Leadership

Citation

Nolan, S. (2013), "Leadership", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 13 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-08-2013-0087

Leadership

Article Type: Editorial From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 13, Issue 1

Leadership is the theme of this issue of Strategic HR Review. This incorporates case studies on leadership development and leadership during change, as well as research into how brain-savvy leaders are in the way they work, the nature of the charismatic leadership relationship and how leadership can best engage people.

“Measuring the impact of executive development at Standard Chartered Ban” is a case study from Anwar Shammari, Jonathan Cormack, Dr Alexander (Sandy) Pepper and Samantha King that focuses on leadership development at the bank, and in particular the LAB (Leading across Borders) program. The authors evaluate the impact of this executive development program and consider the contribution of different program phases to the overall impact. With leadership development linked to effective communication of organizational culture and values, their evaluation of LAB goes beyond its use as a development tool to also consider its effectiveness as an organizational intervention. Several factors emerged as variables that impacted the effectiveness of executive development, including environmental factors such as the business landscape (commercial v wholesale banking) and attendees’ level within the organization. Focusing on the different phases of the program resulted in several recommendations for improving the program. While LAB delivers positive outcomes to both the organization and its leaders, the rigorous nature of the evaluation helps in further improving its effectiveness as a wider organizational intervention.

Jan Hills focuses on the extent to which leaders work in a way that is consistent with how their brain works in her research paper, “Are your leaders brain-savvy, and why should you care?” This is based on the belief that working in a way that is consistent with how the brain works creates efficiency, productivity and engagement, and also improves the chances that change will be successful. She discusses the findings of a related research project exploring how respondents perceive their leaders in the context of the latest thinking in neuroscience. The survey suggests that leaders are not acting in a way that is consistent with how the brain works, while a quarter of respondents went further to say their leaders were “brain-fried”, demonstrated through stress, poor communication and a lack of personal connection. In contrast, brain-savvy leaders engage with teams at a personal level, they understand others’ feelings, they help people understand change, and they are personally self-aware. For HR, the opportunity is to help leaders become brain-savvy and to meet the social needs of their people and help them through the period of change that many industries are experiencing.

“Tackling the challenges of leading through change”, by Kate Pritchard and Eddie Bloomfield, specifically addresses the need for an engaging style of leadership as a way of managing change. The case study focuses on a major transformation, involving the transfer of administrative functions for one government department away from an internal office to a separate state owned organization. This meant the closure of a long established office and a reduction in roles from 160 to 11. The fact that the transfer went smoothly and achieved targets, and within a short space of time realized cost benefits and efficiency improvements, is largely due to the quality of leadership during the process. There was a highly visible leader from the start of the transformation who put in place regular communications, with an open and honest approach to conveying information and answering questions. Despite the short term nature of the remaining work for most, he created a sense of purpose based around three organizational objectives – maintaining performance, achieving a “safe” transition, and looking after its people. By attending meetings and having open honest dialogue with the team, trust and credibility were maintained and this contributed towards the smooth transition.

In “Charismatic leadership through the eyes of followers”, Dr Steve Kempster and Dr Ken Parry explore charismatic leadership from the perspective of followers, rather than from the point of view of leadership behaviors. They carried out a research project examining followers’ experiences of charismatic leadership in organizational settings and used metaphors (movie genres) to examine their feelings towards and reactions to different types of leadership. The charismatic relationship was found to have the closest similarity with “emotions of affection and warmth” and with “comedy” and “family” movie genres. Focus group discussions point to an archetype (leadership) identity that may evoke a charismatic relationship from leaders – the respected family member, caring for and supporting workers. From a developmental point of view, it may be construed that managers who draw on patriarchal structures while carrying out their managerial duties may create a charismatic leadership identity in the eyes of their followers and develop a charismatic leadership relationship based on respect and affection.

“Aon Hewitt’s 2013 trends in global engagement: where do organizations need to focus attention?”, by Jenny Merry, highlights key trends in the levels and drivers of employee engagement and proposes some key steps for HR professionals to take in helping leaders to keep focused on those issues that will make the biggest difference to employee motivation. Aon Hewitt’s analysis of global engagement trends highlights a number of areas where leaders and managers, with the support of HR, should be taking action to drive up engagement levels from its current global level of 60 percent. Analysis of organizations achieving the best engagement and performance levels highlights the following drivers as ones where the top performers excel and therefore are potential areas of focus for other organizations: leadership, employee value proposition, total rewards and enabling infrastructure. In today’s resource constrained environment, investment in engagement initiatives needs to be targeted in order to achieve best return and performance improvement.

Sara Nolan
E-mail: strategichrreview@gmail.com