Background:

To celebrate its 75th anniversary in 1997, the Harvard Business Review interviewed a number of leadership thinkers about their views on the future challenges and opportunities for executives. In the feature, Peter Drucker argued that economic growth will not come from either putting more people to work or from consumer demand. ‘It can come only from a very sharp and continuing increase in the productivity of the one resource in which the developed countries still have a competitive edge[And which they are likely to maintain for a few more decades]: knowledge work and knowledge workers.’

Drucker went on to say, ‘increasingly, a winning strategy will require information about events and conditions outside the institution: noncustomers, technologies other than those currently used by the company and its present competitors….’

The era of the late 90’s and the early part of the new millennium was epitomized by a productive leadership ethos. Businesses got really good at making things, optimizing their systems, delivering continual growth and leveraging easy money and resources.

However in late 2008, the world was thrown into a state of crisis- the GFC. The implications of this seismic event have played out in the business environment ever since. The GFC forced leaders to shift focus from managing supply and demand in markets defined by the productive ethos, to leading in heightened states of disequilibrium, where traditional solutions and experience did not provide the answers. Suddenly, leaders were exposed. Their traditional go to strategies no longer worked.  Resources and money dried up. The productive ethos of leadership was augmented by a more adaptive ethos, an ethos defined by thinkers such as Ron Heifetz. He wrote in Leadership on the Line, ‘To lead is to live dangerously because when leadership counts, where you lead people through  difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear – their daily habits, tools, loyalties, and ways of thinking – with nothing more to offer perhaps than a possibility.’

We all hoped that the GFC would be a temporary aberration and that things would go ‘back to normal’. However, this has not been the case. The pace of business and the heightened state of disequilibrium has remained, creating a ‘new normal’, often referred to as the VUCA world [Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous]. This is vastly different to the world of plenty of the productive era, a world that Drucker seemed to forecast with his views on the need to develop learning cultures and build capacity in leaders and their teams to use knowledge to gain competitive advantage.

In the last couple of years a new ethos has begun to emerge that focuses on these issues. It adds new practices and behaviors to the leadership toolkit. This new ethos is called Generative Leadership.

Generative Leadership:

Why is generative leadership emerging and is gaining in prominence? This appears to be a balance of both a top down and a bottom up drive. Top down, macro market conditions dictate that leaders spend real time trying to make sense of the overall business environment. Time spent identifying opportunities for growth by constantly scanning the horizon and sifting through market ‘noise and clutter’ should be part of everyday activity, not the luxury of a leadership offsite or strategy session.

From a bottom up perspective, executives are trying to make sense of the internal business environment. They need to manage day to day priorities in difficult, resource constrained conditions- with an increasing expectation of performance. Yet, the complexity of internal structures and processes challenges leaders to navigate their own organizations- especially as at the same time leaders are expected to do more with less, and there is perpetual ‘re-organization’ taking place.

The signature themes:

Generative leadership has three signature themes.

1. Individual mindset
2. Collaboration
3. The creation of a learning culture.

Individual mindset. Leaders who lead in a generative manner have a high level of self-awareness. They know what they stand for and can articulate their values. They have aligned their values to the needs of the organization and spend time connecting others to vision and purpose. They care deeply about the people around them and will work to ensure decisions and outcomes that are in their best interests. They have personal ‘courage’ often epitomized by the ability to say ‘I don’t have all the answers, what do others think?’

Implications:

• The need to develop a cadre of leaders with high self-awareness and values alignment by exposing them to development practices that foster this.
• The use of psychometric insight tools to assist in driving a deep sense of self.
• The use of techniques that promote self-disclosure; the power of narrative, leadership point of view /dissertation, reflective practice etc would all facilitate this part of the journey.
• The use of one on one coaching focused on creating strategies to both enhance strengths and to address behavioral traits that may be counter- productive [a focus on behavioural derailers].

Collaboration. Building collaborative relationships in a 360 degree manner is key to generative leadership. With direct reports this is about unlocking potential and encouraging contribution. Employees have much to give [discretionary gifts] but they need a reason and purpose as to why they should give them.

With peers and colleagues it’s about fostering collaboration through ‘Emergence’. It’s a belief that if we spend time together looking at what we could do, things will emerge. This needs to be done in a spirit of openness and with receptivity to trialing and measuring new ideas. This creates leverage- critical in times when so many organizations are resource constrained and time poor

Implications

• Collaborative cultures are based on trust, constructive conversations and shared commitment. How much trust exists? Are there unsaids in the way in which we operate? These would be inhibitors to building collaboration.
• How do leaders foster a spirit of contribution with their reports and teams around them? The concept of unlocking potential by getting people to bring their discretionary effort to work is key.
• There needs to be cultural ‘permission’ that time spent on fostering emergence is valuable time. As Eric Schmidt [chairman of Google] said, ‘We want to be the organization that gets more at bats than any other’. And they facilitated the process for their people to work together to allow emergence. [6 person teams/ time allowance to work on own projects/no blame culture etc].

The creation of a learning culture. How leaders demonstrate strategic dexterity that fosters a learning culture throughout their organization. The antithesis of this is a culture of blame and recrimination.

Here, leaders are looking to foster a mindset/culture where,

• Aspirations are set for future products/services and processes.
• Diverse experiences and perspectives are sought and differences of opinion are valued.

For example, how often do we engage with leaders from different environments to share learning?

• Decision making is through constructive conflict/conversations and there is total alignment to agreed commitments.
• An experimental mindset is fostered and resources and time are allocated to ‘try’ things.
• Experiments are monitored and measured. Successes are celebrated and failures are learnt from. [No blame].
• Teams are interchangeable, fostering new thinking. Leaders are open, supportive and encourage people to ‘be the best they can be’.
• There is a spirit of mutual accountability in achieving business outcomes.

Implications

• The implications of fostering a culture where there is retained organizational learning requires firstly- a willingness to accept that emergence is a key strategic tool and that rather than leaders having all the answers they need permission and time to work together to explore the ‘what ifs’ around the business.
• How the organization reconciles this with the day to day Business as Usual will be key. Where a learning mindset has not been prevalent [in cultures where people with big titles have all the ideas and make all the decisions] this could take a fair amount of time- particularly if you are asking those leaders to let go of things they have held dear[like leading through positional authority!].
• However for emerging or changing cultures this step could be a relatively painless one- with lots of rewards- ie

–  Engaged staff who believe their contribution counts and are prepared to bring their very best to work-because they want to.

–  Collaborative leadership groups who strive to build a learning culture with a willingness to try different ideas in a framework of continual learning, shared commitment and mutual accountability.

Conclusion:

Generative leadership focuses on leadership that is beyond the productive and adaptive styles. It requires different practices and behaviors. Leaders will need to add these to their existing leadership ‘toolbox’. To facilitate this, organizations need to think differently about their traditional leadership and coaching programs. Instead of/ as well as the traditional approaches, [leadership off sites, strategy sessions, performance based coaching and mentoring] leaders should be given the time to work together, forming their own agendas for what they think the business needs. Leaders should create regular space for reflection and thinking [sometimes referred to as Balcony time]. Above all leaders should shift their mindset from the episodic nature of development, epitimosied by bursts of activity, to a more regular rhythm, where a generational approach underpins what they do, every day.