A survey of top business executives from leading international organizations found that 79% said it was extremely crucial that you own leaders who act on behalf of the entire organization, not just their units. The rest said it was quite significant. Almost 65% said they expected at least half of their senior and midlevel managers to behave as business leaders -that is, executives who are at serving the requirements of the enterprise as successful as they truly are at growing the units they head. So how supervisors learn to become effective business leaders, and how can their development support?
They found that regardless of the company or the location, enterprise leaders developed their capabilities in similar ways -through a combination of willful private development, high level mentoring, and opportunities afforded by their work that empowered strong unit performers to become even more efficient as enterprise leaders. Based on the authors, business leadership's essence lies in combining two commonly incompatible roles -those of builder and broker. That means executives must build their component's vision and incorporate it into the wider corporate vision, clarifying how their teams can best contribute and where the enterprise is going, both within and beyond unit limits.
The authors must build company knowhow across units and share resources and unit abilities, to give to enterprise wide organizational performance. Balancing the goals of the unit with the broader interests of the enterprise could not be easy, the authors concedes. Having come up the rankings in silos, managers acquire strong building skills -not the brokering abilities top leaders said they desired.
PUBLICATION DATE: October 01, 2015 PRODUCT #: SMR534-HCB-ENG
This is just an excerpt. This case is about LEADERSHIP & MANAGING PEOPLE
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