Effective Leadership

Strategies for Maximizing Executive Productivity and Health

Len Sperry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134944651
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book will interest clinicians who have wondered what professional practice would be like in the corporate setting and want to learn more about the psychological and organizational dynamics that 'drive' executive behavior. Based on the premise that leadership effectiveness is a function of both leader productivity and health, this book reviews the latest information and research data and offers case studies to illustrate specific strategies for maximizing executive health. Len Sperry has been consulting to executives and organizations for 30 years and has written numerous articles and several books on executives and workplace dynamics.

Part 1

The Effective Executive Leader

1

Profiles of Leadership Effectiveness

You see them every day in the office or in the community. They are executives who can and do wield considerable influence. Although they share a number of commonalities, they are also unique in many ways. One of the ways in which they differ is in leadership effectiveness, as noted in the following profiles.

Profile # 1: Wesley Saunders was surprised to learn that he had been passed over for promotion. For a week he had sulked and wondered why he had not been invited to join the top-management team. It was not for lack of credentials, he concluded, because his pedigree included an MBA from Wharton and 5 years at Price-Waterhouse prior to assuming his present position. So what else could it be? After 3 years in this smaller and less prestigious firm, he had expected to have no trouble moving into a senior leadership position. He knew that his unit had met its projections nearly every quarter, and he was confident that he got along well with his peers and direct reports. Nevertheless, he seemed unaware that his superior was being pressured to terminate him. Although the superior had some misgivings about the productivity of Saunders’s unit, he was more dismayed by Saunders’s attempts to be accepted by employees “as a regular guy” by second guessing and even mocking top-management decisions. Saunders appeared oblivious of the inappropriateness of his actions.

Profile # 2: Expectations were high that Alex Vasquez would accomplish big things as the new vice president of sales and marketing. After an exhaustive 18 month-search, it seemed that landing Vasquez was too good to be true. He had excellent credentials and references, he was handsome and friendly, and he had great chemistry with the CEO and the executive team, something that the other two candidates seemed to lack. From the moment he started, Vasquez seemed to be on the road at least 3 weeks a month, ostensibly rallying the sales forces in the South and on the West Coast. When he was in town, attending the weekly top-management meeting, he could provide only general answers about sales projections because he had delegated so many responsibilities to his staff. For the first 3 months the CEO did not press the matter, although he was concerned that some people in outlying offices had not yet met the new VP of sales and marketing. A month later the CEO announced that an off-site retreat for the executive team had been scheduled for the upcoming weekend and that it was top priority, given the significant downturn for the current quarter. Everyone showed up but Vasquez, and no one seemed to know where he could be reached. The day before the retreat, the COO had made an offhand comment to the CEO about being uneasy about sales and marketing and wondered if the new VP was really too good to be true. Immediately after the retreat, the CEO conducted his own review of sales and marketing, calling every district sales manager, and was deeply disappointed by what he heard about sales and about Vasquez. His first impulse was to terminate Vasquez immediately.

Profile # 3: Yesterday marked Wendy Jenz’s first year as vice president of product development. She had quickly established a reputation as a steady performer with a no-nonsense style. She met or exceeded quarterly quotas, something that her predecessor had been unable to accomplish consistently. She was a welcome addition to the otherwise all-male top-management team. There were, however, some concerns about her. One was that recent data showed that turnover in her division was nearly 20% above the company-wide figure. Because the availability of engineers and other skilled workers in the regions was limited, and employee performance and developmental coaching were not priorities for her, the CEO had noted this observation in Wendy’s first annual performance appraisal report. When the CEO approached the matter in their performance appraisal meeting, Wendy replied that she expected everyone to give 100% or else. Needless to say, morale was low in her division. The other concern was that she seemed to take more sick time than any other executive did. She dismissed these concerns as “necessary consequences of being a high-flying Type-A personality.” Initially, after watching Wendy’s performance in her first 3 months, the CEO was convinced that she would be able to succeed the current COO when he retired in 9 months. Now, he was not sure that Wendy would be a good fit for that position, given its additional stressors and interpersonal requirements. He hoped that things might still work out and wondered if coaching would be sufficient to make a difference.

Profile # 4: Wallace Quade had the enviable reputation of being a leader who made things happen. As CEO of an academic medical center, he was known and admired in the community for his vision, integrity, and charm. Despite the crisis in health-care reimbursement that impacted all medical centers, Quade had the distinction of maintaining balanced budgets for 10 of the 11 years he had been CEO. Only one other medical center in the nation had come close to matching this accomplishment. Annual staff turnover, which averaged 18 to 23% at many other medical centers, was a mere 4%, largely due to Quade’s capacity to create a family atmosphere and a sense of commitment among his 2,200 employees. At age 57, Quade kept hours that none of his younger executive staff members could match. He had early breakfast and dinner meetings and receptions with stakeholders nearly every day of the week, except weekends. On weekends, when he was not in Washington testifying before Congress or attending professional meetings, he managed to get away from the medical center to spend time with his family, which included several grandchildren. Although he was amazingly active and energetic, one never got the impression that he was rushed or in a hurry. He exuded an unmistakable sense of harmony and centeredness, which positively influenced the rest of his top-management team. No one could remember his taking any sick time during his 11 years as CEO at the medical center. His colleagues insisted that he had to have a cast-iron stomach to continue to sample the various ethnic cuisines at the many receptions he regularly attended in the community. Not surprisingly, the chair of the medical center’s board of directors is considering asking the board, at its next meeting, to approve Watson’s contract for another 3 years.

These four profiles reflect varying degrees of leadership effectiveness. The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with an approach to understanding and analyzing or profiling leadership effectiveness. Accordingly, it describes a continuum of leadership effectiveness. Before that, it lists three basic premises regarding effectiveness, the nature of executive leadership, and the value of leadership effectiveness to corporations.

THREE BASIC PREMISES ABOUT LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS

This is a book about leadership effectiveness and strategies for increasing it in executives. Some of the four profiles cry out for strategies to increase leadership effectiveness. Several questions may be asked at this point: What defines and characterizes leadership effectiveness? Is it high productivity or performance? What is the relationship of leadership effectiveness to corporate effectiveness? How can leadership effectiveness be increased?

Before I address these questions, a clarification of terms is necessary. Given that some of these terms are used synonymously, it is essential that they be defined and differentiated.

Productivity is a measure of outcomes and is the ratio of input to output. Increased productivity means higher profits, competitiveness, or market share.

Performance is a less precise term, in that it reflects both process—that is, how things get done and how long it takes—and outcome, that is, productivity and quality.

People refers to employees, leaders, and other stakeholders involved with a given corporation or organization. This term includes the skills, talents, competencies, and needs of these individuals.

Health, like productivity, is also a measure of outcome and is reflected in both individuals and the corporation. Health for individuals involves physical and psychological well-being. It includes health status, level of psychological functioning, job satisfaction, and so on. Health for the corporation includes absenteeism rates, turnover rates (particularly executive derailment), direct and indirect costs associated with disease management and disability management, return on investment for health promotion programs or initiatives, and commitment to the organization, to name some of the more obvious ones.

The effective leader operates concurrently on two tracks: one is the performance track, for which the end point is productivity; the other is the people track, for which the end point is health. The effective leader tracks both simultaneously. In other words, effectiveness involves both productivity and health.

The first basic premise of this book is that leadership effectiveness is a function of both productivity and health. In the past, the productivity track or dimension of leadership effectiveness was unduly emphasized. Management assumed that leaders only needed to focus on the productivity dimension; the people dimension really didn’t matter. The price of this one-sided emphasis has been high—for example, low commitment and morale, high rates of burnout, and increasing health costs. Nevertheless, research data and firsthand corporate experience confirm the intricate link between productivity and health. I will repeatedly point out such research in this and subsequent chapters. In addition to leadership effectiveness, there is also corporate effectiveness. In fact, a close link exists between both.

The second basic premise of this book is that leadership effectiveness significantly leverages and impacts corporate effectiveness—in other words, corporate productivity and health. The reciprocal is also often true. That is, highly effective corporations tend to attract, hire, and retain highly effective executives. Such corporations are also very likely to transform executives with average levels of effectiveness into higher-functioning executives. This transformation occurs because of the influence of a corporate culture that prizes and rewards effectiveness, the allocation of significant resources for leadership-development initiatives, and the provision for easy access and regular mentoring by senior executives.

The book’s third basic premise is that corporations are continually searching for better strategies to increase leadership effectiveness in order to maximize corporate productivity and health. As corporations have come to better recognize and appreciate this leverage, they have focused on increasing resources for leadership development and enhancement. The goal is to develop the potential of new executives and enhance the capacity of the corporations’ existing executives.

THE NATURE OF EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

Wesley Saunders, Alex Vasquez, Wendy Jenz, and Wallace Quade share one thing in common: All four occupy executive leadership positions. Executive leadership, also called senior leadership or strategic leadership, is a unique type of leadership. It involves leadership at the systemic level, with primary responsibility for formulating strategy and ensuring the best possible alignment or “fit” between the organization and its external environment and stakeholders. Executive leadership differs considerably from leadership at the organizational or multiunit level, as well as from leadership at the unit level. Roles and tasks can be reasonably differentiated among these three levels of leadership. Notable differences exist in the type of strategic operational focus and time span at each level. Strategic focus refers to the specific role function of strategy formation at a given level; operational focus refers to the specific role function of strategy implementation at a given level; and time span refers to the frame of reference—from as short as 1 month to as long as 20 or more years—during which decisions about tasks and goals need to be conceptualized to optimize outcomes. Table 1.1 summarizes these differences.

THE VALUE-ADDED BENEFITS OF EXECUTIVE EFFECTIVENESS

Presumably, a leader’s level of effectiveness can be quantified and translated into value for the corporation. Unfortunately, because it is much easier to quantify the value of production-line employees than senior executives, considerably more data are available on the value added to corporations by highly effective leaders. That being said, some data and estimates suggest the value that effective leadership adds to an organization. For example, highly effective executives—also called peak performers—are noted to have productivity rates that are 25 to 50% higher than their minimally effective—also called poor performers—counterparts (Beatty, 1994, p. 19). Two large retrospective studies suggest some actual dollar values associated with the efforts of effective executives. In their study of 193 corporations over a 19-year period, Weiner and Mohoney (1981) reported that leadership accounted for nearly 44% of variance in profit margins as well as 47% of variance in stock prices. Similarly, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• The Effective Executive Leader
• Strategies for Maximizing Productivity and Health
• Leadership Skills and Competencies
• Personality Styles in Executives by Level of Functioning
• Index