Three Trends of Future of Leadership

Leadership is both art and science, there’re numerous great books and articles every year to decode it, but nobody can completely solve leadership puzzle yet, though we brainstorm the seven ingredients for future of leadership, it seems always have some missing ingredients there, as leadership is also dynamic,  some prestigious management gurus articulate: the real leadership is about transforming the system now, could it be a missing ingredient? How to create it, what could be the future trends of leadership?

 1. Wisdom –Strategic Imperative

The fittest may survive; the wisest may lead; and the most innovative business may thrive;

Modern leadership puts some emphasis on leaders’ three types of intelligence:

Business intelligence to analyze and breakdown the problem, frame process to execute it; Social Intelligence: know the power bridge to lift up career; or Emotional Intelligence: act properly under pressure; it's necessary but not sufficient to lead at today's business dynamic: more mechanic than innovative, homogeneous than heterogeneous, even we expand them into ten intelligences for leadership innovation,  which are crucial for today’s leaders, still, there’s something missing,  at today’s super-complex, hyper-connected and interdependent business dynamic, walking through all sorts of intelligence, we may just need reach the next,  transformational level: wisdom:  

·  Wisdom is Highest Level of Intelligence:

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Intelligence may still divide the thoughts, wisdom will unify the cognizance, encircle the world; leadership wisdom is multi-dimensional pursuit of collective thinking, embrace full spectrum of diversity, culture and change management

·      Wisdom speaks of nature:

It’s reflection, or self-awareness; at pre-social age, we may know political or business leaders via media, as public face for their organizations,  but culture or media seems regard leadership as entertainment sometimes: glorify or vilify one promptly, appreciate & amplify the story such as: today's PR face of company is working for the competitor at the 2nd day, to blur the essential with style, to confuse trend with fad, or despise leadership value to reward opposite;

At today’s social era, it’s more effective for leaders to lead via self-reflection or “self service”, such as blogging or communicate through other social channels in order to deliver more cohesive message about authentic self and thought process,  to figure out unique leadership signature, put simply, leadership need present wisdom, not just put a show.

         
Leadership is influence, influence is from wisdom, wisdom speaks of nature, here is five nature views of leadership.

2. Three “C”s of Leadership Essential

Modern society may also blur leadership with management, there’s intersection between two disciplines, but leadership is more about effectiveness-doing right things, and management is more about efficiency –dong things right; Will three Cs here make leadership transformational –to hunt for such a missing ingredient?

<·     Character

 Character means many things, it’s the human's blueprint, the combination of values, attitude and the integrity,  also like a seed, with its own uniqueness & color theme, the nurturing environment may help sprout it up; The character of great leaders may also like diamond, solid, but not tedious; shining but not flamboyant, perfect balance of Ying & Yang, it can be polished for better!

Character may cascade more crucial Cs in leadership essentials:

--Courage: to overcome barrier, breakdown ceilings or correct bias;

--Confidence: Character is from heart, confidence is about heart feelings.

--Consistence: the characters may help develop habits to strengthen skills.

Character means the abstract level of human recognition: you may see something in common between a 10-year-old cute boy and Mother Teresa, like integrity/commitment; or a teen-age witty girl have same traits with Winston Churchill, such as tenacity and optimism.

Not only for leaders, at every level of talent recruiting and development, being a good judge of character… that's where the real skill gets tested, the value get rooted, and the performance get achieved, make a tough choice for your talent strategy to add the missing ingredient for business transforation.

·      Creativity

If wisdom is leadership’s strategic imperative, then innovation is business’s imperative today,  it's requirement for all leaders; not just entrepreneur; creative leaders may have nature curiosity to dig through; creative leadership will champion the culture of innovation, walk the talk, enjoy divergent thinking and new ideas; tolerate failure or reward the one who thinks differently.

To quote Colonel Scott Krawczyk, one of educators: “From the very earliest days of this country, the model for our officers, which was built on the model of the citizenry and reflective of democratic ideals, was to be different. They were to be possessed of a democratic spirit marked by independent judgment, the freedom to measure action and to express disagreement, and the crucial responsibility never to tolerate tyranny.”

·     Capability

1) Thinking Out Louder: Thinking Capability

Future of leaders need think creatively, independently reflectively and flexibly. As say going: you can send kids to college, you can not teach one how to think; Some high educated people may not know how to think at all; Thinking capability will be directly link to one’s wisdom, and leadership influence. As author of Solitude and Leadership well put: “Solitude, the ability to be alone with your thoughts. is one of the most important necessities of true leadership.”

2) Being Solutonary: Problem Solving Capability

The future of education is to produce solutionary, today and future of leaders need exemplify to be such a solutionary, that said, leadership is not about power play or just public face for business, it needs design, develop and deploy new ways of thinking (big ideas) that crafts good strategy, and inspire people to take action..  

3) Being Learning Agile: Learning Capability

Future of leaders need be coach, also “stay foolish stay Hungary” at the same time, leaders need continue to learn and influence not only the team, but also cross the team, work within the system and on the system, to make positive influence on culture and education.

  

Future of leaders need think big, deep and long, practice innovation, decision and action,

3. Leadership Convergence

 The missing ingredient of leadership may also be hunted through leadership convergence, leadership transformation need bother divergent thinking and convergent understanding.

 Leadership wisdom embrace inclusion: recognizing, respecting, managing and leveraging similarities and differences to achieve superior business results worldwide.

Leadership convergence also means all sorts of leaders: no matter you are leaders in public service or private sector; community or religion, entrepreneurs or enterprise executives cross-geographic boundary, can find common ground, appreciate same value, unify opinions, and make humanity progress, through universal wisdom. 

Leadership takes raw talent, but more about persistence, dedication, and some personal sacrifice, more importantly, the change is accelerated and the world is more connected, future of leaders need wisdoms, global mindset, and three C essentials: character, creativity, capability to shape up transformational leadership and embrace leadership convergence. 

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CIO’s Vital Voice: Five Focal Points at Big Table

At many businesses, CIOs are underdog executives, after being through numerous debates and years’ effort, they finally gain a seat at big table, what should they say when they get there? When should the voice of IT leaders be heard, and do CIOs think their voices get heard, what are those “should” & “should not” to do list?

The best CIO's are good sales people who see opportunities to save money, become more customer experience oriented, or come up with definitive competitive advantages, and with business mindset.  Here are five focal points:

1. Be there, before Sitting there

When CIOs really get a seat at big table, surely they need be a business leader first, to speak the language of business at least. What does board care about: the business growth (both top and bottom line), the cost optimization (not only efficiency, but also effectiveness), the talent management, and governance, risk management discipline.

• Should: prepare well, contribute effectively. Before sitting at the table for presentation, CIOs may need do enough homework to recognize both formal and informal power brokers cross organizations, to present and promote potential projects portfolio, to be purpose driven such as improving business capability maturity, simply put, CIOs need get business buy-in before the formal presentation. Also make sure you have a handle on any fires and that operationally, the walls aren't crumbling or no one will listen to you even if you are sitting next to the CEO
        
       
• Should Not: when a CIO gets to the table, the last thing they want to do is to go and start talking IT at “geeky” way,  in language of IT or through the lens of technology; Furthermore, while you might 'say very little' until really understanding the business, this should not stop you from asking. Good questions are golden,

If all goes well, each executive will voice support for her or him as she or he communicates the vision to CEO, CFO or board. This will position her or him as a business partner with technology expertise, and her or his opinions will be respected as such. The CIO would or should have been asked to contribute towards the business strategy as a member of the senior management team 

 2. Laser Focus on Business Value

 CIO is perceived to be less of a champion of getting IT what it needs to optimally balance stability with innovative business value,  and more of a fair 'player' at the business table.

IT need shift the mindset, when presenting , always focus on business value, it's about how to craft and verify capability-driven business strategy, it's about next practice for business governance, it's about business process optimization, and it's also about organizational structure retooling. 

·  Should: it's vital to ask the right questions to business partners such as sales/marketing,  finance, HR, operational risks & opportunities and how IT can help mitigate against or contribute towards the pursuant of these, IT should express with the confidence on the true value it can bring in, help foresee the future of enterprise, and take initiative to streamline data-driven decision management scenario.

· Should Not: see today’s much more hyper-connected, interdependent business world as “black and white”, “nut or bolt” or “bit or byte”,  should not treat IT project as technology challenge than solving business problems; also should not do innovation for innovation’s sake.

Many IT leaders believe they are still valued primarily for their technical contribution. Fewer than one in ten (9%) IT leaders believe that their teams are seen as strategic operators and 13% think they are seen as technical support – double the proportion of HR directors holding this view. While there is still work to do to ensure the majority of peers recognize IT’s strategic importance, its internal reputation is changing for the better, and changing faster than many IT directors realize.

3. Bring Both Good News and Bad News via KPIs

 CIO should present business-driven KPIs interest executive peers at big table: prepare for both good news and bad news supported by data, you may speak good news promptly, if there's visualized dash board, not necessarily fancy, may also help. CIO need have optimistic attitude, even thing's not going so well, as positive attitude will fuel the passion & solution either at top level or casual meeting with staff, When releasing bad news, always prepare for some alternative solutions to invite diverse opinions and welcome collective wisdoms.

• Should:  express effectively and provide the reasons why IT is over- or under- delivering, also invite business to co-track project, co-dance with IT at faster tempo, and walk through the project more collaboratively. IT should be transformed from back office utility function to front office innovation center, from wired infrastructure to digitization engine without wire, and CIO should transform self from IT manager only to also be perceived as an influential business leader, be an IT practitioner and business strategist at the same time.

• Should not: only focus on "on time, on budget" IT driven KPIs . Every IT project is business project,  IT need express self via lens of business, not just defense. Being a translation channel is something every executive does, but by very volatile and complex nature of IT compared to other functions, IT should not ignore to discuss about technical details which matter, the leverage point is: how should you say it or what should not say.

CIOs who are comfortable with the seat may not only need deliver KPI driven business outcome, they may also need craft IT's elevator pitch timely in order to manage IT-enabled business capabilities and transform organization from Good to Great & Built to Last. 

4. The Convergence of Business & IT Governance

 IT departments have come a long way from being pure technical specialists to being strategic operators critical to achieving business growth and transformation. A seat at the boardroom table is now theirs for the taking. At board level, it's more about risk /compliance governance, requires a strategic and forward-looking perspective, dealing in uncertainty, identify and address key risks, also understand and convert the best of them to opportunity. 

·    Should: At governance table, it's all about how to optimize business processes, improve knowledge worker productivity, verify strategic plan effectiveness, and approach GRC at holistic way.  It means a lot for CIOs to make contribution as business leader, they should advise board about the intertwining relationship between risk management, compliance and security, sometimes, the more effective GRC management need breakdown the functional silos, soothe the political power plays, and build up a truly integrated, enterprise-wide GRC

·  Should Not: talk about business continuity and data protection as pure IT matters, CIO need help create more of direct line between the board and field.  Either business at stagnation point, or perhaps businesses are approaching a tipping point, where IT takes a new role that is based more in the mission and purpose of the company.

Especially at board room, not only you need understand your own business, you need know your industry, you even need have insight about cross-industrial trends, and economy as a whole, as now, the leaders cross-sector claim they are at information business, learning the best practice and next practice, learning about success story and failure case, the point is: the spirit comes from top, being the agile leader to shape the agile enterprise.

5. Talent Management: Leadership, Culture, Education

With ITs perceived purpose shifting from being a process enabler to being a people and thought connector (with information, with communication tools, with knowledge and learning), it seems the straddling of Industrial Age command & control/hierarchical structure and Information Age innovation and ingenuity/knowledge worker has come to a breaking point. The foot left in command and control must lift and weight must be shifted.

• Should:  IT should lead the way to lifting one foot and shifting the organizational structure more into participative models that better support the quantum leap in speed we are experiencing, because, the purpose of business today is to amplify collective human capability and business capacity in order to compete more confidently, it's also about the right timing as the latest technology trend such as social/mobile/analytics/cloud continue blurring business boundary, expand business influence and expose enterprise into high risk surrounding.

• Should Not: Rush into the concept which haven’t been accepted by business fully, for example, some corporate cultures will be more in favor of things like EA and some more averse--meaning in some companies the CIO might create a fabulous Architecture but it won't be well received by the rest of the 'C's,  suppose one could use words like 'capability maturity' and 'culture' to describe the kind of insight and awareness that must have developed within the business leadership for matters IT related for the transformative potential of IT to have the most positive effect.

No matter which table you sit, the scope of conversation maybe vary, but if the discussion focus is about business strategy/execution, then the philosophy and methodology have some similarity, you need be business leader with broad understanding & knowledge, but you can also make contribution to reach the depth of your own discipline, which means be a strategist, a coach and practitioner at the same time, even at big table, being learning agile should be one of the prerequisites for modern leaders, be both vocal and vital. 

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CIO’s Next Practice: De-Learning, Re-Learning & Learning Agility

Technology becomes pervasive in modern enterprise today, CIO plays one of the significant business roles; on the other side, the rapidly change business climate also makes CIO feel like to live at the tropical jungle, facing many attacks, in the danger of getting dismissed as techies without business savvy by their executive peers, or getting lagged behind  if becoming too far removed from recent technology trends, some CIOs may also have victim mentality to be a second class executive without seat at big table.

How should CIO survive and thrive at such a dynamic environment? Besides practicing the three principles discussed earlier, the next practice for CIO could be to cultivate learning agility.

Learning agility has been defined via one of Korn/Ferry’s white papers as: the willingness and ability to learn and then apply those lessons to succeed in new situations. Leaders who are learning agile continuously seek new challenges, solicit direct feedback, self-reflect, and get jobs done resourcefully. They see unique patterns and make fresh connections that others overlook.

1. Mental Agility

--the ability to examine problems in unique and unusual ways

To embrace mental agility, CIO may need become critical and creative thinker at the same time, to practice “de-learning’ and “re-learning”, CIO with diversified experiences such as cross-functional, cross-industrial and cross-cultural background may also help them connect dots to approach problems with fresh thinking and unique ways.

The bias of thinking CIO as infrastructure/utility manager only or the high rate of IT project failure rate should make every CIO, young or old to shape the new box of thinking and mental agility, ponder further about  future of IT and CIO as a leadership role to make influences.

2. Self-Awareness/Reflection

--extent to which an individual knows his or her true strengths and weaknesses

Through self-reflection, CIO may understand self best: are you strategist or techie; are you analytic expert or synthetic thinker; are you visionary or solutionary., etc. at most of circumstances, CIO may need wear a couple of hats, take different actions at varies situations. CIO need be a big picture thinker, but also need master some details in which business can take unique advantage to compete for the long term. Such as, that CIOs are well aware of new market trends & technological advancements, and constantly be on the lookout for how these can be leveraged effectively to achieve improvements for the organization- cost efficiency,  end user satisfaction/flexibility, security, and governance.

3. People Agility

-- skilled communicator who can work with diverse types of people

Communication is one of critical factors to decide CIOs’ effectiveness, As they may  need master all styles of conversations to develop situational wisdom and influential competency, to rebuild IT’s reputation as value creator and innovation hub.

The bad communication syndrome may include such as: getting lost in business-IT translation or getting distracted in technical details, the wrong context & KPIs for different audience, or lack of business focus., etc. Best communicator CIOs need know how to present strategically at round table and how to make value debate with business customers; to drive IT staff’s progress via effective conversation of understanding IT project complexity, also have touchy-feely talk with knowing end customers’ concerns. 

4. Change Agility

-- likes to experiment and comfortable with change

Today’s business leaders need to get a new set of skills such as leadership, critical thinking, creativity, ethics, global perspective, and cultural awareness. What other skills are demanded by twenty-first-century business realities? From a couple of academic and consulting surveys, “The key skills include innovating, dealing with situations that you have not dealt with before, possessing the confidence and the experience to be entrepreneurial.  You have to be able to deal with other cultures and situations you’re not familiar with. So, all of these types of soft skills are going to be as important as the technical skills that traditionally thought sufficient.

By very nature of information technology, change is the only constant, the CIOs with learning agility can move out of their comfort zone, take risks, learn from mistakes, and to create the environment for innovation and creativity, reward risks, invest in new revenue generating initiatives. They will be walking the talk- showing the team in a very personal manner that it is imperative to cultivate the culture of learning  stay on top of technology advancements. It means the successful leaders continually learned, bent, and flexed as their work climate changed. In other words, they were learning agile.

5. Result Agility

     --delivers results in challenging first-time situations

Most of IT organizations today still stick to level two or three of maturity for business/IT alignment, muddled in the middle. Through practicing learning agility, CIOs need learn both from their own experience, and from success stories or failure case studies cross-disciplines,  and apply those lessons to succeed in new situations, in order to improve IT project success rate and IT performance maturity level.

The IT management results may also need be presented via balanced scoreboard to leverage business agility objectively, both judge the result from short-term gain and long term growth perspective.

At the age of digitization, experiment on innovation, delivering result at first-time situation will be more frequent than ever, CIO with learning agility, can continue adopting agile methodology and run IT more effectively. Learning agility is even more critical for the executives at larger enterprises such as Fortune 500, as they are the one anchoring big ship towards the right direction timely, make influence on macro-economic climate, exemplify the positive culture for our society.  

CIOs, are you learning agile?

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Three Perceptions of Global Diversity Ranking Report

Recently released Globaldiversity ranking report, commissioned by Forbes Insights and conducted by Oxford Economic, based on a weighted composite index to compare and benchmark employee diversity across countries, industries and occupations. 
The index is comprehensive and takes into account many different types of diversity. Three separate indexes compose the composite index: a country index based on 50 nations, both developed and  developing; an industry index based on 14 industrial sectors; and an occupation index based on the nine core occupation categories used in ISCO (International Standard Classification of Occupations).
This report provides a statistical look at worldwide workforce diversity data. The perceptions may include:

1        The Progress of Global Human Society

·         Workforce Diversity Drive Culture Evolution: The culture worldwide varies, some traditional cultures may become the main obstacle for workforce diversity and societal progress. However, the industry leaders in the report take initiative to proactively support diversity, as they believe diversity will enable innovation and innovation is the power of business growth, the business development will further help make societal progress and economical improvement.

·         Female Workforce Drive Economy Growth: It’s worth noting that greater economic equality between men and women has been shown to reduce poverty rates, boost GDP and lead to better governance. In order to improve female participation rates, governments can adopt a number of proven approaches such as flex-time  initiatives, free or subsidized childcare, and tax breaks for married couples when both partners work.

2        The Power of Leadership Diversity

·         Breaking  Through Glass Ceiling: The proportion of women who have climbed the corporate ladder and made it to board-of-director status varies greatly among countries. The nations with the highest percentage of female board members are Norway (36%), the Philippines (23%), Sweden (23%). It’s not surprising that Norway is at the top of the list, since it was the first country to mandate a quota system for board participation in publicly listed companies

·         Businesses led by Female Leaders Outperform Market: Studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between women in leadership positions and a company’s financial performance. For example, in the Forbes 2010 “World’s 100  Most Powerful women” issue, a study of the stock performance of the 26 publicly traded companies run by women on the list discovered that, as a group, they outperformed the market, where most companies were run by male CEOs. On average, the 26 companies beat the market by 28% and their respective industries by 15%.

3        The Pipeline of Talent with Multi-dimensional Diversity

·         Build a Global Power House of Multi-culture Talent: The multi-dimensional diversity includes gender, age, ethnicity, disability, country of birth, skills and education, number of hours worked, language, and sectoral and geographical distribution, The vision of the diversity program was to be a truly diversified firm in terms of race, gender and organizational culture and to promote the principle of strength through diversity

·         Worldwide Point of View: Diversity program success has come from increasing understanding of the diverse characteristics of the workforce, and the use of a variety of approaches across as many aspects of diversity as possible.  The biggest challenge could be to pick the best of the best.

Diversity Is Integral to Growth, the report concluded: A diverse workforce is critical to reflecting a global society and companies’ customer base. It allows executives to understand  their clients’ needs better and communicate more effectively. Additionally, diversity drives innovation and fosters competitiveness.

 In summary:: Diversity reflects human’s progress to make difference and gain wisdom via professional growth, to retool the modern culture via business influence and digital footprint.

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EA & BA: A Tale of Two Roles

"In order to be a realist you must believe in miracles."  -David Ben-Gurion

EA-Enterprise Architect and BA-Business Analyst are two interesting business roles cause a lot of debate, it may indicate both roles are crucial at hyper-complex enterprise today, also reflect two talent trends in 21^st century: enterprise visionary and business solutionary.

The diverse understanding about the two roles may also depend on the maturity of EA, the maturity of IT and overall maturity of enterprise,

  

Here are five key differences between the two roles:

1.   Breadth & Depth

EA may focus on enterprise level scope, while BA might need dig into specific project, though it may not say breadth is always superior than depth

 Level of Details:  The BA works at a fine level of detail to fully understand the current situation and/or problem to be solved. The EA works at a course grained level of detail, a synthesis (summarization and/or abstraction) of all projects and/or business areas that is, a portfolio view of business areas. 

                                        

2. Synthesis vs. Analysis:

Enterprise Architect is a "synthesis" role - key words are holism, visioning, aggregation, while Business Analyst is “analysis” role-key word are: artifact, insight, segregation.

EA’s main focus is on understanding the links between the parts, as EA need synthesize the holistic business view to ensure enterprise as a whole more effective and efficient than the sum of parts; while BA need analyze and solve specific business problem via gathering inter-related data & fact

Both EA and BA could be process driven, EA with synthetic mind, help blueprint the future of business; Business Analyst with analytic mind help breakdown the problems, they may have complementary skills to solve complex issues

3. Insight vs. Foresight , Reality vs. Future

EA need not only walk through today’s enterprise, more importantly help perceive the future state of business; while BA need focus on reality,  untangle current business puzzles.

Business Architecture and Business Analysis are linked to each other in a closed reinforcing loop (analysis provides "insight" to synthesis, while synthesis provides "foresight" to analysis) - each feeding on to the other for a better outcome (which is understanding and management of business complexity).

4. Accuracy vs. Betterment

 Two roles may focus on different business objectives: The BA works towards the accuracy of the representations (e.g., artifacts, models, etc.) of the current state of their projects and/or business areas for localized decision making. The EA works towards enterprise “betterment” (which is dependent upon the enterprise business strategy & future state of business) which leads to decisions that affect multiple projects and/or business areas which embrace collaboration, consolidation and reuse. 

5. “Dispassionately” breakdown vs. “Passionately” blueprint:

 From innovation perspective: business analyst need "dispassionately" examine the alternative, though "dispassionately", also need such curiosity and creativity to open the new box of mindset in order to solve the old problems; for EA, to blueprint the future of business is not just knowledge & skills, but also passion & vision and imagination 

No doubt, the organization need both types of talents: EA as enterprise visionary,  and BA, as business solutionary. If the talent are good at both disciplines, which is even more valuable, and at least, two type of talent need work more closely either via physical team or virtual group to solve complex, cross-disciplinary issues and shape an optimal enterprise. By working together, they can achieve first rate intelligence:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

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