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Developing leaders from a management development viewpoint.

what might be done to improve the effectiveness of learning for leadership.

Leadership

Learning for Leadership

Peter Hall and Peter Norris
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 14 No 7, 1993, pp. 35-40 MCB University Press, 0143-7739

Our research found seven common items that employees in the organizations in the study believed to be important for the leadership they wanted. These are:
1. Being Able to Paint a Pirture of the Future

The most often cited issue is of creating vision. In our studies, people at all levels have said they want to know where the organization is going and whether they are part of its future. With very few exceptions, employees wanted to know to what their efforts were contributing. In his review of the literature Krantz (1990) puts it nicely: " a consensus is emerging around the central requirements of effective leadership at this time in history namely, the critical need to provide a vision around which members of the organization can coalesce and direct their productive energies". We found a widespread general anxiety about job security, and though this is no doubt in part a product of wider instability in society, there is no doubt that employees are looking to their leaders to provide them with the vision they feel can help create a zone of stability for them. Bob Mason, British Telecommunications Head of Personnel Strategy and Planning, sees strong leadership as a prime need in overcoming the sense of insecurity and uncertainty in BT (Mason, 1993). There is a caveat. Most people we met were suffering from an overdose of "Vision" and "Mission". Too frequently the cynicism engendered by these words seemed justified because (a) a vision did not truly exist, or (b) was expressed as a set of slogans, or (c) senior management was visibly not living the vision they were pronouncing.
2. Communicating Clearly and Regularly with Those being Led

Leadership matters; this article does not set out to prove this! In every organization that we work in as management development consultants, and indeed in areas of public life, the lack of effective leadership is of significant and increasing concern. And yet leadership has been a topic for the majority of management development programmes for the past 20 years! Over the past five years we have studied what has helped and what has inhibited the application of learning from management courses in which leadership has been either an explicit or implicit theme. Our research has covered organizations in both the public and private sectors and we have looked in more depth at the leadership in seven organizations, in financial services, manufacturing, one in both manufacturing and retail, a specialist part of an oil company, food processing and the motor industry. The methods for study have included interviews, discussions and in one case a company-wide questionnaire. As part of the same study we also looked specifically at the application of learning from the outdoor modules of general management courses since this is one of the learning media that are often advocated to develop leadership skills. The research focused on both the skills required for leadership and the style of leadership that individuals wanted from their managers and leaders. We have found that while the learning which has taken place on courses has provided concepts about leadership, their application to work has been less than satisfactory. This article sets out to consider why this should be and

In three organizations in the study there was virtual unanimity that leaders there do not listen. Employees wanted visible leaders who can, will and do communicate with them. Barr and Barr (1989) seem to capture this requirement for quality communication in saying "leadership is the process of influencing people to give their energies, use their potential, release their determination and go beyond their comfort zones to accomplish goals".
3. Being Trusted

Employees told us they wanted to be able to trust their leaders and wanted their leaders to trust them, particularly with information. An element that was identified as contributing to the lack of trust was where a

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those items which help to shape and reinforce consistent behaviours. They see three elements of behaviour: Structuring, which is creating the structures that make it clear what behaviour is required; Controlling, which is the use of systems to monitor the behaviours so that corrective action can be taken; and Rewarding, which includes the administration of rewards to help align 4. Giving Recognition for Work Weil Done at a Time when behaviour with the requirements of the organization. We it Matters shall refer to this further in the second part of the article It is axiomatic that leaders should understand how to when we consider the reinforcement of newly learned create the conditions which motivate their employees. leader behaviour. Recurrent observations were about the lack of recognition for work well done. In one organization over a third of the employees commented on this as a major failing in their Learning leaders. The appraisal scheme clearly did not fulfil this need, nor in most organizations is this what appraisal Learning is a catch-all word, used with very different schemes are designed to achieve. meanings. Asking the question "What is learning" is like asking "what is electricity" quotes Smith (1990). However In most cases a simple, well timed "thank you" would difficult it may be to define learning, different types of have worked wonders! learning have been identified as having the conditions necessary for effective learning to take the place. Particular types of learning seem relevant to learning for 5. Understanding and Using the Talents of Those Who are leadership and these are discussed here and the Being Led application of these to leadership is considered in the last A significant number of people in each of the companies part of this article. felt blocked and saw no way of developing themselves or their careers. For some, flatter organizations had already removed traditional career routes and the leadership had Conditions for Learning to Take Plate failed to find alternative ways of satisfying individual Among key conditions for most types of learning to take aspiration. In two organizations, with a predominance of place are that the learner: professionally qualified employees, there was a strong actually wants to learn; belief that individual capabilities were not recognized or used by those who led them. Bass (1990) sees superior has the capability to learn - including having the leadership occurring when" .... leaders broaden and basic aptitude to learn; elevate the interests of their employees, when they needs to know what she ought to be able to do as a generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and result of the learning - and to what standard;. mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond self interest for the good of the group". receives accurate and timely feedback;
6. Managers, Supervisors and Team Leaders Blaming Those at the Top for Lack of Leadership but Failing to Take Responsibility for Leading at Their Own Levels

leader would visibly fail to represent employees' interests. "Leadership is turning challenging opportunities into remarkable successes" believe Kouzes and Posner (1987); a theme from our studies is that a lack of trust kills the will to take on such challenges.

has the opportunity to practise new learning.

We should add that we believe that learning is not complete until some change of behaviour takes place. Our research into Learning for Leadership has identified that the two most significant types of learning are "Conceptual Learning" and "Social Learning".

We found people at various levels who were content to blame those above for the lack of leadership but were not prepared to accept their own responsibilities as leaders. It was often seen as the most senior management's duty to create vision, but many in more junior leadership positions did not see it as part of the leadership role to translate and cascade it for their own departments or teams.
7. The Organization's People Systems and Protedures Need to Support Leadership Aims

"Conceptual Learning"

We found payment, appraisal, promotion and other systems and procedures which because of either the way they were constructed or the way they were operated did not support, and sometimes undermined, the leadership intentions in those organizations. Nadler and Tushman (1990) use the term "Instrumental Leadership" for all

This is more than the straight transfer of information for storage in the mind and later retrieval. Conceptual learning theories see people as having their own unique sets of maps or schema in their minds which help them make sense of the world they are in. These maps are developed from, accord with, and add meaning to, the individuals' experience. Learning is the extension of this understanding through assimilation of new thoughts, ideas and information and/or the radical re-drawing of

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maps to accord better with experience. This is not storing or processing information in a mechanical way, but using it to develop meaning and understanding.
"Social Learning"

could be learned, and more recently this has been reinforced by Kakabadse et al. (1988). This is not an "either/or" question and is nicely captured in the phrase "creating the born leader". If we ascribe to the "leaders are born" school of thought there is clearly no basis for this article! However, even with the premiss that it is possible to develop leadership skills we believe that there are some prerequisites that have to be recognized: (1) Does the candidate have the basic aptitudes to lead? (2) Does he/she have the will to learn? With regard to aptitude, we have clear evidence of situations where the appointed leaders are not allowed to lead. While this has not been a specific feature of our study, we think it likely that some personality characteristics have a part to play in this. As an example, characteristics such as Kelley's (1958) "Warm - Cold" dimension may be more important than we think. His experiments showed that to someone perceived as cold are attributed negative characteristics, and conversely to someone perceived as warm are attributed positive characteristics. We have evidence from our study that appears to confirm this phenomenon where the logical, clinical Chief Executive of a company was accorded little leader credibility but his more extrovert successor received immediate acclaim, even though there was insufficient time for real judgement to be made. Equally, we have met significant numbers of senior employees who do not want to take on the leadership role expected of them. Some of these are professional or technical specialists, seeing more disadvantages than rewards for doing so. It would appear that a manager with a "technical/functional" career anchor, as described by Schein (1978) is likely to be of this kind and will adopt a leadership role reluctantly and without the zest that Bass's (1990) "transformational leadership" requires. Within the companies we have studied both restructuring and reallocation of responsibilities have proved to be successful alternatives to pressing reluctant leaders for changes in their behaviour. These solutions apply even to the Chief Executive if he falls within this classification, though it might require exceptional interpersonal skills and courage to convince him! Having reduced the field somewhat, how should we be assisting the aspirant leaders with their development? With long experience of helping leaders to learn, Adair (1983) lists the essential elements in leader self development as: (1) knowing the principles; (2) plenty of practice; (3) learning from feedback. Current wisdom says there are no standard leadership behaviours which are universally applicable. Reading

Sometimes termed "social influence" learning, this leads to development into various socially defined roles. Feedback is distinguished by its social origin, and is concerned with role expectations, pressures, norms, "how you should behave". Important within the social learning theories, as described by Bandura (1975) and more digestibly summarized by Hilgard and Bower (1975) are imitation, which has always been an important way of learning throughout our lives, and modelling. People can learn to carry out a complex set of actions through observing and imitating others; modelling takes imitation beyond the simple copying of one person by another. Modelling leads to identification with that person, taking on not only the behaviour but some of the attitudes of the person initiated. Anyone with teenagers will have seen this in action!
The Conditions for "Social Learning"

The main conditions for Social Learning Theory to come into play are: High status models are more often imitated than low status models. People are more likely to model on the behaviour of people who have some similarity to them. Hostile or aggressive behaviours are often imitated. The moral standards of the model are often imitated. Behaviours by the model that are rewarded are more often imitated than those that are not. And also, people will try to produce the behaviour of the model if they believe they will be rewarded for this.

People are more likely to model on behaviours that are verbally described in addition to being observed. People store models of behaviour in their minds and bring these out at times felt to be appropriate. Models may be found in real and in fictional people, in literature, television, videos and other drama. How many managers, we wonder, have modelled their leadership style on "JR"?
Learning for Leadership

It is often questioned whether people can learn to be leaders or are born with the characteristics. Most authorities favour the former. Over 25 years ago, Drucker (1967) had no doubt that executive and leader behaviours

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selected articles and books can provide concepts but may not be as exciting nor appeal to some learners' styles and expectations as much as going on a course, especially if it involves the adventure of the outdoors. In John Adair's recipe for learning we would substitute "the behaviours required" for "the principles". It is hard to know how to enact a principle. Even though conventional wisdom says that there are no standard leadership behaviours which are universally applicable we believe that from items 1 to 6 listed in the first part of this article it should be possible to distil the key behaviours which go to making leadership in those companies. We also believe that the characteristics described from the research can be translated into leadership behaviours more universally. If we are able to define the leadership behaviours that are desired and we have leaders who are able to understand what is required and who are willing to lead, what then is the missing ingredient? Social Learning Theory and Leadership "We have been on Leadership Trust, done Belbin and the PAPI. None of it has made any difference. The reason is quite clear. Our directors. We know the survival of the company is at stake, something has got to change but we do not know how we can make this happen". So said a spokesman for eight of the most senior managers in a manufacturing company. Most directors, managers and supervisors we met in the companies can list with little hesitation concepts of leadership relevant to their situations. In the main it is not that they do not know how to lead; often they do not feel that they are allowed to do so. There is nothing revolutionary in this and yet companies still go on putting time and money into leadership training when the blockages to completing the learning through action at the workplace should be obvious. But it is not sufficient to have conceptual learning. Learning is complete only when behaviour has changed. There must be reinforcement at the place of work. The earlier discussion of Social Influence Learning identified the following critical elements: High Status Models are Imitated Who is higher in status in leadership terms than the Chairman, the Chief Executive or the Managing Director in most employees' eyes? People Imitate Similar People The similarity could be in working for the same company, in the same industry, being a manager, being ambitious/successful, being male or female or in many other ways.

Hostile and Aggressive Behaviours are Imitated Perhaps we should ask if "nice guys" are imitated less if the models competing for attention are more aggressive. Could this be a reason why many of our businesses are reported as being less than pleasant places to work? The Moral Standards of the Model are Often Imitated A recent article in the Sunday Times (James, 1993) puts the proposition that there is significant psychopathic behaviour in senior industrial and commercial management, especially at the very top. If this is so, the lack of moral standards is readily available for imitation. Behaviour That is Rewarded is More Often Imitated Than ThatWhichis Not Rewarded This must raise the question of what kind of behaviour achieves the promotions, the higher performance related pay, the accolades, and is the subject of the "hero" stories in our organizations? We offer the above illustrations from our studies which highlight the impact of social influence learning on our leadership styles. (See Table I and Table II.)

Table

I.

Illustration I

The senior management of a company recognizes that it has held the market more through circumstance than through consistently good management. They realize that much more innovation must be shown throughout its operation and there needs to be more positive management of individual and team performance. Above all a customer focus is needed. It is looking to its managers at all levels to exert a stronger leadership role to bring this about. The chief executive is well regarded, but whatever messages pass out to the employees, in the end he has only one concern - the budget. He is not slow in giving feedback to those who do not share his priority. This is the model both of behaviour and values he presents and which is imitated by those who should be taking leadership roles.

Table

II. Illustration 2

In another company, a key senior executive reported to the Managing Director who had a tough, dominating but devious style. It was not in the executive's nature to be tough and dominating but he became aggressive and endangered employee relations which had traditionally been good. It became clear that he was trying to model himself on the director ("because that's how you stay employed in this company"). He not only failed to be an effective leader but also put himself under considerable strain.

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In both the illustrations there is more than sycophancy. There is strong social pressure to lead in the way that the Chief Executive and the Managing Director approve. In the second illustration, identification unaccompanied by capability is particularly apparent.
The Model of Leadership to Be Offered

If we accept that much of leadership is learned through the process of "Social Learning", then it follows that it is critical to the development of effective leaders to have visible role models of the desired leadership behaviour seeded in the right places in our organizations. They must be in positions regarded as high status if the first of the conditions on our list for this type of learning is to be met. The corollary must also be true that the way to change leadership behaviour most rapidly will be to remove those individuals who do not present models of the desired behaviour from their current positions of prominence! But are we back into a Catch 22 situation? The predominant way that leadership is developed is through role models but the existing role models are not demonstrating good behaviour? So where and how do the models that we need learn their behaviour, particularly those in the most senior positions? If poor models of leader behaviour lead to poor leader behaviour by others in the organization, we have to break into the circle. Foremost, the people in the most senior and other key positions require quality feedback about their current leader behaviour and its effect. But without the accompanying willingness to accept and evaluate the feedback that is being offered, this alone will not be sufficient for learning to take place and for behaviour to change. This view is well supported. "A leader must do continuous, brutal self-examination to maintain clarity and balance" are the words used by Lee and Norma Barr (1989). There is a role for training and development specialists to help generate the feedback and to gain its acceptance. Good quality feedback also features prominently in Adair's (1983) methods. In our experience, however, those in very senior positions often do not get the quality feedback required to make this learning effective. Some insulate themselves from it, some do not value the sources of the feedback; and some are insensitive to the data which is always available to those who have the antennae to pick it up. We found that those who are most often affected by the leader's behaviour, do not have the inclination or are not encouraged to give the feedback that is needed ("It could be severely career limiting!" said one employee). While this was particularly true of the more junior employees, it was not confined solely to them.

At the most senior levels, ie, the board of director, delivering quality feedback is a role for which the nonexecutive director is ideally placed. The Cadbury Committee Report (Gee, 1992) on corporate governance emphasizes the need for the non-executive director to be fully independent" in order to be able to review the performance of the board and the chief executive" and to this we would add "to monitor their leadership behaviour". This, then, raises the question of whether directors will see this as a priority in the role when appointing non-executive directors. The report also points out the shortage of suitably experienced people.
The Influence of Good Mentoring

Good mentors are also worth their weight in gold for this function, since a mentor who has no direct influence upon career progression can give the "warts and all" picture. Good mentors have the potential to do more than give assistance in recognizing abilities and limitations. They can provide managers with the role models we have already discussed. Clutterbuck (1991) points out that through effective mentoring the protege can gain insight to how power is gained and wielded within the company, a most powerful lesson in becoming an effective leader. Learning for Leadership in Management Development Programmes Formal courses can provide generalized views of leadership, but our experience of the importance of social learning theory in learning for leadership indicates much of this will take place informally, This is not to say that it should take place by chance. It is possible to build into a management development programme periods of exposure to the right role models and ensure that leadership is tackled through structured mentoring. This could provide the necessary workplace reinforcement that is so often missing. There can also be an interventionist role for the training/development specialist in this through picking up instances of where leadership has failed and using these as learning opportunities. Sadly, at the board level, the in-company trainer often is not accorded the status, and sometimes does not have the skills, to be able to influence the most senior people in the way we are advocating, whereas a skilled external process consultant is often acceptable for this role.
The Conditions for Learning to Take Plate

Development requires supporting mechanisms. We seldom find leadership behaviours specified as items for reward in a performance related pay scheme. Leadership is not a high priority for the increasing band of senior functional specialists who have groups of similar specialists under their direction, and appraisal in the

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organizations we studied either does not include this as a factor for review or treats it skimpily.

References

Summary We strongly believe that the skills and behaviours for leading can be learned. We are equally certain that there is a need in many organizations to be clearer about just what we mean by leadership. For too long this has been a catch-all phrase for the opposite of "management" and is seen as a "good thing". Our research details the behaviours that are desired of their leaders in a number of our major organizations by those being led. We believe that these need to be examined and refined for each organization rather than copied blindly, but that nevertheless they provide a firm basis for defining leadership for development purposes. Our research and experience shows that the delegates who attend programmes to develop leadership understand the skills of leadership but the failure appears to be in the transfer of this knowledge into the way that they behave back at work. The main influence on the individual's willingness to exhibit good leadership behaviour appears to be the role models that are visible in the organization. The messages for "Learning for Leadership" from Social Learning Theory seem to us to be very strong and can be summed up as managers will exhibit leadership behaviour if: they are exposed to positive and influential behaviour; they can also see that it is worthwhile for them to behave in a particular way.

Adair, J. (1983), Effective Leadership, Pan Books, London. Bandura, A. (1975), Social Learning Theory, General Learning Press, New York, NY. Barr, L. and Barr, N. (1989), The Leadership Equation, Eakin Press, Austin, TX. Bass, B.M. (1990) "From Transactional to Transformational Leadership, Learning to Share the Vision", Organizational Dynamics, Winter, pp. 19-31. Clutterbuck, D. (1991), Everyone Needs a Mentor - Fostering Talent at Work, second edition, Institute of Personnel Management, Wimbledon, London. Drucker, P. (1967) The Effective Executive, Pan Books, London. The Cadbury Report. (1992), The Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance, Gee, South Quay Plaza, London. Hilgard, E. and Bower, G. (1975), Theories of Learning, PrenticeHall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. James, 0. (1993), "Mad, Bad and in the Boardroom", Sunday Times, London, 4 July, p. 3. Kakabadse, A. Ludlow, R, and Vinnicombe, S. (1988), Working in Organisations, Penguin Books, London. Kelley, H.H. (1950), "The Warm-Cold Variable in First Impressions of Persons", Journal of Personality, No. 18, pp. 431-9. Kouzes, J.M. and Posner, B.Q. (1987), The Leadership Challenge, Jossey-Bass, Oxford. Krantz, J. (1990), "Lessons from the Field; An Essay on the Crisis of Leadership in Contemporary Organisations", Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 49-64. Mason, R. (1993), "BT to Overhaul Management Training" Personnel Management Plus, Vol. 4 No. 6, June, p. 5. Nadler, D.A. and Tushman, M.L. (1990), "Beyond the Charismatic Leader: Leadership and Change" California Management Review, Winter, pp. 77-97. Schein, E. (1978) Career Dynamics, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc, Philippines. Smith, R. (1990), Learning How To Learn. Open University Press, Buckingham, (quoting Kidd J.R. (1973), How Adults Learn, Association Press, New York, NY).

Above all the aspirant leader will identify with the values that are being visibly espoused by the role models in the organization. We are left then with the final questions and challenge to all of us whether leaders or consultants. Are we sure that the values that are being lived in our organizations are the ones that are needed in the next generation of leaders?

Peter Hall is Managing Director of Strategic Management Development Limited, and Peter Norris is Director of The Wadenhoe Centre, both part of the Wadenhoe Group based in Peterborough, UK.