Executive Leadership

Joseph Olmstead, PH.D.

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780877193692
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136404375
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book provides a genuine understanding of practical leadership based upon years of research and development. It identifies the essential components of leadership, and supplies guidelines for developing and implementing those skills. Clear, straightforward explanations and examples direct executives on how to establish objectives, delegate authority, direct subordinates, and motivate the team. Executive Leadership supplies a comprehensive analysis of effective leadership at senior levels and presents a model for establishing an efficient and productive workplace. Joseph A. Olmstead, Ph.D., is vice-president for product development with the Vanguard Research Group. His experience includes 22 years as a senior staff scientist and a program director for the Human Resources Research Organization. Dr. Olmstead is the author of numerous books on leadership and organizational effectiveness

Part One The Executive as Leader

Chapter 1 Requirements for Leadership

DOI: 10.4324/9780080573830-1

Although many factors may influence the performance of an organization, there can be little doubt that the quality of leadership available to it will be one of the most critical determinants of ultimate success. In recognition of this fact, tremendous effort and resources have been expended, with varying degrees of success, to identify and develop personnel who will occupy the positions of leadership needed to meet present and future organizational requirements.

Current and future conditions make effective executive leadership more critical than ever before. Requirements for leadership have their bases in the kinds of performance demanded of organizations. The kinds of performance required of many of our organizations are changing and, with these shifting demands, the problems of leadership and the process of leading are becoming more complex and more difficult.

Whatever the purpose and mission of an organization, present-day operating conditions are most often characterized by:

1. High levels of turbulence within both the operating environment and the organization
2. Increasingly unpredictable events rising from highly turbulent conditions
3. Increasing rapidity of critical events
4. Increasingly complex operations required to cope with threatening and uncertain events

These changing conditions are placing new demands upon executive leaders in business and governmental organizations. In addition, increasingly complex technology, changed social values, and increased economic expectations make traditional leadership practices less effective in obtaining needed performance from organizations. Indeed, changes in technology, society, and organizations are presenting numerous new challenges that will require more sophisticated and more skillful leaders. High-quality leadership has always been important for organizational success. Now, it is becoming increasingly essential as a means for guiding organizations to success.

Leadership in Organizations

In a broad sense, it can be argued that the principal purpose of organizational activities is the making of favorable conditions for the achievement of certain goals. Efforts are made to increase, as much as conditions will permit, the probabilities of succeeding in accomplishing the organization’s objectives, mission, or purpose. The making of decisions, the specification of methods and the improvement of procedures, the designation of responsibilities and the assignment of duties, the direction of work, and the execution of tasks—all of these processes have one organizationally legitimate purpose: to increase the chances of successfully accomplishing the organization’s objectives. Upon this point rest all of the criteria by which the effectiveness of organizational activities are evaluated.

Probabilities of success, however, are increased only by taking relevant and appropriate actions. For organizations, whose very survival may depend upon the successful accomplishment of goals, the actions require high levels of competence by numbers of people working together. The effectiveness of such an action system requires the coordinated efforts of individuals performing parts of a total task so that the activities of each person contribute, in some fashion, to the accomplishment of the overall goals.

It is not surprising, in these terms, that the effectiveness of an organization with respect to the achievement of its goals should be so closely related to the effectiveness of its leaders. Regardless of the type or size of a unit, department, or organization, the individuals who occupy the positions of leadership must make sure that objectives are established and communicated, plans are made, policies are developed, and personnel are obtained, assigned, and trained. They must establish levels of responsibility, set up mechanisms of coordination, delegate authority, direct subordinates, provide stimulation and inspiration to everyone, exercise control, develop high levels of motivation and morale within their personnel, and adjust the plans and activities to broader changes in the larger organization, government, society, and the community. If these activities are not performed well, the organization will not function effectively.

This raises a series of questions about the abilities needed to function effectively in an executive leadership role. For example, how aware is the executive of the emotional and motivational conditions of the various groups and individuals in the organization—conditions he must take into account in making decisions? Is he able to gather relevant and accurate information about the internal functioning of the organization?

How competent is he in observing, talking with, and listening to the people with whom he must work? Is he able to translate his ideas for leading the organization into actions consistent with these ideas? How sensitive is he in determining whether to intervene in activities of the organization? Is he skillful in providing the necessary guidance to subordinates in such a manner that motivation and performance are not impaired? How well can he pick out the essential elements in leadership problems and then supply actions appropriate to the demands of the situation?

Answers to questions such as these have an important bearing upon leader performance. Leaders become effective by understanding what is required of them and how, in their particular organizations, the human forces may be combined, balanced, and directed toward ultimate goals.

When the changing and increasingly complex conditions discussed earlier are superimposed upon the traditional requirements for leadership in any organization, it becomes apparent that high-level leadership in either civilian or military organizations can no longer be a matter of hunch or native ability, backed by a few elementary concepts and reinforced through the trial and error of experience. Instead, executive leadership must rest upon systematic knowledge and conscious application of sound principles and practices.

Successful accomplishment as a leader depends upon two basic requirements. First, the executive should have intimate, thorough knowledge of the kinds of people and the kinds of events with which he must deal as a leader. Second, he must have an effective way of thinking about the people and events which he encounters.

The first of these requirements can be met only through experience. The second, while experience helps, also requires thought and study. It is the purpose of this book to assist in meeting the second requirement. The objective is to provide an effective way of thinking about leadership at the level of senior executives.

The Executive Function

The executive function includes at least three broad activities, each of which makes an important contribution to overall effectiveness. These activities are decision making, management, and leadership.

The first activity of the executive involves operational decision making. In virtually all organizations, the senior executives have responsibility to make the more important, more critical decisions regarding the activities to be undertaken. In decisions of this sort, leadership is a secondary consideration. Although the effects of such decisions upon personnel have to be taken into account, the decisions themselves are not primarily concerned with leading personnel. They are concerned with the content of operations. Operational decision making is a separate aspect of the executive function.

Another major activity of the executive involves management—the development and application of the proper procedures for allocating and using the resources, both human and physical, of the organization. An executive may make a judgment about a personnel action or he may approve a program designed to improve efficiency. These kinds of problems are related to management and its corollary activity, administration.

An executive is also responsible for the achievement of objectives, which, in turn, depends upon the efforts and activities of personnel. Therefore, a third important aspect is leadership. It is the function of executive leadership to stimulate, control, and direct the activities of individuals and groups in constructive ways, so that the performance level of the organization may be optimally developed and maintained for mission accomplishment. Thus, executive leadership is concerned with human performance. This emphasis upon human performance distinguishes leadership from other functions of the executive.

It is clear that, in practice, leadership activities can rarely be completely separated from the other aspects. For example, skill in making decisions may partly determine the ability of an executive to lead his personnel. Skill in decision making affects the ability to lead because, if he consistently makes more right than wrong decisions, people will be more willing to follow him. His influence decreases if he consistently makes wrong decisions.

Similarly, management considerations are an integral part of leadership. In the management of resources, each action has an immediate effect in settling the specific question before the executive. There is, however, an additional effect of these constant actions upon the patterns of functioning in the organization. If the executive decides to allocate new equipment to a particular department, what will be the effect upon morale in the other groups? If he decides to install a new efficiency procedure, what will be the effect on the motivation of his personnel? Such considerations as these enter constantly into management actions.

While leadership, management, and operational decision making are closely linked, but different, functions of executives, the principal concern in this book is leadership. Accordingly, subsequent chapters will be restricted, insofar as possible, to discussion of the leadership function of executives.

Executive Leadership

Skills of leadership are essential to the senior executive as a concrete means of developing, guiding, and controlling the complex activities of his organization. Missions are accomplished only when individuals and groups take relevant and appropriate actions. Furthermore, if economy of resources and effort is a consideration, only those actions should be performed that contribute directly to such accomplishment. This requires that activities fit together so that each complements the other and all contribute meaningfully to the end result. The effectiveness of an organization requires the coordinated efforts of many individuals and groups who perform parts of a total task so that the activities of each contribute to the accomplishment of the overall mission.

Coordinated efforts cannot be achieved solely by procedures and the manipulation of organizational components. Collective behavior is effective only to the extent that all individuals at all levels make useful contributions to the ultimate objectives. Such contributions require that personnel know what actions are required of them, that they be capable of performing these actions, and that they be positively motivated to perform them well. Personnel must also learn habits of working together, and the organization as a whole must develop effective routines of functioning. When these conditions prevail, a well-motivated, cohesive, smoothly operating organization is likely to result.

Because of these requirements, the leadership problems faced by executives take on a complexity not generally encountered at lower levels. High-level executives are limited in the extent to which they can personally and directly influence the actions of many of their personnel. Low-level leaders working closely with the personnel can exercise great influence upon attitudes and performance. They are in a position to translate the larger objectives, intents, and purposes into practical action.

Through daily, perhaps hourly, contacts these lower-level leaders are able to exert potent direct influence even upon lowest ranking personnel. These avenues of influence are rarely available to senior executives. As a manager moves up, his direct contact with most personnel becomes fleeting and more superficial; the nature of his influence changes. At senior levels, the executive leads groups rather than individuals, and his efforts are directed toward the maintenance and direction of his organization as a whole system of activities.

The senior executive’s exercise of influence is further complicated by the fact that he must get most of his results through multiple levels of subordinate managers. This means that, in addition to directing his organization as a whole, the senior executive must also concern himself with leading a select group of subordinate executives, each of whom is probably highly competent in his own job.

Despite the fact that a senior executive may be limited in his opportunities for directly influencing most of his personnel, his actions nevertheless have dramatic and long-range consequences for his organization. An organization is built from the top down. It starts with the thinking, ideas, and behavior of the CEO; it spreads out to include his key subordinates; and it is translated into a variety of specific actions and patterns of behavior throughout the organization. If the original ideas of the CEO are unsound, the trends in thinking and action that permeate the organization are likely to be wrong. If, on the other hand, the executive’s basic thinking is sound, it will be reflected throughout the organization.

In particular, the decisions made by an executive regarding the way he will operate his organization have significant effects upon the behavior patterns that will develop at lower levels. For example, the executive who decides to operate his unit like a machine—through stress upon protocol, procedure, standardization, and the mechanics of operations—will produce communication patterns, administrative attitudes, and subordinate leadership behavior that reflect this approach.

On the other hand, if he places stress upon people, rather than the mechanical operations of organizational systems, to get the job done, this emphasis will be reflected throughout the organization. He will consequently develop in his organization a totally different approach to performance that takes into account the importance of human factors in operational proficiency.

Thus, the influence of an executive pervades his organization, even though this influence is not always direct. Because of the position he occupies, it is virtually impossible for him not to exert influence. The problem is not whether the executive influences his organization, but whether or not he can exert this influence with positive results.

Solutions to problems such as these have important bearing upon the leadership performance of an executive. Consequently, one might hope for a set of rules that would equip executives to cope with the complex leadership problems they face. Unfortunately, there are no specific rules that, if followed, will invariably result in successful performance.

Effectiveness is control over environment. An effective organization is a unified system equipped with the knowledge and skills to control its environment, while an ineffective organization, for the lack of such capabilities, remains subject to forces over which it can exert little control.

Similarly, an effective leader is one who understands the organization of which he is a part and the forces by which it is moved, while the ineffective leader is the plaything of arbitrary and capricious powers acting beyond the range of his limited understanding. Thus, understanding is a vital key to effective leadership. Executives become effective leaders by understanding what is required of them and how the human forces in an organization may be combined and balanced and directed toward the ultimate objectives.

This view that leadership skills rest upon understanding has an important implication. It means that leadership skills can be learned. The individual who would be a successful leader can learn about the human factors that operate in his organization, after which he can develop the skills to successfully cope with the variety of situations that arise because of these factors.

Chapter 2 The Nature of Leadership

DOI: 10.4324/9780080573830-2

Before discussing the role of senior executives, it is important to examine the nature of leadership, without regard for the organizational position of the leader. Accordingly, in this chapter, there will be presented a general analysis of leadership and the basic skills needed for le...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One The Executive as Leader
• Part Two Executives and Their Organizations
• Part Three Processes of Executive Influence
• Part Four Executives and Their Subordinates
• Part Five Conclusion
• Reference
• Appendix
• Index
• Contributors