client liaison manager at Adelaide-based IT company Comunet when he joined the Institute’s mentoring program. He was teamed up with Bob Schroder FIML, managing director of consulting firm Asterisk management, and says the experience gave him the confidence he needed to become a successful manager.

Why did you join the Institute’s mentoring program, Member Exchange?

Ben Luks: I’d recently been appointed to a new management position and it was the first time I’d been a manager. I realised I had to learn as much as I could as quickly as possible. The chance to join the mentoring program came at a very crucial point in my career. Bob was very generous with his time and was willing to meet with me every fortnight for about six months, which was fantastic.

Bob Schroder: I’ve been mentoring business leaders for quite a few years, mostly in the area of small-to-medium-sized businesses. This was my first experience with the mentoring program and I joined because mentoring challenges my own thinking. I find that an emerging manager sometimes faces the same issues I faced in the past as well as many different ones. Also, some challenges just look different, but are really the same ones in disguise.

What did you get out of the experience?

BL: I feel more confident in my management role compared to where I was when I started. The mentoring program gave me the skills and the ideas I needed to perform effectively as a manager and the confidence that comes with that is very important. It also gave me the opportunity to see the next steps forward in my career and to think about the bigger picture. Bob really opened my eyes to what is possible beyond my current role and where I could go from here.

BS: Well, it sounds a little bit corny, but I like to give back. I think that’s really important. I’ve had a career in management and consulting over the past 30 years. It’s been interesting and exciting and rewarding for me and I want others to have a similar experience in their own careers.

What did you learn from each other?

BL: Bob provided a different perspective on management and shared insights from his vast experience as a management consultant. The team I manage includes people quite a bit older than me, and Bob emphasised that anybody can be a manager – it doesn’t matter how old you are. If you have the ability to work effectively with people and to give them the opportunity to grow into their roles and the space they need to perform to the best of their abilities, then you can be a manager. That was a lesson I learned from the outset and it was really empowering for me and very inspiring.

BS: I enjoy interaction with bright young managers. Ben, particularly, is a bright young chap who’s on the growth path. I gained a better perspective on the way in which emerging managers think and the perspectives of the new generations of employees who will shape business in the future. That’s particularly important.

Would you recommend the mentor program to others?

BL: Absolutely. For any new manager, or any aspiring manager, the program enables you to learn skills and insights that really can only be gained from years of experience. You can’t put a price on having access to that knowledge and experience.

BS: Yes, absolutely. I’d say to anyone who’s considering becoming a mentor in the program that if you’re doing it for the expectation of significant personal or financial benefit, you need to re-examine your motives. Those things will happen, but they’ll happen by making you into a better and well-rounded manager.

Leaders can inspire or pollute teams…. what kind of leader are you?

By Phil Crenigan FIML, Managing Director, Executive Turning Point

The Background

As a Fellow of the Institute of Managers and Leaders I was delighted to accept an invitation to facilitate and lead their opening 2017 Leadership Outlook series on High Performing Teams and how to build them. This involved a significant commitment between February to April 2017 and took me to 17 locations: Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong, Melbourne, Geelong, Bendigo, Canberra, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Brisbane, Cairns, Toowoomba, Mackay, Rockhampton, Sunshine Coast and Townsville. In the process I was privileged to meet with 840 participants from every kind of business background imaginable. Big business and small business, private sector and public sector. I met with Leaders from mining, engineering, energy, private and public schools, professional services, including legal, dental, financial services and medical practices. Attendance was high from many local government teams, social services, tourism, not for profits and IT.  The one common denominator across this hugely diverse group, was their mutual interest in and need for, high performing teams.

The Context

Much of my work in the last eight years has been helping CEO’s, General Managers and Senior Executives build their own capability and self-awareness as Leaders and in turn to build extraordinary high performing capability around them. How to build high performance in teams is not taught at business school and rarely in our professional lives. (Indeed only a handful out of the 840 participants indicated that they had been through specific professional development to enable them to do this to a successful level.) Yet we all know what it feels like to be part of an extraordinary performing team and a highly dysfunctional group. As a Coach, I know that there are specific drivers and characteristics of high performing teams and this can be measured. I also know that where these drivers and characteristics are driven from the CEO downwards, engagement is high, people are inspired and performance and results in whatever endeavour the organisation is focussed on naturally follow. I provided these insights and tools at all of the sessions so participants could go away and do things immediately with their people.

At the beginning of my journey, I was curious as to what we would discover. Would there be regional differences or different levels of emphasis by type of business? Are there great examples out there waiting to be discovered? What if we were able to codify the drivers and coach this for leaders to be successful? What are the barriers that prevent this and why? Most importantly, I was keen to test out the impact on people when they are in a high performing group and when they are not and how that plays out in their lives in a holistic sense. Finally, what is the role of the leader in all of this as they clearly have a role to play in inspiring others, don’t they’? The only preparation that participants were asked to think about prior was to think about a high performing team that they had been member of in their lives, to note the drivers around why and to recall their general disposition on life at the time. In addition, participants were asked to reflect on a bad team experience they had been a part of, make notes of the drivers around why, and also to reflect on the impact on their lives. This was the basis of the breakout session that has since taken place throughout the 17 locations in Australia. Within 45 minutes, 840 participants openly shared their reflections to both experiences, some with complete strangers and I now want to share with you their insights and the answers to my questions that became crystal clear as the tour progressed.

The Discoveries

i. High Performing Teams
As a coaching and facilitation technique with groups of people, describing “felt leadership” is a powerful conduit to insights and revelations. Participants told us, their learnings were visceral. They recalled examples of high performing teams with such strong recollections.

What the consolidated word heat map of high performing teams below confirms from 870 random examples across 17 locations are:

  1. The drivers are entirely similar which means we can codify what we need to focus on. This was the content of my third and final tool which was distributed after this exercise. It was accepted as a valid driver for every high-performance example from each participant. What the participants demonstrated to themselves is they actually know what drives high performance, because they articulated it in how it felt. Just like we remember the best teachers from 30 years ago in a heartbeat, personal recall on the high performing team experience was immediate, free flowing and energised.
  2. Being part of a high performing team had a direct and positive impact on all aspects of their lives. When it is good, it is all good and we have summaries from every table in every location. Inspired people make better partners, fathers and mothers and all round better humans in all that we do.
  3. The Leader has a clear role to play but so does purpose and direction, role clarity, continual improvement, shared values that are lived and inclusive and open transparent communication.
  4. All of the above resulted in highly engaged people and a strong enabling culture.

Workplace values that can influence a high performing team - Institute of Manager and Leadersii. Dysfunctional Teams

In turning to the dark side, the revelations were at time astonishing in their honesty and the impact on the lives of everybody. Without exception, every participant had a bad experience that was often described, as “the worst chapter of my life”, resulting in loss of relationships, confidence and esteem or health. For health read absenteeism, dread and depression. I would like every leader of people and in particular any CEO reading this article, to carefully read through this picture and to focus on the key words that are at the heart of this word map. One that certainly struck me as I worked through the tour was fear.

  1. These are the words that describe what it feels like to be in a dysfunctional team
    from 840 participants in 17 locations. Once again, it was only through the mechanism of sharing stories and / or experiences through what it “felt” like, were we able to establish this level of disclosure.
  2. The drivers in these dysfunctional teams include, inappropriate / incompetent leadership, absence of any plan, little or no trust, organisational acceptance of inappropriate behaviours, toxic culture.
  3. A profound negative impact on everybody outside of work and the worlds that they seek to play a role in.

I encourage every reader of this article to reflect themselves from their own experience how they felt when part of an extraordinary team and to note down the drivers and to do the same on a poorly led team. My sense and prediction is that your words will be in each of the pictures. The key question is what kind of leader are you and would your people agree….do you inspire or do you pollute?

Workplace values that can hinder team performance - Institute of Manager and Leaders

I would be delighted to hear from leaders and teams if this resonated, particularly CEO’s who want to make a difference going forward. It is never too late and your organisation will be more effective for it.

IML would like your input to understand what would help you move towards a high performing team and to increase your leadership capability in this area. Take our survey today and tell us what else you would like to see to take your team to the next level: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/high-performing-teams