Though generic leadership competencies won’t differentiate your firm from others, they’re still important baseline skills for all leaders. Ulrich and Smallwood recommend these practices for building your leadership brand: Nail Leadership Fundamentals So it strives to hire and develop managers who are frugal and unassuming and who can drive a hard bargain.īrand your firm’s leadership and you deliver unique value for investors, customers, and employees-elevating market value and sharpening your competitive edge. For example, Wal-Mart wants to be known for its everyday low prices. Then link those qualities to specific managerial traits and activities. To build your leadership brand, first articulate what you want your firm to be known for by your best customers. Build a leadership brand: a shared identity among your organization’s leaders that differentiates what they can do from what your rivals’ leaders can do. There’s a better way, say Ulrich and Smallwood. Result? Vanilla managers and executives who aren’t equipped to manage their firm’s unique challenges. Then they try to find and build next-generation leaders who fit the model. Why? They rely on leadership competency models that identify generic traits (vision, direction, energy). Thousands of companies spend millions on leadership development-only to get lukewarm results. In fact, companies with the strongest leadership brands often become “leader feeders”-firms that regularly graduate leaders who go on to head other companies.
The result is outstanding management that persists even when individual executives leave. Finally, track the success of efforts to build leadership bench strength over the long term. Fourth, invest in programs that help managers hone the right skills, by tapping customers to participate in such programs.
Third, incorporate customer feedback into evaluations of executives. Second, ensure that leaders internalize customers’ high expectations. First, make sure managers master the basics of leadership-for example, setting strategy and grooming talent. In examining 150 companies with strong leadership capabilities, the authors found that the organizations follow five strategies. The outside-in approach helps firms build a reputation for high-quality leaders whom customers trust to deliver on the company’s promises. The slogan of Bon Secours Health System is “Good help to those in need.” It demands that its managers balance business skills with compassion and caring. The Lexus division of Toyota, for instance, translates its tagline-“The pursuit of perfection”-into an expectation that its leaders excel at managing quality processes. They begin with a clear statement of what they want to be known for by customers and then link it with a required set of management skills. Organizations with leadership brands take an “outside-in” approach to executive development. It’s what Ulrich and Smallwood-cofounders of the RBL Group, a leadership development consultancy-call a leadership brand. How do some firms produce a pipeline of consistently excellent managers? Instead of concentrating merely on strengthening the skills of individuals, these companies focus on building a broad organizational leadership capability.
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