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Leadership: Enabling Others to Move the Needle
In a July 2019 Wall Street Journal article, Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, was asked how he created such blockbuster products as Fortnite. He replied, “I didn’t create Fortnite. But I did create and nurture the company that built Fortnite” (Needleman 2019).
The skills needed by such leaders include setting direction, leading people, delivering results, using business acumen, and building coalitions or some variation thereof, but what does this actually look like in the moment, day in and day out? What are the practices and behaviors leaders use to enable the type of performance that delivers results and enables competitive advantage in the marketplace? Like Sweeney, many leaders in the learning arena use their skills to create an environment in which others can excel and move the needle in their organizations. But, they do it differently.
The following stories were gathered from interviews with senior learning leaders within the ATD Forum community. The questions focused on leader behaviors and everyday practices that create an environment where others can excel in their roles and work together to positively affect business results.
Cory Bouck—Serve, Build, Inspire
Cory Bouck has spent his career as both a follower and leader in a variety of roles and places, including the military, academia, business, elected office, and a nonprofit. In these roles, he was both a student of people and a reflective practitioner. In 2013, as director of organizational development at Johnsonville, Bouck captured his experiences and ideas in the book The Lens of Leadership: Being the Leader Others Want to Follow. Today, he serves as the general manager for Johnsonville’s businesses in Asia. Bouck believes leaders need to look at all actions and assess the results through the lens of leadership. According to him, “Leadership is an accountability mindset focused on delivering great results through the efforts of others.” His personal leadership model is “Serve, Build, Inspire.”
In Bouck’s experience, a service mindset means that as a learning leader your business is creating environments where all employees can create value by excelling in their roles. As the Johnsonville credo states: Some companies use people to build their business. We use the business to build the people.
This service to others includes:
• loyalty—even when you are not in full agreement with the final decision
• integrity, ethics, and character—transparency and trust at all levels
• initiative, resourcefulness, and self-reliance—constantly focusing on improving results
• professionalism—be productive, be innovative, be the expert, and be polite.
According to Bouck, the best leaders are also teachers who recognize that most of the learning occurs on the job, not in a training room, and are always developing others. This may sound like it’s straight from a leadership playbook, but it works: Set clear expectations; be accountable and make others accountable too; and have those difficult conversations about performance, and have them in the moment, not at an end-of-year review.
Pursue your own development and build a huge toolkit for helping others. Be curious and chase that curiosity with sincere inquisitiveness. Develop the skill of questioning that opens others up to share and get excited about their work and their development. Consider expanding your professional network and giving more than you receive by mentoring and sharing ideas with others.
Bouck uses what he calls the confidence continuum—with complacency on one end and hubris on the other—to illustrate how leaders and teams achieve excellence. They can be confident in carrying out the task, event, or business plan because they have prepared thoroughly—they are committed experts. But they also have a healthy paranoia that allows them to worry about what they do not know or have not yet considered. This paranoia fuels their insatiable desire to learn more and get better.
Being at the ideal point on the confidence continuum will increase their likelihood of success and set an example for others to do the same.
Suzanne Frawley—Resourceful
When people have the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties, it can be easily inferred that they are full of resources and tools for ideating solutions. In truth, they simply adapt well to new or difficult situations, and they are able to think creatively, even on the fly. As an experienced TD leader who has worked for a variety of organizations, Suzanne Frawley believes that being resourceful is a critical leader behavior, given the constant changes in organizational processes, programs, and employee work.
As a director of talent management teams, part of her role is creating a talent and learning strategy. Her Gallup CliftonStrengths StrengthsFinder report indicates her top strengths include strategic, futuristic, and arranger; in other words, Frawley has many of the attributes needed for being resourceful. When creating a talent and learning strategy, it is critical to start with the big why and then figure out what and who needs to be included, as well as how all the pieces fit together to maximize business productivity and deliver the requisite results.
Frawley always begins the strategy development process by meeting with business leaders to learn their perspectives and by asking questions such as, “What do you want the outcome to be? What is your vision for the next one, three, or five years? What keeps you up at night? What makes you want to get up in the morning and come to work?” During the development phase of strategy building, she continues to meet with business leaders, share the current version of strategy, ask questions to ensure alignment with their business needs, and seek feedback.
By taking this approach, business leaders recognize the work and their input when the talent strategy is rolled out. This is the benefit of the iterative nature of the development process and building relationships with other business leaders in the organization. Because of their engagement and buy-in along the way, they more readily champion the strategy during execution. This can result in leaders contributing to the development and kick-off, or, even, leading some of the learning initiatives associated with the strategy.
Frawley’s ability to be resourceful is enabled through intentional networking, having a large and active group of mentors, and intentional socializing within the business, especially with other departments. Additionally, she engages in formal training, conferences through professional networks, and, most of all, deliberate practice—trying new ideas and approaches, being at ease with making mistakes, and asking what worked, where she got stuck, and what she would do differently in the process. In her experience, it is about being curious; reading; reviewing data from credible, reputable sources; and being comfortable with multiple iterations, not perfection.
Randall Gross—Servant Leadership
Central to Randall Gross’s story as a leader is being a pastor for 18 years and leading a large congregation with tremendous passion and love. Currently, Gross is system director of talent development at PeaceHealth, a healthcare system in the Pacific Northwest; in this role he is an authentic and true servant leader. His philosophy is that the greatest power comes from providing direction and then relinquishing control and using influence and trust to enable the team to get the job done with excellence. Gross is deeply passionate about the people he leads and serves, and this grounding in empathy traces back to his values. He uses his service approach to lead from the heart and allow the team to deliver results and take PeaceHealth’s TD practices to a new level.
His goal is for his employees to see the value in their work life and love what they do. This means listening to them and adapting to meet the needs of both the learning customers and the L&D team. Gross has found that listening is especially valuable when the work isn’t going smoothly or there is controversy. In these times, he listens to understand, even if that involves hearing details and barriers that are outside the grasp of an executive. By doing so, Gross is able to facilitate a collaborative dialogue with senior executives and gain their buy-in. With this buy-in comes commitment and sponsorship, which in turn brings support to L&D employees in their daily work. These interactions and working together cultivate a culture of trust.
Like many organizations, PeaceHealth needs to offer a huge breadth of content because of the diverse roles in the organization, which leads to the old question of buy versus build. When making this choice, the organization does its due diligence to understand the pros and cons of the options, as well as ensuring it’s getting maximum value for its employees. Currently, PeaceHealth partners with DDI (Development Dimensions International) to provide leadership development content and consulting on succession management, and with Emtrain to provide training content that promotes a positive work environment, including a code of culture, diversity, and workplace safety. To keep his stakeholders informed, Gross hosts show-and-tell sessions and uses the feedback to make process improvements.
Heather Durtschi—Focus on Future
During her time with Walmart, Senior Director of Learning Content Design and Development Heather Durtschi has learned that whether you love change or not, it is inevitable. The better prepared you are for change, the better off your team and your organization will be. For Durtschi, this question is always top of mind: “How do you stay in front of what’s coming without being able to see the future?”
Her team operates within an Agile framework and uses a variety of change management techniques to ensure quick adoption of new processes and ways of working. Her content and creative design teams work in both Scrum and Kanban format, flexing to where the business needs them most during a given development cycle. Designers attend daily stand-up meetings and biweekly retros, where they are empowered to share ideas, offer solutions, and suggest new opportunities for feedback and support.
In Durtschi’s organization, content managers own the curriculum from needs intake to measuring impact—literally end-to-end—updating and refreshing it at whatever cadence the business requires. For this to work with the utmost speed and effectiveness, she creates an environment of personal and team accountability, empowering her associates to be autonomous decision makers and encouraging them to adapt. Critically, when they do so, she trusts their judgment, which has led to outstanding learning results.
Walmart’s greatest challenge is the pace of change in the modern marketplace and the adaptability that pace demands. An omnichannel strategy—cooperation with communication channels and resources rather than working in parallel—has become the reality of retail, and Walmart must continually balance its focus between traditional brick and mortar stores and online operations. For Durtschi, this means ensuring that training and instruction stay relevant, even as retail continues to change. Training must be provided when the learners need it, where they need it, and in an easily digestible amount they can quickly apply. For example, as Walmart continues to install pickup towers in stores, Durtschi’s team has trained associates on how to function efficiently in this new environment. The training can be done on the sales floor using virtual reality, which decreases the in-class time required for previous training programs.
Walmart’s customers are also changing. To thrive, the retailer needs to change with them and embrace new ways of working. The training for the new skill sets must be developed by L&D team. Walmart’s learning team is focused on delivering targeted curriculum at scale. They leverage cutting-edge technology (such as mobile learning, VR, and AR) and deliver training to associates on the sales floor at the moment of need, all without sacrificing the customer focus that helped the retail giant succeed in the first place. Embracing change and staying close to future trends are critical for Walmart’s continued success.
Chris Holmes—Curation
Chris Holmes leads the functional L&D team at Booz Allen Hamilton, which like many companies isn’t equipped to produce the volume of content needed. But Holmes and her team do not let this get in the way of providing the requisite content the company needs. Instead, they strategically partner with vendor organizations and use a curation-based learning model, rather than one that is development based. Booz Allen Hamilton also designs cohort-based learning experiences that may comprise online learning from a provider and another section facilitated by a different provider.
Holmes’s team is challenging the norms of what some would consider traditional learning roles or staffing needs. For example, they have found that rather than focusing on finding the perfect instructional designer, their team benefits more from having people who not only understand the principles of instructional design, but also can play other roles such as data analyst or videographer. Balancing the team with an array of versatile skills is critical.
The ability to solve problems is also essential for a TD leader. Holmes believes that if you cannot identify a problem, break it down to its fundamental pieces, and understand it, you can’t be effective at your job. A few years ago, for example, Holmes and her team had an off-site team-building day at an escape room. Having a diverse team (including a technology strategist, electrical engineer, program manager, software developer, marketer) was very beneficial because everyone was able to solve a different piece of the puzzle seamlessly. This allowed the team to leverage their strengths and emphasized the importance of surrounding oneself with people who excel in other skills. And, they got the top score!
Building trust within a team is imperative. Holmes has found that she needs to be intentional about investing time in people and building relationships, both in the talent space and in the core business units. For her, trust develops through interactions with one person at a time and over time.
Jeremy Jones—Alignment
As director of learning and development at Asurion, Jeremy Jones believes that aligning L&D with the organization’s goals and objectives is imperative; it gives the L&D team its purpose, or, as Simon Sinek says, “the why.” This is especially important in the age of VUCA and constant change. One of the ways Asurion’s L&D function adapts is by engaging in conversations with major stakeholders, speaking the language of the business, and making sure they have a seat at the strategy and planning table. They have accomplished this by being accountable for consistently delivering results to gain credibility.
L&D was not involved in the planning process when Jones started in his current role, so his first step was to identify key stakeholders. He worked with a senior manager in the finance department to gain a better understanding of the planning process and a list of stakeholders from each department. Next, he scheduled introduction meetings with each of them. The meetings focused on gaining a better understanding of the stakeholder’s role in the planning process and the pain points identified around operational performance. These monthly conversations about process improvement, finance, quality, change management, and coaching eventually led to partnerships. After completing a gap analysis on specific pain points, Jones was able to determine that focusing on the new expert experience (that is, retention of those experts and how they perform relevant to tenure performance) would have the most significant impact on the organization.
Jones believes the determination to partner is very simple: If L&D can bring value, it will be a part of the equation; if not, there is no need to engage. By bringing value to the business and creating financial benefit, the team was able to create two goals for L&D:
• Increase the retention of new employees within the first 90 days by 10 percent each year.
• Reduce the time it takes for new employees to match tenured performance in key metrics by 25 percent each year.
These goals became part of the annual planning process and are tracked for successful delivery.
The relationships the team created have resulted in additional opportunities to partner with product launches and operational unit changes. Each launch or change has key performance indicators that the team uses to measure changes based on learning (for example, did we do what we said we would?). If the team doesn’t meet this commitment (which was discussed when building out the business case), then they don’t consider the product launch successful. Additionally, the primary questions always come back to, “Did it deliver financial value?” and “Did we see an increase in the number of high-potential employees who had an opportunity to get promoted (employee experience)?”
The philosophy of “fail fast” is a big part of Asurion’s cultural fabric, and this is especially true when developing content using ADDIE. When the process calls for quick iterations, it’s OK to fail fast, because the lessons learned affect future work and performance. It is never a good idea to tie up significant resources in something that leaves you needing to start from scratch if it fails on launch.
Jones lives by the credo, “If you don’t care who gets the credit, anything is possible.” He says in the end it’s about influencing others and collectively driving toward the expected outcome. Jones likens the learning function to the offensive line of football—we don’t hear about them as much, but they’re responsible for the success of the game.
Marguerite Samms—Systems View
As assistant vice president for leadership development at Intermountain Healthcare, Marguerite Samms thinks of leadership as an organizational process, as well as how an individual leads. She recommends starting with the organization’s mission, vision, and values and basing your strategy on those fundamentals. Your strategy can then be articulated in strategic imperatives with clear goals and outcomes, which are created through a strategic deployment process. At Intermountain Healthcare, the resulting initiatives are managed by a performance management system—this occurs at the organizational level, team level, and individual level and is continuously improved.
Samms believes that a leadership model should articulate the leadership brand and what it means to be a leader at the organization. At Intermountain Healthcare, leadership excellence is supported by the learning organization and the company’s deep commitment to being a model health system. Intermountain continuously strives to show other organizations how to create healthy communities, provide excellent care when needed, and offer the most value to members of their insurance plans or patients using their services. And, while many organizations visit Intermountain to learn from its processes, Samms thinks that the real value happens when the learning is mutual—they are always learning and improving ways to help people live the healthiest lives possible.
Samms believes that everything in an organization is interdependent. She plans and designs work so it can adapt to constant change.
Samms has used the Baldrige Performance Criteria as a framework for evaluating how leaders are prepared to meet the strategic plans of the organization. One example of this is the organization’s leadership excellence strategy to prepare leaders for the future, which holds the clues to what capabilities leaders will need to deliver on the strategy. These clues include items like what is important, how the work should be done, what success looks like, and how success will be measured. If the strategy includes new products, services, or growth, then it can be assumed that change leadership will be a core capability for the future. For the next step, Samms advises learning professionals to identify what knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) their workforce needs today and in the future. Then they should consider which groups need which KSAs and in what order. For example, new leaders may need change leadership communication skills, and senior leaders may need more skill in assessing and creating readiness for change. Once this groundwork is in place, it is useful to create a grid of the learning content, tools, standard processes, and audiences to map an interconnected approach. The next steps are to plan deployment or implementation for all appropriate groups. The most important part is to include a step in the annual planning process for learning and improving. If this is part of the process, it reduces the number of disconnected improvement initiatives.
Intermountain has an annual process in which the executive leadership team—which includes the chief people officer—sets the strategies and identifies a limited number of goals. Then HR develops aligned strategies and goals followed by the learning groups. Once the goals are drafted, each team in the learning function reviews them with stakeholders in back-and-forth, catch-ball conversations for ensuring relevancy and alignment. Intermountain uses KPIs to measure outcomes in favor of activity or processes. Because the strategic imperative categories are meant to last multiple years, annual goals are connected year-to-year and easily show progress against the strategic imperatives over time.
After a recent organization-wide transformation and restructuring to align the organization as one and eliminate regions, 63 percent of the leaders found themselves in new job roles. To meet the mission in today’s environment for patients who want a better experience, the organization needed to create a consistent and highly reliable experience for its patients and for its 38,000 caregivers (Intermountain believes all employees are caregivers). This would require a more collaborative, interdependent leadership style. As a result, the company began designing a new leadership excellence framework, which has three parts:
• a leadership-specific workforce planning process
• a clear definition of an Intermountain leader, expressed through a leadership brand and leadership statements
• a competency map.
The first step of designing this framework was to develop the elements of the new leadership framework and corresponding assessment and measurement tools. They did this by conducting an internal study to identify the leadership mindsets and behaviors driving Intermountain’s specific outcomes. The study involved 50 interviews at all levels and in diverse roles to establish the key outcomes, mindsets, and behaviors to test. Participants were asked questions such as:
• How would you define the intended outcomes of what your group does? What is success?
• What role or roles do you think you, as leader, have to do to achieve those outcomes of your group?
• What do you think it takes in a leader in your position to be successful in achieving those outcomes? What knowledge, skills, abilities, or characteristics do you think are most needed?
The interview data was aggregated to form a quantitative survey to pinpoint the mindsets and skill sets driving success in 13 Intermountain-specific outcomes tied to their strategies. Using regression and factor analysis, the team identified the most important things leaders were doing to achieve key outcomes. Six leader capabilities were found to be strongly tied to achieving the desired outcomes. The strongest correlations were visioning (seeing the long view and being able to create purpose) and connecting to the front line (understanding the front line, spending time with the front line, seeing the work, and so forth). Other items included communicating, results orientation, self-awareness, and relationship building.
These results are now informing the leadership capability statements. The organization is seeking to articulate which capabilities truly differentiate the outcomes of an Intermountain leader. The study findings combined with cultural observations and future-focused strategies have led to five draft capabilities that will differentiate the outcomes of an Intermountain leader: mission obsessed, envision the future, act and learn, manage obstacles, and build relationships. The Leadership Excellence Executive Steering Team is now collaborating with the marketing and communications teams to articulate a final set of capability statements in a compelling and uniquely Intermountain way.
Alissa Weiher—Get Uncomfortable!
Get out of your comfort zone. This is something we hear often, yet lacking context, it generally rings hollow. But in the career of Alissa Weiher, the director of talent development at Cochlear, this mantra has fueled her growth mindset, which has helped her become a more effective talent leader. By stepping out of her comfort zone, she has stretched her skills to new levels and been able to build teams that are more cohesive, develop high-performing strategies, and cultivate strong relationships with members all throughout the organization. Her advice is: “When someone asks you to do things that aren’t normally a part of your day-to-day work, be willing to say yes, and give it a shot!”
Weiher’s first job in learning and development was as an L&D subject matter expert in banking—she started as a teller and worked her way up to office manager before joining the L&D team. The role of facilitator came very naturally to her, and she quickly progressed through a variety of roles in L&D over the next five years. When she went to her next organization, she found herself questioning certain decisions within the organization and her own abilities as an L&D professional. There was an initial honeymoon phase of about six months, and then some discomfort for a year, which helped her discover biases based on past experiences. From there, she determined what she could do to help solve the organization’s challenges. Her advice to new talent leaders is to know that you’re going to get uncomfortable when you hit one to two years at a new organization. You’ll question the decisions, and everything won’t always make sense at the time. But hang in there and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Ask a lot of questions, build relationships, learn the culture, and read industry articles. This will definitely benefit you and the organization in the end.
An example of operating outside her comfort zone is using new technologies, especially those having a major impact on the learning and talent landscape. Weiher was trying to create a different type of e-learning experience and started exploring rapid speed animation through online resources. She was just starting to use the technology when she was asked to teach others about it at a conference. Even though still a novice, she said yes and helped introduce it to other learning leaders from different organizations. At the time, Cochlear was using VideoScribe, an animation storytelling software.
Weiher encourages the same mentality of risk taking and saying yes to opportunities in her team. There have been a number of these over the years. One such opportunity involved having a team member who was still relatively new to instructional design and not comfortable with facilitating conduct a short presentation at a learning technology conference. Another time, Weiher asked a manager who primarily supported operations to facilitate an influencing workshop with sales leaders, a group they had little experience with. She promotes these new and different opportunities because she believes that experience comes from trying something new. While there may have been some discomfort for her team, the new challenges allowed for skill and relationship building, both of which are wins for her group.
Terence Morley—Focused Understanding
One of the biggest goals of any talent development organization is to meet employees where they are in their career and move them along based on their potential, their interests, and the organization’s needs. At NBCUniversal, Terence Morley and his team worked on a program designed to develop high-potential early career talent. However, after a few cohorts, they realized that something wasn’t working. The team conducted a formal needs analysis and realized they were not meeting participants at their point of need because the talent gaps were too disparate. The big takeaway was the power of understanding audience needs. Armed with these new insights, Morley’s team focused on developing three different experiences to address these needs in a more targeted way. The new sessions included:
• INVEST—understanding the business
• INFLUENCE—influencing and communication skills
• CONNECT—bringing together cross-functional communities of practice.
Using three tightly focused areas rather than one session that addressed a broad array of topics was highly successful and productive. Morley and his team learned that you can’t just train a population; you need to be very specific about the population’s needs and expected outcomes related to their goals, pain points, and gaps.
Morley believes in the importance of creating a mission and vision for the talent development team. They collectively agreed upon six core values for which they hold themselves accountable—creativity, excellence, agility, fun, substance, and uniqueness—and which are printed on their name badges for an easy reminder. When the team recognizes one another for good work, they tag a specific value. Twice a year they conduct an awards show called the “Chin Chins,” during which they recognize people for living and embodying the core values.
Morley describes the first part of his career as being about delivering results. When he got to NBCUniversal, he realized that results aren’t the only thing that matters—the people you work with and the talent in your organization are critical to success. While he is still very results-oriented and focused on the process, Morley has learned to build individual relationships and adapt his leadership and working skill sets to obtain the best results for the team. The results and desired outcomes must be customized to meet the needs of the individual—and the business. The goal is to be the leader your employees need.
Carmen Reynolds—The Player’s Coach
When it comes to leading a talent development organization, talk is wonderful, but it is leadership by example that truly galvanizes employees. Carmen Reynolds, currently the director of leadership and professional development at Boeing, has built her career as a “player’s coach”—a leader willing to walk the talk and demonstrate what savvy, smart leadership in the talent development space looks like.
Reynolds believes it comes down to modeling the behaviors that she and her team are trying to build in others. This involves a willingness to be vulnerable and understand that you won’t have all the answers. This is where appreciative inquiry comes in—asking the right questions and provoking a different way of thinking.
“By creating an environment where people are empowered and not feeling like you need to be involved in every little decision, you allow people the freedom to make choices and decisions and be accountable for the results,” Reynolds says. “Think about how you want to solve something first. It’s OK to offer an opinion, but be the player-coach and allow the individual the opportunity for leading and self-discovery.”
Reynolds has the opportunity to work with multiple teams while deploying learning programs (including instructional designers and operations specialists). She can have a unique viewpoint to meet people where they are. For example, she might say, “Here’s how I approached X problem. I found it worked for me, so maybe you can try that. When you’re a player-coach, you’re willing to do the type of work you expect from others.”
As a talent development leader, Reynolds says it’s vital to be a “curious learner” and know as much about the business as she can. Every year or two, she does something new in her role to add to her skill set. This means continuing to get better at speaking the language of the business. “If someone recognizes that I am a business leader who happens to do learning and development, I take this as the highest compliment,” she says.
Reynolds believes the greatest challenge facing talent development professionals is the same for any business leader—the need to stay agile and pivot based on market conditions. In some cases, it also includes a willingness to put on a different uniform and play from a different perspective. “As learning professionals, it’s important to have an ‘outside-in’ view,” she says. This includes:
• applying industry knowledge and global mindset to what you’re trying to deliver
• making sure the learning you’re looking to promote is applicable to your learners
• making sure that you’re driving relevance; her leader at Boeing often says, “Relevance trumps innovation”
• meeting people where they are; “Regardless of where they start,” Reynolds explains, “I want someone to walk out of a program and feel changed.”
Reynolds says she also emphasizes the importance of digital technology, which allows for equal access to training for all learners—enabling on-demand, relevant learning versus a one-size-fits-all training approach. “Putting more control in the hands of the learner is a big step forward,” she explains. “The more accessible and engaging the learning experience, the more likely it is to be used and to be effective.”
Jay Erikson—Clear Expectations
Jay Erikson, director of global learning at Hitachi Vantara, believes in hiring the right people, setting clear expectations and goals, providing support, and, then, getting out of the way to let the performers perform. It’s this freedom and latitude that allows high-performing teams to be creative, develop innovative learning programs, and garner satisfaction in their work. However, greater freedom requires greater responsibility. So, he makes sure that everyone on the team has a clear understanding of their roles and accountability for their initiatives. His teams create clarity by having a consistent model for ownership across learning initiatives, which is supported and reinforced by the structure of the learning organization.
Erikson says it is important for the organization to look at its purpose and constantly ask themselves, “Why are we doing the things we’re doing? Are we investing our time and resources in the priorities that matter most? What can we do differently to improve learning and business outcomes? How can we expand our circle of influence?” Asking these questions will guarantee that your focus is on the right priorities while validating assumptions with data whenever possible.
In addition, Erikson notes that the learning organization needs to align with business partners and executives to stay relevant and expand their circle of influence. Learning organizations can stay aligned by:
• Finding business partners who want to work with them. They are usually willing to provide support, will work toward shared success, and will be champions for the learning organization.
• Not insisting on doing it the “right way”; being pedantic may alienate some. One can be right and still be wrong. Remain focused on the desired outcome, and collaborate and compromise as needed.
• Staying aware of business priorities and new initiatives; listening for opportunities to develop new capabilities that support strategic business initiatives. Business leaders want these strategic initiatives to succeed and generally welcome support. Executing well on these initiatives will open new doors.
Hitachi Vantara, like many companies, says Erikson, faces the challenge of equipping employees with the knowledge and skills required to meet near-term objectives while preparing for a rapidly changing and uncertain future. The massive reskilling of employees to take advantage of emerging technologies such as analytics, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning cannot come at the expense of meeting quarterly and annual performance and financial goals. The learning organization must work with business partners to balance these often-competing objectives.
Erikson’s focus on creating a learning organization is his passion, but one that is also supported by senior executives, including the COO and CEO. Their modeling of continuous learning makes his efforts seamless and more impactful.
Summary
As demonstrated in these stories, leaders are different, but they use similar skills, behaviors, and practices in leading others. In Learning Leadership: The Five Fundamentals of Becoming an Exemplary Leader, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (2016) describe the five fundamentals of exemplary leadership based on extensive research. These include:
• Believe you can.
• Aspire to excel.
• Challenge yourself.
• Engage support.
• Practice deliberately.
While those in the leadership and management functional area of talent development teach these ideas and behaviors to others, we have the opportunity—and duty—to practice them every day by being a player’s coach, meeting employees where they are, getting out of our comfort zones to learn, and getting out in front of the change. If those responsible for developing capability within the organization are not exemplary leaders, how can we expect the organization to have exemplary leaders at every level?
Key Takeaways
Leadership is a journey, and there are many ways to get better, but a starting point is learning more about yourself and how others see you—for example, understanding how you show up to others.
Development is personal and takes knowledge, skills, and abilities—which mean learning, doing, reflecting, and getting feedback—and then repeating the process over and over and over again.
While a mountaintop experience happens periodically, the actions taken every day are what define our leader style and affect the work we do and the people we lead.
Questions for Reflection and Further Action
1. How do you show up as a leader and model exemplary leadership daily?
2. What are your differentiators in terms of leading others; what do others say about the actions you take and the impact you make?
3. If you were given the corporate award for demonstrating outstanding leadership for this year, what would the write-up say?
4. What are you doing to get better at getting better as a leader?