The Daily Leader

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In the latest HBR magazine (January 2009) INSEAD’s Herminia Ibarra and Otilia Obodaru wrote “Women & the Vision Thing”, which raised more than a few eyebrows and comments on blog sites.  Ibarra and Obodaru intended to uncover assumptions and bias against women’s leadership ability in the business world.  Much has been recently written about women’s superior leadership ability over men as transformational leaders, and that transformational leadership delivers a greater return on investment.   “Women & the Vision Thing”, left me unsettled, and made me question the definition of “envisioning”, along with the conclusion.

Ibarra and Obodaru researched 2,816 executives from 149 countries in INSEAD’s executive education courses.  “Women are judged to be less visionary than men in 360-degree feedback.  “It may be a matter of perception, but it (envisioning) stops women from getting to the top.”  

Countless studies have been done about the lack of women in leadership roles-from Catalyst to McKinsey to the London Business School- and while theories abound, there doesn’t seem to be any consensus.  Can we now claim “perception on envisioning” precludes women from getting to the top?  Highly doubtful.

Like many organizational competency frameworks, INSEAD developed a detailed definition of “envisioning”, describes envisioning as, “articulating a compelling vision, mission, and strategy that incorporate a multicultural and diverse perspective and connect employees, shareholders, suppliers, and customers on a global scale.”  Merriam Webster calls envisioning, “visual imagery” or “to picture in the mind; imagine.” 

Based on my experience working with executive teams, most leaders have an innate ability to picture in their mind where they-and the organizations- are headed.  Interestingly, according to Ibarra and Obodaru’s findings, the male peers (representing the majority of peers) rated women lower on envisioning, whereas female peers, male superiors and subordinates did not.  The researchers’ states, “our data suggest it’s the men who might feel most competitive toward their female peers.”

The article’s perspective on the ability to sell ideas to numerous stakeholders’ dependency on strong technical skills and a ‘nose to the grindstone focus on quantifiable objectives’ were most intriguing.  All such issues cut across gender lines, hardly endemic to women. Many politically naïve managers are unaware of the elusive nature and adjustments required for leadership roles.  Ibarra and Obodaru rightly indicate that the ‘game’ changes as you move up the corporate ladder.  Many strong performers move up the functional ranks using the same technical skills, hitting a wall when moved into leadership roles. 

Technical skills and assiduous attention to detail must carefully move aside as leadership now demands sophisticated social skills, along with the ability to mobilize followers for the collective goal.  Effective leaders today must have a clear agenda, understand the political landscape, know how to build coalitions and requisite bargaining power.  Having a vision is imperative, but leaders also need to understand how people think in order to have an agenda fulfilled.  As the researchers acknowledge, women leaders prevail in this collaborative approach to leadership.  Leaders are highly effective when they know where they’re headed and what they want to achieve. 

Ibarra and Obodaru research stated that “women had a better command of detail [and] they were less prone to self-promotion than men.”  Is self-promotion rather than the ‘vision thing’ the stumbling block to the top?  Self-promotion is a tricky thing and usually leaves some managers feeling uneasy which results in not doing it well.  The Center for Creative Leadership coined a new term for authentic and ethical self-promotion; strategic visibility.  Strategic visibility sounds more palatable than self-promotion or bragging.  

The article mentions that “men speak more confidently and boldly on an issue, with very little data to back it up.”  This is as true in boardrooms as it is on the sports field. Ambivalent, tentative language and being indirect leaves lasting (usually negative) impressions. Deborah Tannen’s research concluded that “women more than men use qualifying language and soften criticism with praise.” (Seldman & Brandon, 2004)   Marty Seldman, co-author of the book, Survival of the Savvy, suggests ‘vocab rehab”, or learning how to present and sell ideas with firm language, as tentative or weak words negate leadership capabilities.

Based on my experience working with men and women leaders in Fortune 500 companies, I don’t agree with the simplicity of ‘the vision thing’.   In senior leadership roles, the best leaders know how to build networks and coalitions, develop key relationships internally and externally and only then, sell their visions.

 Ibarra and Obodaru tell the story of a manager who “lacked the networks that would have helped her spot shifting priorities in the wider market and was blindsided by the idea.”  Relying too much on skills and too little on relationships is a common pitfall for many emerging leaders, male or female.   Cultivating followers and having robust support up, down and around the organization ensures success for the leader and the organization.  If we follow Ibarra and Obodaru’s suggestions we’ll begin to see a plethora of new courses on building the “vision thing” for women leaders.  Yet in reality, women leaders would be better served by building key networks, nurturing strategic visibility and using firm language to sell their vision.

Jane Horan is a Singapore based  consultant specializing in womens issues In business.  Contact her  on: horanjane@yahoo.com

How to Be at Your Best When Things are at Their Worst

By Nick Craig| President The Authentic Leadership Institute

Current situation
We are currently operating in a world that looks very different from just 12 months ago. Many of us are involved in lay-offs, cutting production/services, selling in a buyer’s market, closing offices, having to take care of the remaining scared employees, disappearing investments that were the intended escape from the loony bin, walking into work and not knowing if you’re going to be the next one to go, etc. etc. etc… Let’s just say even if none of these things are happening to or around you personally, reading the paper these days requires a tough skin.
Challenge
On the other hand, what better time than now to really lead. It’s when it’s easy to lose one’s head that we most need to step up. It’s obvious that many of the people we left in charge the last 10 years haven’t really lead. Inauthentic leaders have gotten us into this mess (Thain, Fuld, Madoff, Auto Exec’s, etc.), it’s going to take the authentic leaders to get us out.
Here is the fundamental question each of us has to answer to lead in these times:
- How do you stay calm when most of the external definitions of success are negative (Profit, revenue, etc..) and non of the tools we use to “predict” the future work anymore ?
The alternative has been to manage from fear. Fear has become the common denominator impacting many corporate decision makers. In my dialogue with senior exec’s, most have told me about draconian decisions being made above. Unfortunately, fear doesn’t create leadership. At best it is the other side of the coin from arrogance. None of us fully know how things will turn out in the next couple of years. But, doing what everyone else is doing won’t be your finest moment. As Warren Buffett said recently about his experience of herd mentality “when everyone is greedy, I am fearful, when everyone is fearful, I get greedy”
What’s Your Version of Resilience?
What we have discovered in our work is that each of us has the ability to be our best when things are at their worst. We have all been tested at key times in our life. The resilience we need now isn’t something we are going to get from reading a book or the latest power point presentation. Even if we did have the time, taking someone else’s approach isn’t going to work fast enough or address the complex and unprecedented issues we are facing. On the other hand, what has helped us be resilient in the past is well developed and worked(If you look at your most challenging life experiences it may be fair to say if you didn’t find your resilience, your life today would be very different) . Much of what has made us who we are is the gold that if mined from those past challenges, will allow us to lead when others are running for the door.
In my case, my most challenging experience happened about 10 years ago. At the time I was a high flying consultant working for a very prestigious consulting firm. I was running a huge change effort, with a beautiful wife, daughter, dog, etc. Three months later, I couldn’t get out of bed(slept for 3 months), had been fired by my client, fired from my job, and fired by my wife… In the face of this, all the current news and events just isn’t that bad.
In reality, what happened 10 years ago was the best thing that could have happened. Today, I have a great home life and run a very successful organization that delivers programs on authentic leadership at Wharton and a number of Fortune 50 companies.
Now, think about what your 2-3 challenging life experiences have been? These can be from your personal or professional life.
Once you have reviewed your experiences, you can now access your version of resilience. For me, my version of resilience that worked when all had been lost was as follows:
- Take each day as it comes and don’t worry about all of it at once. In small chunks it’s always okay
- Only work with customers with the highest integrity and values. Walk away from the money if you have any doubt.
- My colleges need to be my best friends and closes confidants.
As you can see, my version of resilience probably isn’t similar to yours. As we have found from our research, there are common patterns and themes that different people leverage, at the same time each person’s combination and how they relate to their approach is different. No two people have the same strategy. Reading someone else’s list has little value.
Now it’s your turn: As you look at these experiences, what was the key elements of your resiliency (actions you took that helped you deal with the challenges you faced) ?
Now that you have your list, turn around and help those around you find theirs. Welcome to leading in the 21st century.