Taking the lead in leadership

When Katy Tindall, organisation development manager at Co-operative Bulk Handling (CBH) asserts that leadership development has always been a part of CBH’s culture, she’s not just spouting an OD platitude. As a young man, the company’s CEO started with CBH as a receival point operator and has risen to the top of the organisation because of the development opportunities offered to him by the company.

With a workforce comprising 750 full-time staff and up to 1,500 casual staff over harvest time, the organisation introduced an integrated leadership development framework about two years ago. The approach incorporates six structured development pathways at different levels in the organisation. Interventions included development planning, skills training, personal development and tertiary study, 1:1 coaching and mentoring, 360 degree feedback, action learning and secondments.

The problem facing the organisation is that in order to transition to a new level of expected growth, it needs leaders with the right mix of hands-on knowledge of the grain business and broader business skills. However, CBH’s future leaders will probably need a different mix of skills than what is currently required. Although predicting the future is fraught with difficulty, CBH knows that its future leaders will have to be the right cultural fit and reflect the company’s values through their behaviour.

“We pride ourselves in not training for training’s sake,” says Charmaine Guretti, CBH’s L&D coordinator. “It’s now specifically targeted to the individual and linked to each employee’s development plan and performance appraisal,” she says. CBH recently won 2004 Large Employer of the Year in WA’s Training Excellence Awards.

Tindall acknowledges that calculating ROI on CBH’s leadership long-term development program is difficult to quantify, but results are reflected in several measurable ways. Staff turnover is low and average tenure is 10 years. Around half the staff on the company’s succession plan have experienced career progression in the past two years. Positions on its intensive leadership programs are hotly contested. Training evaluation forms and staff surveys have reflected high levels of satisfaction with training.

Tindall has some tips for those starting out on the leadership development road. “Include the CEO, the executive team and the board in the development process and make sure you align leadership competencies and qualities throughout all your HR systems. Do a gap analysis to determine development needs and complement traditional training with alternative techniques such as action learning, secondments, acting assignments and executive coaching. But above all, evaluate and measure development progress and always challenge the appropriateness of the tools you use,” says Tindall.

XYZnetworks

“Hallelujah!” thought John Reddin, when he heard that management was introducing a leadership development program for the company’s middle managers. As head of production for The Lifestyle Channel, one of XYZnetwork’s 11 subscription TV channels, Reddin manages 10 full-time staff and between 60 to 80 freelancers when producing Lifestyle Channel’s gardening, food and cooking shows.

Reddin, who has worked in TV in the USA and Europe, was one of twenty-four people invited to attend the course that kicked off early this year. “One of the big problems in TV around the world is that the major focus is on technical skills and making programs. There is no emphasis on management skills and communication,” he says. According to Reddin, his own management style has evolved as a reaction against bad managers he has had in previous jobs.

Ian Ballard, commercial director at XYZnetworks, says the company reached a critical size and age, resulting in the recent introduction of a leadership development program. “We have just celebrated our 10th birthday and now employ 180 people. Five years ago, we had 60 staff and were focussing on staying alive. Now, with teams of five to six people, we need leaders. Our new CEO, Bruce Mann, also brought a focus to leadership within the company,” he explains.

Ballard says that XYZnetworks needs respected and innovative leaders who have a vision of where the industry is going, as well as a passion for both the industry and product. “We are now at the stage where we’d like to grow our own future leaders and have to identify them early so they don’t get too technically or vocationally trained. They’ll need to be able to deliver creative, but within a budget and have the skills of a general manager. As leaders, they’ll need to manage and grow both the brands and people,”says Ballard.

XYZnetworks engaged an organisational capability consulting firm which had the background and skills to introduce leadership training in a media organisation. It ran the training course for middle managers, looking at strategy, 1:1 coaching and systems reviews, including 360 degree feedback. “We need to fine tune the next phase so that formal training and mentoring programs align with our succession plan,” says Ballard.

Although XYZnetworks is young company in the early stages of its first leadership development program, XYZnetworks believes this initiative has had a major impact on its operations. While difficult to quantify at this stage, Ballard says that the business has been operating more effectively and efficiently through improved systems knowledge, processes and planning. Staff turnover is low and morale is very high.

John Reddin agrees. “It has energised a layer of (middle) management and has given us a language to engage with each other about process and systems. It’s provided us all with a neutral language to use when managing performance issues, shifting the management of problems from personal into professional terms.” The leadership development program has also changed Reddin’s attitude to XYZnetworks. He says that he feels that the company is “really serious” about what it’s doing. “It’s not just about today, but the future as well.”

Ballard says there are some lessons he has learned with XYZnetwork’s leadership development program. “Not only do you need someone within the organisation to champion it, you also need the agreement, support and buy-in from the management group, as they drive the program. Mentoring is a very important part of our program, because our current leaders have great company and industry experience. If you can position the leadership development program as a change in culture, rather than a training program, you are likely to get a more positive outcome,” he advises.

Australian Defence Force Academy

The Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) got serious about leadership as a subject about seven years ago when it appointed Iain Densten, associate professor of leadership in the school of business, UNSW at ADFA. Densten likes to distinguish between leadership development, where the emphasis is on individual-based knowledge and leadership development, which involves building the capacity for groups of people to learn their way out of problems that could not have been predicted.

“The role of the Defence Force has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Not only are they now required to defend Australia, they are also involved in disaster relief, peacekeeping and solving terrorism. New technology has also changed the role. We rely on the versatility of our officers, because we are not big enough to have specialised skills like the US does,” says Densten.

UNSW at ADFA has developed three leadership courses for its 800 undergraduate and 800 plus postgraduate students. “Leadership drives change. Our officers no longer have total command over all the people they need to lead, (with an increase in the numbers of civilians involved in defence) so we use a reflective learning approach. We don’t teach them how to stand up in front of people and issue orders, but rather to diagnose a situation and to understand behavioural complexity,” says Densten. He believes that only a reflective process can encourage future leaders to gain a greater understanding of their environment and to be more ethical.

It usually takes five to seven years before any of ADFA’s undergraduate students get into a leadership role. During that time they are under constant observation and get regular feedback.

According to Densten, leaders are just like teachers and each student determines how much they want to learn. “Creativity is the key to gaining a competitive advantage. If you are not using people’s imagination, what are you paying them for?” he asks. “You have to keep beating the bushes to find people who are ready to be leaders, then give them the opportunity to do it. The best leaders are well educated, mature individuals,” he concludes.