The Leadership Cycle: Matching Leaders to Evolving Organizations

Citation

Rausch, E. (2003), "The Leadership Cycle: Matching Leaders to Evolving Organizations", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 240-241. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2003.24.4.240.2

It is indeed an intriguing thought to project the established idea of a product lifecycle to a similar lifecycle of organizations, or at least of businesses. The author goes beyond that, however, and in a large leap of reasoning tries to imply that there is also a lifecycle of leadership. This relationship between cycles of businesses and of leadership, however, is never seriously addressed in the book.

It seems quite natural that organizations, like products, go through the stages of creation, growth, maturity or stagnation and then decline, leading either to transformation and rejuvenation, or disappearance. On first blush it also seems reasonable to think that different individuals are best suited to lead organizations in each of these stages, except the last one, of course. Andrew Ward takes this position and defends it in this book passionately, though not always thoroughly convincingly, because he never really discusses what characteristics or competencies are most appropriate in each situation.

His thoughts still deserve serious consideration as he presents his case in 11 chapters. After the first one, with the same title as the book, which provides an overview, the next six discuss the leader’s roles for each of the elements of the cycle as he defines them: Creator; Accelerator; Sustainer; Transformer; and Terminator. In each chapter he uses examples or events from major organizations to buttress his points.

The eighth chapter is devoted to situations where leaders are spanning roles. The ninth and tenth chapters describe major case studies – Walt Disney, and Marks & Spencer. In the concluding chapter, “Matching leaders to evolving organizations”, the author expresses his opinions about the lessons his research provides for aspiring leaders, established leaders, boards and for leadership development.

The entire book is written from the perspective of the entrepreneur and thus looks primarily at the task of the leader from the functional perspective of the leader – the person, and often the leadership team, who develop or change the vision and then organize the resources to help achieve that vision.

The book concentrates on the challenges facing the leader, on the tasks that the stage imposes, often with emphasis on the resistance to change by the people in the organization. Rarely does it discuss the way the decisions are made by the leaders or teams that were selected for the illustrating examples.

By concentrating the discussions on the strategies and tasks which lead toward the vision, much of the leader’s actions are left unspoken. That is true even in the sections on leadership style. There is little departure from this perspective. Even in the creator’s leadership style, the only reference to actual style is to “autocratic rather than participative”, displaying a very limited perspective on leadership styles.

The literature on leadership speaks of transactional and of transformation leaders. It recognizes the influence of traits, the role of leaders in setting goals, in attention to participation in decisions, in relative emphasis on production and people, and charismatic leadership. Of these, only charismatic leadership is mentioned in relation to its definition in the literature.

The book thus ignores most of that and concentrates on the author’s view of styles. The author sees style primarily as facing the structures of the organizations, and of strategic and tactical decisions. Data about specific leadership styles, and how they helped or hindered effective implementation of the decisions, are obviously most difficult to collect. There is, therefore, little in the book that sheds light on that relationship. As a result the book discusses the challenges facing organizations in the different stages, rather than a “leadership lifecycle” and the appropriate behaviour of the leader in creation, growth, maturity, turnaround, decline.

Even in the section on “Lessons for leadership development” there is no reference to the specific skills of leaders. That section discusses how “the leadership lifecycle can be used by organizations to inform and structure the development of leaders … but ignores the ‘how’ for accomplishing this task”.

All this may seem to be fairly severe criticism of the book. There is another perspective, however, that seems more important to this reviewer. It demands looking past the author’s seemingly narrow, and somewhat unorthodox perspective, especially for the reader who is steeped in the leadership literature. It suggests that one should also look at the role of leadership in light of the challenges presented by organizations as they have to adapt to changes – when attempting to establish themselves, by the demands of initial growth and leveling, and by the severe demands of decline and the imperative to find new direction and reinvention of sorts.

The research on which the book is based is anecdotal rather than rigorously scientific, but it also exhibits the extensive effort that went into first, identifying prominent organizations in the various lifecycle stages, and second finding quotes from, or interviewing their respective top management leaders for the rich display of examples and illustrations.

The author thus buttresses his interesting views on leadership requirements in the different stages, leaving it to others to flesh out the entire picture by describing the way leadership in these situations can best be exercised. By pointing to that need, the book does add a very valuable thought for realistic and practical leadership development.