In an earlier entry “The Rising Power of the Feminine in Executive Leadership” – I highlighted solid research showing that companies with women in top leadership positions have stronger relationships with customers and shareholders and a more diverse and profitable business ¹.

A recent article in Forbes shows that most US Corporations are still not realizing the power that women bring.  The article highlights some sobering statistics as follows:

• Research done between 2004-2010 indicates that over 33% of women are leaving the workforce each year for various reasons.  For example in 2009 74% left for child care reasons, 16% left because their careers were stalled and a whopping 89% left because no executive in the organization was sponsoring their journey to success ².
• While 89% planned to resume their careers after a hiatus – only 40% of the women looking to reenter the work force after only 2 years found full time employment ³.
• Women who return to full-time work face a lower job title, a decrease in management and overall responsibilities and a striking financial penalty. Women who off-ramped for two years faced a 14% salary gap. The penalty tripled to 46% for those that left for three or more years ⁴.

This is just another symptom of organizations cutting their nose of despite their face.  Then there is the other side of the coin where an organization takes a talented woman leader and instead of leveraging her strengths and interests – they try to force her into a leadership position that does not fit because they want to show the world they are supporting the promotion of women.  While this shows some thoughtfulness – it is also misguided.

Those organizations who continue down this path just might find that this decision comes back to haunt them.  Why do I say this? Because another statistic shows that the majority of small businesses rising today are lead by women.  If your organization takes no action to change its trajectory – you might just find a fierce yet compassionate competitor lead by a woman eating your lunch.

Whether everyone sees it or not we are facing a major transformation in the way business is conducted worldwide.  If we do not take advantage of the lessons this difficult time has taught us – we will miss a huge opportunity.  To fully leverage this opportunity we need leadership and true leadership integrates a results focus along with a collaborative orientation (among other things).  We do not have enough male leaders who embody both sides of this equation and thus this is why there is a deep need for strong women leaders who for the most part have the capacity to embody both.   Men reading this might react negatively yet this is not about male bashing.  It is about finding balance and having leaders who can model the full power of leadership for everyone.  The question is will enough large organizations recognize the importance of such balance?  If not, there will be a revolution and for those who do not join – you will miss huge opportunities now and the pain of not joining will be greater down the road for you and your organization.

As I have said before, the essential purpose of leadership is to create.   The fundamental tool of creation for a leader is their vision for the market place as well as the vision they hold for their organizational culture.  As a creator the leader takes 100% responsibility for the outcome of the vision.  Now please allow me to distinguish between taking 100% responsibility with taking the world on your shoulders.  They are quite different.

Taking everything on your shoulders and taking on all the stress around the success or failure of the business is not the point.   The point owning the vision and holding the expectancy it will unfold.  If a leader has developed a compelling vision and has done a great job of instilling this vision into their people – while mistakes will happen – in the end the vision will become reality.  Yet, if the leader begins to complain about how the market place is behaving, the problems with the economy, or begins to blame low performers for all the woos in the business – they are missing the point of being a leader as well as the power of vision.

If the market is not responding – a true leader does not blame the market.  They collect the best minds and ask what do we have to do to engage the market more effectively so people get who we are and want to do business with us?   If the economy is tanking and business is off – the true leader takes responsibility by examining with his top people the model they are using to develop business and will shift their approach to succeed or do better than they have in the tough economy.  If there is an issue with low performance – a true leader coaches the boss of that direct report to get to the bottom of it or they themselves explore what the issue is.   If there is not a fit – they let the person go.  If it is a coaching issue they work towards a new commitment with that employee to engage at a higher level and make sure that there will be rewards if they do and consequences if they do not.

The fundamental key here is making sure your people are enrolled in the vision and know their part in fulfilling it.  If the vision has come alive – the true leader knows with certainty it is only a matter of time before things line up.  They embrace the responsibility for creating an environment that is brutally honest about what the challenges are while also inspiring others to reach further to fulfill the mission and key priorities.  They also expect their best people to take 100% responsibility for the vision as well.

You hear it all the time in organizations, especially when the economy is tanking, or a bad earnings report comes out, or the CEO demands his direct reports generate better results. “We need to be more active in the market place!”

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For example, one of my clients reacted to the recession by asking each of its senior executives to make 5 new contacts a week with the goal of closing at least 1 new major account for the quarter.  To put this in context – up to the recession – this company had little concern for how to win business.  In fact, the organization had been doing quite well for over 10 years to the point it was having a hard time keeping up with demand.  So most of the executives they were telling to engage in more business development had not had to do so for much of their careers.  Yet, now they are being asked, from on high, to go out and market, sell and network.  They were not asked to discuss the existing state of the business, their ideas for growing the business were not requested, and there was no discussion around what support they needed to succeed in their business development efforts.   You might not be surprised that their efforts generated marginal results at best.

At its core, there is nothing wrong with encouraging more activity and yes we need to make more contacts so that we can develop more relationships so that they turn into more sales.  I get that.  However, just pushing for more activity misses the point of effectively engaging the market place or, for that matter, to succeed at any endeavor.  While action is important – the question you must ask yourself is how do we ensure that such activity actually generates results?

The formula for achieving leveraged or inspired action is as follows:

In short, there needs to be some reflection and interaction around what we want to build, create, shift as well as doing gaining an aligned view of the current reality.   It is interesting that senior executives deal with challenges much like any human being.  They tend to focus on WHAT THEY DON’T WANT versus WHAT THEY DO WANT.  For example, as the recession hit many of my clients were focusing on how to survive the recession versus how to support their customers through the recession.  They lost mission focus and went to survival focus.  Now in some cases an organization must do this because they face real challenges.  Yet, the majority of my clients were living in fear this would happen – not considering their current state along with the long term view.

The first step of the model above requires the senior team to ask “How do we want to face this challenge and how can we use it to our advantage to strengthen our organization’s position and most support our client base?”   This leads to a more proactive vision, mission and set of goals. This is also a time to be brutally honest about the current reality being faced and to uncover any limiting beliefs or emotions that are driving the action forward.  As I mentioned above, in my view, any fear that is experienced is usually not warranted.  That being said, you don’t know that unless you can honestly assess the current reality.

The second step of the model has to do with engaging your direct reports around the vision as well as the challenge.  The goal here is to both enrich the thought process around how do we accomplish the vision and it also helps to instill ownership of the vision and the challenges by those you engage.  This is much different than pushing the edict down to “be active” in some way.

The third step has to do with energizing people. It is akin to filling up the gas tank in your car for a long trip.  Without the fuel you are not going to get far.  To get the most from those who are out there in the market place – you must be able to help them tap into whats in it for them.  When that is present people will engage in activity – even if it is a bit uncomfortable – because they understand the value for the organization AND THEM.   Here is where another mistake is made.  Sometimes senior leadership feels – “they are in this position for a reason – they should not have to be motivated to achieve our goals.”  This completely misses the point!  The question is do you want a 4 cylinder car or one running on 8 or more cylinders.  The more you energize people and engage their passion – the more they will accomplish.

The fourth and fifth steps can be taken together.  At this stage we are ready to act in a powerful way.  If the first few steps were done well – you won’t need to lay out elaborate activity goals.  You can but it is unnecessary – people who are engaged and energized will act consistent with the vision.  Plus you have the fifth step to ensure the activity is working to meet the vision and goals.  Taking time to take stock of progress and work through the process again will ensure more ownership, engagement, energy and effective actions.

Finally, another concern I get about this model is – “I can see your point but do we have the time to do this?“  I will ask a question back to you on that one.  You have two choices.  Door number one – accept a more narrow band of successful actions.  Door number two – you can take more time upfront time in order to ensure you will multiply your results many times over.  Which door do you choose?  Either choice is fine but one leads to what you really care about most – the other does not.

Umair Haque Director of the Havas Media Lab speaks on “Constructive Capitalism.”  This is an excellent view that will give every leader valuable insights on how to reinvent themselves to succeed in an emerging new era in business.  Take the time to watch this – it will support you as you consider how to rethink your approach moving forward.

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 – Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

I work in a lot of corporate as well as public sector settings and I am always amazed at the intellectual horsepower found among corporate executives, partners in professional services firms and SES leaders in the Federal Sector.  Unfortunately, this intellectual horsepower goes partially untapped because of one thing -  the lack of regular feedback.  This is certainly not true for all organizations yet in our experience it is for most.

Can you imagine the implication if guided missiles, satellites, GP-S’s, or your own body’s temperature gauge had no feedback mechanisms built in?  Bottom line, they would not work and in the case of the later the lack of a feedback mechanism would lead to death!  Now look at your organization and ask yourself -

• How effective are we at giving each other constructive feedback?
• If and when we do – what impact does it have on our performance and profitability?
• What, if anything, keeps us from having a more feedback rich culture (e.g. we are too polite to each other, we live in silos, etc.)?

Here are some common challenges that hinder an organization’s ability to improve performance through feedback: (more…)