Quanta Corporate Citizenship Are leaders born or made? 06/07/2010
A very interesting research by professor Edward Lazear, from Stanford University, has shown that leaders are generalists. Or as he puts it, “because leaders are confronted with a wide variety of choices and because these choices span many fields, leaders tend to be generalists rather than specialists. Further, the broader the organisation that an individual leads, the more general are the skills.
Academic department chairs are broader than many of their colleagues who are not well suited to be chairs, but they are less broad than the heads of large corporations. Analogously, political leaders tend to be the least specialised and broadest of all leaders because they confront the entire spectrum of possible decisions. This is sometimes characterised as shallowness - knowledge that is 1000 miles wide and 1⁄2 inch deep - but breadth is important when the situations that will be encountered are from a large set of potentially unpredictable areas. An additional key ingredient is that leaders also possess the skills necessary to convince others that they have leadership ability. Consequently, communication skills are likely to be an important component in the leadership mix”.
But the most interesting aspect of his analysis, using Stanford MBA statistics, though, is that he found that career choices and chances during one’s life are the greatest drivers behind someone who makes it to the C-level, whilst innate differences between people responds for only 22%. “Person effects are important, which suggests that there are innate differences in leadership ability that play a role in becoming a leader. But these differences can be offset by experience and taking on many roles, both of which boost the probability of getting a leader position. In explaining variance in leadership, the changes that occur over time seem more important than the innate differences across people.”
This should be a warning sign to organisations investing in leadership development. We often hear practitioners using psychometric tests to define whether someone will be suitable or not to leadership roles in 10-15 years time. Actually, those psychological traits predict very little about the likelihood that someone will have the right experience, skills and followers when the time comes. Charisma, communication skills and desire to be on the spotlight are all essential elements, but not all those who have those traits will make it to the C-level, nor all those who make it to the C-level will have those traits/skills earlier in their career. Charisma, communication skills and the desire to be in the spotlight are all elements that can be learned overtime given the proper opportunity and coaching.
Contrary to commonsense that suggest that companies should decide earlier on who has what it takes to make to the C-level and focus their resources on them, this research suggests that pigeonholing staff earlier on in their careers can be detrimental to the staff and, more importantly, not be in the company’s best interest, as they might be disregarding talented individuals that could be shaped over time, as psychological traits are less relevant than the breadth of exposure and likelihood of taking the right decisions (and being perceived to take the right decisions).
Academic department chairs are broader than many of their colleagues who are not well suited to be chairs, but they are less broad than the heads of large corporations. Analogously, political leaders tend to be the least specialised and broadest of all leaders because they confront the entire spectrum of possible decisions. This is sometimes characterised as shallowness - knowledge that is 1000 miles wide and 1⁄2 inch deep - but breadth is important when the situations that will be encountered are from a large set of potentially unpredictable areas. An additional key ingredient is that leaders also possess the skills necessary to convince others that they have leadership ability. Consequently, communication skills are likely to be an important component in the leadership mix”.
But the most interesting aspect of his analysis, using Stanford MBA statistics, though, is that he found that career choices and chances during one’s life are the greatest drivers behind someone who makes it to the C-level, whilst innate differences between people responds for only 22%. “Person effects are important, which suggests that there are innate differences in leadership ability that play a role in becoming a leader. But these differences can be offset by experience and taking on many roles, both of which boost the probability of getting a leader position. In explaining variance in leadership, the changes that occur over time seem more important than the innate differences across people.”
This should be a warning sign to organisations investing in leadership development. We often hear practitioners using psychometric tests to define whether someone will be suitable or not to leadership roles in 10-15 years time. Actually, those psychological traits predict very little about the likelihood that someone will have the right experience, skills and followers when the time comes. Charisma, communication skills and desire to be on the spotlight are all essential elements, but not all those who have those traits will make it to the C-level, nor all those who make it to the C-level will have those traits/skills earlier in their career. Charisma, communication skills and the desire to be in the spotlight are all elements that can be learned overtime given the proper opportunity and coaching.
Contrary to commonsense that suggest that companies should decide earlier on who has what it takes to make to the C-level and focus their resources on them, this research suggests that pigeonholing staff earlier on in their careers can be detrimental to the staff and, more importantly, not be in the company’s best interest, as they might be disregarding talented individuals that could be shaped over time, as psychological traits are less relevant than the breadth of exposure and likelihood of taking the right decisions (and being perceived to take the right decisions).
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