The Leadership Code

Kate Sweetman: Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood and I wrote The Leadership Code because three or four years ago we realized that if you Googled 'leadership', you would get several million results, and so there are a lot of great leadership ideas out there, but we felt the field needed a lot more organization. In fact, when we joke about it, we call it "the unified field theory of leadership", because what we're trying to do is create order out of that whole constellation of stars. So there was no comprehensive picture and people we felt were latching on to one or two ideas that are really good, but not necessarily getting a whole picture, and even in a single corporation, if you were to go into, you know, name a large company, you would have one division working one aspect of leadership, another division working another, and so that couldn't possibly be good. So we thought it'd be worth it to say, "Well, you know, is it emotional intelligence?", "Yeah." "And is it authenticity?", "Yeah." And promotion strategy and all those things, but how does it all fit together?

Rachel Salaman: So what research did you do?

Kate Sweetman: We researched these questions using what's called the Key Informant Meta-analysis Methodology, which is quite a mouthful, but in English what that really means is asking people with the right background and experience what they found in their work, and then asking them to analyze the full body of their existing data around our specific questions. So, in this case, the key informants were 15 really highly published and well respected leadership experts, who each had been deeply involved in studying leaders in firms and industries worldwide, and some were academics, and some were consultants, and some were industry leaders, but they'd all had quite broad and deep experience. I think among the 15 of them, they'd done something, like, you know, two million, you know, 360 degree analyzes or something. So, these experts used techniques that are accepted as highly valid in leadership development and assessment, and so if you added it up, they really represent a very large percentage of the world's leadership database. So using this Key Informant Meta-analysis, we found that our – that's how we came about coming up with our findings.

Rachel Salaman: And what was the most surprising thing that came out of your research?

Kate Sweetman: I think the most surprising thing was that there was such unity in the answer. We felt, you know, the consensus was that – to our question, which is "What percent of leadership is the same, no matter who you're dealing with, whether it's Mother Teresa or, you know, George Patten?" was 60 to 70%. There was a little bit lower range, so people said – maybe one person said 50, and there was a little bit higher range, someone said 80, but overall it was really very, very consistent, which made us feel pretty good.

Rachel Salaman: Well, your book outlines the five rules for great leadership, and we'll look at each of those in turn. The first one is 'Shape the Future', what do you mean by that?

Kate Sweetman: Well, just a little bit of background first. Our framework is very simple. We have five rules that really come out of two linear dimensions: time and attention. So the long term view is where leaders really need to focus on strategy and really need to focus on human capital development, and the shorter term is really around execution and talent development, and then at the center of that is people, so we're dealing with five. Probably the one that we always start talking about is the strategy piece because it does seem to be the place to go, since it's all about the future. In terms of the future, leaders need to create a credible and hopeful image of the future for everyone who needs to invest in it, so we're talking about employees, customers, any other stakeholders. So strategy, whilst shaped in the present, really takes place in the future. So strategists answer the question, "Where are we going?" And they make sure that others understand that direction as well. They're envisioning and helping to create the future. They need to test those strategy ideas pragmatically against the organizational resources, and the organizational capabilities and then they really need to be sure they work with other people to test its feasibility. So, you know, in these tough economic times, what they're really doing is they're setting priorities around the future and making sure the organization really allocates the right attention to the right things, so that we'll get to the place we want to get to.

Rachel Salaman: Should they be very confident they've got that vision right? How do they know they've got that vision right?

Kate Sweetman: That's a really good question, and a really good point, and honestly, they can't know until after the fact. I mean, you'd need a crystal ball to know that your strategy was really going to happen, but there's a lot that a leader can do to ensure that he or she has done everything possible to make that strategy success. In The Leadership Code we name four things, and I really believe in those. One is, you've just got to really stay curious, so as much as – it's a bit paradoxical – as much as you really need to develop a point of your own in the future, you also need to stay open to other information always coming in, to make sure that you're not being dogmatic. You really need to invite other people into the process, so that includes external people like customers. You also need to engage the organization. The more that we're engaged in knowledge work, the more that we're engaged in a service economy, the more that it's the people who are scattered throughout the organization, at the customer intersection and elsewhere that's going to have a lot of really important information that's going to help to shape the strategy. And then you also really need to make sure that you've really lined up the organization behind it, no matter how brilliant and insightful the plan if people don't get it and don't support it, you know, forget it.

Rachel Salaman: The second rule is 'Make things happen.' Now this is about executing strategy, you mentioned earlier. Now this does seem almost a given, do some people need reminding about this?

Kate Sweetman: That's right, our second rule, 'Make things happen', is really, you know, how are we going to make sure we get to where we're going? And so they're obviously the ones who are translating strategy into action through, you know, change processes and accountability and teamwork and stuff like that. It might seem an obvious thing to do, yet it doesn't always happen by any stretch of the imagination, and in fact, one of the points that we make, one of our findings, one of the things when you think about it, you also know to be true, is that everybody has strengths and weaknesses, and everybody has things that they prefer to do. And in all of these, well, particularly the four buckets, not so much the personal proficiency but the other four, people have natural tendencies, so there are going to be people whose natural tendency is to be very strategic; who love to think big thoughts, they love to be outside, they love to be, you know, gathering all those opinions and coming up with where to go, but when it comes to actually making it happen, they don't own that anymore, and that's actually where a lot of things fall apart. It's also sometimes the case that people very much lean toward the talent bucket and they love their people and they empathize with them; they want to connect with them and they want them to succeed, they, you know, all that sort of thing, and if they get too out of whack on that side, then the execution can also fall out of whack, so, yeah, absolutely, it has to happen and it seems obvious, but that's why it's good to name all of these different elements because we also need to keep in mind to do the things that aren't quite as natural.

Rachel Salaman: There are a lot of business books out at the moment talking about how you should play to your strengths and ignore your weaknesses or delegate those parts of your job that are about your weaknesses, how does that fit in to this rule of executing your strategy?

Kate Sweetman: That's a great question, because we hear that all the time, and the fact is you do need to play to your strengths. You need to be good at what you're good at and be happy about that and go with it. At the same time, you need to realize that, you know, rarely is that enough. Particularly, if what you want to be is a leader up the chain of command, and the higher you get up the organization, the more you actually need to do a lot of things well, so that's point number one. Point number two is that anybody who's evolving is starting from some position of strength and we all know that as we go through life, sometimes we need to take on new skills, and attitudes, and part of being a leader is actually going to include letting go some things that we're really good at. You know, if we were an excellent, I don't know, name it, computer programmer, but you want to be the Head of the IT or IS organization, you're not going to be computer programming. So that's part of what we're trying to develop consciousness around which is, you know, sometimes your strengths can remain your strengths throughout your life and certainly, when we get into personal proficiency, you should be constantly deepening that capability. But other things, you know, you can make a choice to let them go because you need to expand into other areas.

Rachel Salaman: Did you come across any particular example of best practice in the realm of executing strategy that you can share?

Kate Sweetman: Yes, there are definitely some best practices. I think there are also just some preferences that we have, you know, execution is a very well plowed field in many ways, but again, one of the things that we try to do is to say of all the stuff that's going on out there, on the execution dimension of leadership, what do we think is the best stuff? And so, of course, it's in the book. Is this where I say what my website is?

Rachel Salaman: You can do, yes, certainly.

Kate Sweetman: www.leadershipcodebook.com. No, is this – but, you know, we have a change checklist in there that I think you'll find really helpful, and that really talks about how, you know, if you want to make change happen, which execution is often about making change happen, you need to make sure that you've got the right leadership support, you need to make sure that the clear need is communicated, that the outcomes are quite obvious, that there's stakeholder buy-in, there's a clear decision process, dedicated resources, you know, all that kind of stuff. One of the surefire winners that we use all the time to help organizations figure out, not so much "How do we need to execute?", but "What is getting in the way of executing?", and that is this notion of viruses. If you think about an organization as being a living organism of a sort, it can become infected with habits, modes of thought, attitudes, practices, that keep it from being really very healthy, and I'm talking about things like, you know, overreliance on the past, too much focus on hierarchy, and having a culture where people pretend to agree, but in fact don't, you know, a lot of passive aggression and stuff like that, so we find that that's – we actually have that as a checklist. I think it's on our website; it's certainly in the book, and I'll tell you, having used that tool a number of times, it's a really, really good way of helping organizations just quickly break through the problems around execution. And in fact, the interesting thing is that if you trot out that list in front of a group of a 30 people, in a workshop for example, they all know exactly what the viruses are, they just haven't addressed them.

Rachel Salaman: Usually because they're really difficult to address, I would think?

Kate Sweetman: They're difficult to address, in a large part, because they've never addressed them. I mean, ironically, a lot of it is just being willing to name it. I think that once it's just an un-discussable, unspeakable thing, but once you name it, all of a sudden, pff, it goes away. It's like any other problem in a relationship, you know, if you let it fester it only gets worse, but as soon as you start talking about, somehow miraculously it can disintegrate. So I have high hopes that if organizations can identify the viruses, they can pretty much overcome them.

Rachel Salaman: For the third rule is 'Engage Today's Talent'. What are some effective ways of doing this, did you find?

Kate Sweetman: Engaging today's talent is really around who goes with us on our business journey, so talent managers need to know how to engage others to get immediate results by identifying the skills, for example, drawing out the right talent, finding the right talent. Communication is obviously really important; the manager needs or the leader needs to be able to help that person know how they fit in, in this moment, and that person also needs to feel comfortable and safe enough to say, "Here's how I want to fit in, you know, and, here's issues that I'm having, and here's where maybe I need a bit of a break, and here's how I need you to help me." So the more that the talent manager/leader, can generate really personal/professional/organizational understanding, the more that they'll get loyalty and a lot of good heart, as well as hands out of people.

Rachel Salaman: What pitfalls could they fall into when they're trying to engage employees?

Kate Sweetman: I think that pitfalls are being too far at either extreme, either over-identifying with and over-empathizing with the employees and so for, you know, not, sort of, keeping them to task, which isn't doing anybody any favors, as we all know, or being so focused on the task that you really forget about the people, and then they know when they're being treated like a widget, you know, that's not good for anyone. They may show up, I mean, in these times they're probably not too likely to quit, but they may show up, but they may not be give – they be giving you you're best.

Rachel Salaman: So rule number four is 'Build the Next Generation', and this refers to the next generation of leaders, and how is this different, from rule number three, 'Engage Today's Talent?' Is it related?

Kate Sweetman: They are related, and we hear this question a lot and I think part of the confusion is around the word, 'talent.' Because talent is a word that's out there that really many people use to describe what we call human capital development, so I think that that's the point of confusion. The way we're using the word 'talent' is really just to talk about the here and now. Who have we got with us? Really, who's our team? How do we need to connect with them? When we're talking about human capital development, we're really saying, "Where do people intersect with strategy?" So three years from now, what's our business really going to look like? What shape is it going to be in? Where is it going to be? Is it going to be in the UK? Is it going to be in India? Is it going to be in the US? What are the key jobs going to be? What are the real value creating jobs going to be? What kind of background do people need to get into those jobs? Do we even have those people? Do we need to get them? Unfortunately, does it mean that some other people might need to be shifted out? So, that's really – it's really a question of time; it's a question of looking at the future.

Rachel Salaman: Right, so just to clarify, the 'Build the Next Generation', is more of a long term view?

Kate Sweetman: Exactly.

Rachel Salaman: So what do leaders need to bear in mind when they're trying to do that?

Kate Sweetman: The first question really is strategy. Where is the business going? You know, based on everything we know, where is the business going? And therefore what will the key jobs be, and where will those key jobs be, and how are we going to figure out how to fill those things with people who are going to be highly capable? Because as we know, it's only going to get more competitive, so how do we make sure that those people are there, you know, so what's going to be required of them? Here's a great example: we did some work with Nokia a few years – a couple of years ago – just before they began their new push into their reorganization. And it's a great story because Nokia's a great company and they looked at the outside world and said, "Wow, you know, we're not a cell phone company, we're really an internet company, and we need to be able to behave that way and we need to realize that it's really about quickly getting great applications onto these devices, and a lot of those great applications are not going to be coming from our own R&D Group, they're going to be coming from people in a garage somewhere, and so we need to be – we need to organize ourselves structurally and systematically to be open to those things, 'cause right now, how do those people even get in?" So they underwent a very brave, I think, relook at their strategy and their business and also a very brave relook at their human capital to say, "How are we going to be a company that's open enough and collaborative enough that we can create fabulous external partnerships as well as internal partnerships to simply take advantage of opportunities as they arise, that we don't even know about right now?"

Rachel Salaman: So rule five, the final rule, is 'Invest in Yourself'. What kind of investment is this?

Kate Sweetman: Investing in yourself is really the heart of any leader, the heart of leadership code, literally and figuratively is personal proficiency. Basically, effective leaders can't be reduced to what they know and what they do; who they are as a human being has everything to do with how much they can accomplish with and through other people. Leaders have to be able to continuously learn, particularly around the things that they're most passionate about. They have to bring out the best in others, and the only way they're going to do that is if people view them as being trustworthy, and having integrity. And again, we're talking about over the long term of one's career, you know, and in tough economic times, leaders who are calm in a crisis, confident in uncertainty, grounded in fundamental principles, you know, reliable, those rocks that you wish you had, those are the people who are going to make all the difference in the world. So investing in yourself is really about doing what you need to do, for yourself, to bring your best self forward, and you have to do that every day, and I think that has got to be the hardest part about being a leader.

Rachel Salaman: So this might be improving on your skills, it might be taking time out, spending time with your family; it could be in all sorts of areas?

Kate Sweetman: It's whatever it is you need, and that's why it takes a great deal of self-knowledge, I think, to really be a great leader over the long haul, which is what we're talking about here. So for some people, that might mean following a meditative practice. For some people, that might be going sailing. For some people, that's going to be just re-grounding themselves and their family every day, or on vacation, or whatever it takes, but I think it's a highly individual thing.

Rachel Salaman: Now you work a lot in the area of developing women leaders; do these five rules apply equally to men and women?

Kate Sweetman: Yeah, absolutely. The rules certainly apply equally to men and women. They're gender blind in the sense that any leader needs to do all five of these things to the best of his or her ability, you know, with a special attention to personal proficiency. That said, I think that what we've done in the field, myself included, is that we have mostly studied men, or we've certainly never distinguished between men and women, and, you know, we just assume that it looks and feels and is experienced by women in the same way, and I personally, the metaphor that I use for that, now that I've really delved into it, spent a lot of time on it, is it's very much akin to studying heart disease and only looking at men, and just assuming that women are smaller men, and in fact realizing that, you know, both groups get heart disease, but it does manifest differently in women, and sometimes the symptom of heart disease for women is not that tingling in the left arm. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not, sometimes it's something else, and I think that the same is true for women that sometimes the ways in which they evidence leadership is a little bit different, and the discussion going on about, you know, are women strategists or not is a good example of that, so we're not talking about whether they are or not. It's like the heart disease thing. The question is are they perceived that way? And, for a variety of reasons, they're not as much, but let's assume that the gender research is true and let's assume that the evidence of the brain research is true, that in fact, by and large, more women are more likely to process more information when they're making a decision; more women are more likely to take risk into account when they make a decision; more women are more likely to use more words to explain themselves around their strategy, or to rely on intuition a little bit more that, you know, let's just assume, and I think it's fair to assume that, and it's certainly not true of everyone by any means, that gets in the way of their being perceived as leaders. So I think that given that, especially if you're thinking about getting into the C-Suite or, you know, making it to that final mile, if you are a woman and you are personally proficient and you have observed yourself and you say, "You know what, that particular stereotype in fact does apply to me," you need to then consider, "How am I being perceived?" And you might consider adding a skill to your skill set, which includes throwing in some more data and talking in shorter sentences, you know, I mean, stuff – things like that, so that's what we're talking about. You know, your greatest strength may be your intuition, and again, I'm stereotyping here, but your greatest strength may be your intuition and your greatest strength may be creating huge paragraphs that encompass the globe, but, that may not help you be successful. You may need to bolster that with the data and you may need to confine yourself to those treasured bullet points, you know, that show up on all those PowerPoints, 'cause that's what's going to be perceived as valuable. That advice also applies to men, 'cause there's tons of – I think there is some very smart, and I saw this recently, a very smart, creative, intuitive guy who was completely unappreciated by the people around him because his style was just so different from the more, you know, stereotypical, driving behavior and so, in that case, it wasn't a gender thing. I mean, it's a tip to anybody, you know, if you want to thrive in a culture, you'd better figure out what the culture is about.

Not to say that, over time, you can't help to change it, if you think that it would benefit, but all in good time, right?

Rachel Salaman: Well, you said in a recent article that "Now was not the best time to be a woman leader," what did you mean by that?

Kate Sweetman: Well, it looks so stark when you just pull out those words. I was making a point that – I live in Boston, in the US, and so MIT, you know, the world renowned science and technology school is there, and they recently announced that for the first time in history, the incoming class at MIT will be more than 50% female, which is pretty amazing. It's a pretty amazing statistic, and to me that says, wow, the world's going to be a really different place for these really talented young women, and men, as they seek to fulfill their ambitions in the world, and so I'm very hopeful, of course, that they're just going to have a great, you know, gender equity time of it.

However, right now, at this point in time, that's not the case if you're a woman leader at the, you know, poised to go into the higher levels, which you may not get into, because at least, in the US, and I know this is true in the UK, women still encounter great difficulties in making that leap into the C-Suite. Only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, for example, and the 3% who are there are doing fine. I mean, it's not like they're not making it, but – and the cost of this gender imbalance is really high because a number of studies by Catalyst, by McKinsey, by the Conference Board of Canada, by Pepperdine University, I know there are studies in Europe as well, that show that companies that have women in at least 25% of their executive positions earn 35% higher ROE, which is astonishing, and 34% higher total return to shareholders. And Lynda Gratton, at London Business School, has proven that teams that are gender balanced, really 50/50 equal parts men and women, achieve measurably better results in innovation and overall effectiveness, so there's no lack of statistics on the value of including women at leaders in the top of the house today, and yet, only 3% are there. The question that is just puzzling so many people is what's the problem? We've got the education and we've got the experience, you know, what gets in the way?

Rachel Salaman: What is it?

Kate Sweetman: What is it? I'll know more, because we're still working in – I'll know more in time, but here's what I've found out to date, so far. I really don't think that most men at the top are conspiring to keep women out. I really don't think so. I think that they're vaguely aware of these statistics. I think that they've got daughters, you know, I think that many of them have wives who work. It's not that – I don't think there's so much, you know, a conspiracy. In fact, I was talking to a friend of mine who had – who does a lot of coaching with CEOs and she told me recently the story of a Fortune 100 CEO that she coaches and she says, "This man completely gets the strategic imperative," and she said, "When he looks at his strategy of going global, it's crystal clear to him that he can't have a bunch of, you know, mid-western US white males surrounding him and he wants to go to India." He wants to go to the BRIC countries. He knows he needs diversity in thinking, not just of women, but everybody, he just has no idea where to find these people, or what to do with them once he gets them, and I think that is a lot of what the issue is; they're out of network. And there is a lot of work going on with a lot of different people to try to make those introductions, and to help that along, so I think that that's part of it.

I think another part of it is that, again, and this is more unconscious than conscious, but, you know, once you're talking about the stratosphere of any company, everyone competing for that job is smart, and everyone competing for that job is experienced and able, and it always comes down to questions of fit and trust and culture and all the, sort of, nebulous things that tend to put the pressure on homogeneity, rather than variety and diversity, and so for women who have overcome a whole host of obstacles, they've networked, they've found mentors, you know, they've worked hard, they've figured out the home front, you know, they've done all that stuff, and they get to this make or break point about getting into the C-Suite and then they're up against – I don't want to call it a 'Boys' Club', I just want to call it a, you know, a group of people who are more alike each other than they are like her, and the way I was joking about it was, imagine on your next girls' weekend, some, you know, some guy friend of yours wanted to come along! You know, you wouldn't really want him, you know, and it's not that you don't like him and it's not that you don't respect him and it's not that he's not your friend, it's like it's just going to upset your whole mojo around that weekend, because it's just a different dynamic, and I think that's a lot of what ends up happening. And I'm sure in some places it's, you know, nastier than that or it's more deliberate than that, but I think a lot of it's just, like, "Nah, you know, just not this time." You know, "Let's take Joe, not Julie-Anne, because, you know, we just are more comfortable," and I think that that's a lot of what it is.

Rachel Salaman: And it's very hard to get around that, isn't it?

Kate Sweetman: It is very hard to get around that, and then you have to say, "Well, who has responsibility for it?" And clearly the guys at the top have responsibility for it, but they have to be aware of it and they have to have, sort of, means to do it. They need a lot of training, I think, and awareness building, so I'm afraid that, you know, once again, the responsibility is actually, well, the ability is going to have to fall to the woman to make them comfortable, and so again, it goes back to the personal proficiency piece of leadership code again, which says, "She's got to be very clear about what she wants, and if you're ambivalent about it, you're not going to make it." This is really the point at which a lot of women dive off and start their own businesses because it's just too daunting or too much trouble or too insulting to think you need to go through this, but if this is what you want, and I think there's good reasons why women should want it, and we can get into that as well, for themselves, but also for the companies, and also for the world. I think there's good reasons why they should want it, but I think it comes down to their own personal proficiency, in order to get to that next level, so they have to be able to know in themselves that this is, in fact, what they truly want. So they have to keep their goal front in center, because it's going to be a hassle to get there. The second thing is they need to prepare for a fairly stressful journey because there's going to be a lot of setbacks along the way, but that's okay, I mean, you can do that, you can get over the stress as long as you know what you're about, right?

You really do need to know yourself, and I think this is something where a lot of women can do a lot of work, and this includes all of us, I think, but this is where you really have to understand your predispositions around all the relationships and dynamics that you're going to encounter in this journey. So, for example, if someone treats you in a certain way, how do you react? And not just how to react on the surface, but how do you react inside? Because they think a lot of times if we feel that we're being treated as less able, or with less respect, we withdraw, or get angry, or whatever, and again, if you know where you're going, then you can get beyond that. I think that ultimately what the woman needs to do is to build the trust and the familiarity that's going to allow them to say, "Yeah, yeah, she's one of us, let her in." So she really needs to play a positive political game of understanding who is in the room, and who's in that – who's sitting around that table, what is it that they need? What are they after? What can she bring to help contribute to that, you know, and how can she do that in a way that makes them feel like she's one of them? And then, of course, there's the whole behaviors that we were just talking about, that feel a bit more guy, but again, without giving up who you are.

Rachel Salaman: Kate Sweetman, talking to me in London. The name of her book again is "The Leadership Code: Five Rules to Lead By," and it's co-authored by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood.

I'll be back in a couple of weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.