Post Heroic Leadership

PRESENTED BY:
Kevin Davis MAB; MSc; MFA
© Edinburgh Business School
OPEN SESSION
 Identify the reasons WHY leadership development
continues to be of great concern to most organizations;

 State HOW the focus of leadership development is moving

away from developing individual leaders;

 List the six contextual changes that impact on the evolving

approach to leader- ship development;
The Search for Organisational
Leadership
The dynamic Business Environment will continue to IMPACT the Evolution of ALL
Business Globally.
 The New Role of the Leader is continuously changing. How & WHY?
 The Identification of the “Right” Leader is more Challenging. How & WHY?
 Uncertainty attached to the Future Environment creates unforeseen
Business Challenges. How & WHY?
The Need For a New
Approach
Leibman (1996) and his colleagues have pointed out that Executives must modify their approach to the
development of tomorrow’s leaders – that the most important goal of succession planning must become
the development of Strong Leadership Teams.

Likewise, Caudron (1996) wrote: ‘In an era of continual job hopping and constant change…… successful
companies don’t view [succession planning] as a matter of Executive Replacement – it’s one of
Leadership Development.’

Organisations must shift from a narrow goal of developing Individual Leaders to that of developing the
Leadership Function and the Team of Leaders who will lead the organisation through significant change.
This shift MUST IMPACT on everything from Recruitment to Succession Planning, Job Placement,
Compensation and Executive Development.

To be successful, organisations must develop a framework to support Succession Management and

Leadership Development that is Progressive, Encompassing the Total Organisation.
The Changing Context – Why New
Approaches to Leadership Development
Are Needed
1. A change in the mode of conduct required of leaders from transactional and transitional to
transformational
2. The need to change organisations, but in uncertain ways;
3. A change from heroic leadership executed almost entirely by the individual to leadership carried out
by leadership teams, teams that are cohesive, that have shared visions and which develop skills to
complement each other
4. A change from stable individual jobs to strategic, constantly redefined tasks that are often performed
by teams;
5. A change from simple, logical, bureaucratic forms of organisations to complex, global and organic
forms, constantly coping with change;
6. A change in followers from industrial era to knowledge era mind-sets
The Emerging Approach to
Leadership Development
 This is the Era of Knowledge Management, Information Sharing and Continuous Learning.
 A Demand for a new framework for identifying leaders and developing the leadership function is now
Required.
Theories that support this are as follows:
 Stratified Systems Theory - Jaques and Clement (1991) argued that, to lead an organisation effectively,
individuals must have a cognitive capability that is up to the task of forming accurate intellectual maps of
the organisation and its environment.
 Theory of Learning Organisations - This theory proposes that organisations themselves must learn.
 A Move to Leadership Teams - These two notions, the need to exercise greater cognitive capability and the
requirement to connect more effectively with a more diverse workforce organised into cross functional
teams, support the trend by which leadership is becoming more of a team function and less the function of
heroic individuals.
A Framework for Developing the
Leadership Function of Organisations
1. A culture of leadership development, actively driven and supported
from the top;
2. Leadership development aims that are woven into and evolve with
organisational strategy;
3. Programme aims based on competencies thought to be specific to the
organisation;
4. Support of leadership development through congruent HR and
performance management systems;
5. A broad interface with external resources.
The Evolving Themes of
Leadership Development
Leadership will be a much more challenging and changing process in the
future.
The fast changing economic, social, technical and political environment
will buffet most organisations and require more and varied leadership skills
than in the past.
Those organisations that most effectively meet this challenge are the ones
most likely to be successful in meeting the challenges of the future.
Key to meeting that challenge is the identification and development of
leadership.
Post Heroic Leadership

Post Heroic Leadership

Post Heroic Leadership

Post heroic leadership

Collective Leadership

Post heroic leadership

Collective Leadership

Collective leadership

Shared Pooled Distributed Relational

Post Heroic Leadership

 Collective Leadership
Shared: Delegated Leadership

Pooled: Several people appointed to share the leadership role

Distributed: Dispersed across different people at different levels

Relational: Challenges the view of leader as the source of

Leadership
Collective Leadership

Post Heroic Leadership

Leadership As Process
Adapted from Bennis, 2007 DAC framework (Drath et al., 2008)

Post Heroic Leadership

Leadership As Practice

Post heroic leadership

Summary
Consider Consider
1. Pooled 1. Leadership as process
2. Distributed
3. Relational 2. Leadership as practice
4. Shared