Senior Executive Excellence

It is great to see that 123 fans of Harvard Business Review like our HBR article on implementation of the emergent leadership approaches.  Many positive comments were made, and here are the examples of some:

“Well said”.

“Leadership is not really about delegating tasks and monitoring results; it is about imbuing the entire workforce with a sense of responsibility for the business.” less than 20% of CEOs have realized it, I bet”.

“Our CEO must read this”.

“Autonomy and democracy .. key to success..Overall, good article”.

“This confirms the truth – to lead is to serve !!!”

“Leadership is an activity not a title and certainly not command and control”.

 “What a great idea !”

“Very interesting!”

“I have been shouting this for years… this needs to be said louder and practiced by more… “

“This is great. More hoops just makes people tired and avoid efficiencies”.

“During the chaotic time, the information is not balanced. Therefore, it is very hard to have same intention. Even leader is willing to release the control to team, the team might not have same willing to make it better. So, maybe need to back to basic to have same goal/intention then decide how to co work with team”.

“Caution: Follower should not take advantage of Leader’s relaxation of control! Leader is more smarter than Follower”.

“I don’t agree with the idea that “Leader is more smarter than Follower”. For my idea, working well with team means we have to listen more and have LESS ego. I do agree that leaders may have more experience and vision, otherwise they are not qualify to be leaders.
By the way, allowing staffs to get their own job done and creating trust among team is a great motivation”.

“The attitudinal shift, group dynamics, and open communication are very important within an organization. However, I can’t overlook from my own experience, that culture, personal beliefs, maturity, and personalities all play an integral part of the equation”.

“I also think that measuring the Self-efficacy of your people and comparing it against the complexity of the work also dictates the style of leadership to adopt. It therefore makes sense that companies reliant on knowledge and innovation require a more inspirational and less hands on leadership style”.

“Sometimes, less is more. Perhaps we must revist the concepts the One Minute Manager laid down a great while back. The bottom line is that there is no one who really likes anyone breathing heavily on their neck”.
“Therein, though, lies the key to unlocking innovation and creativity. At least, most of the time. I think…”

“I’m agree, but it should be by conditions and case. Anyway its a valuable article, thanks”.

“good article… a leader is more than a manager… a leader should know how to inspire , motivate and empower his/her people…. most successful org. have this kind of leader…”

“Thank you”.

I am delighted that we are continously receiving an excellent feedback for our article “To be a Better Leader, Give up Authority”, published in December 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review. Examples of the feedback received from executives include:

 “I wanted to thank you as well as complement you on the article written for HBR, December edition. You crystallized a nontraditional approach that has ignited an avalanche of new ideas that I am excited to introduce to my department.  I am encouraged as well as energized to engage (EEE) the department in taking our level of service to new heights. I am grateful for the wisdom shared and hope to be able to share positive results with you in future communication, thank you.” (M.McK, Vice President)

 “I have now managed to read your HBR article via the link you provided and I’d like to congratulate you on a wonderful story, succinctly written”. (A.M., Director)

“I recently read your article in Harvard Business Review and found it interesting. I could not agree more that passing authority down the chain of command increases the effectiveness of decisions. It takes a smart person to know they need help”. (J.G., Sales Executive)

“ I read your article in the Harvard Business Review, and wanted to say that I truly enjoyed it and looking forward to read other articles you may have related to this subject. Once again, well done”. (R.H., World Wide Director)

“I commend you and your colleagues on a thought provoking article on leadership in the latest issue of HBR. As Associate Editor of OD Journal, I wonder if you and your colleagues would be interested in expanding your thoughts and submitting a 28-32 page double spaced article to OD. As a quarterly journal published by Elsevier, we are looking for seminal works that will provoke critical thinking by practicing professionals and MBA students“.  (J.S. Associate Editor)

Our Harvard Business Review article has been now published at December 2009 Issue. The article is available for free for a short period at: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/12/to-be-a-better-leader-give-up-authority/ar/1. Any comments/feedback will be appreciated. The Emergent Leadership Programme has been designed to implement emergent leadership principles addressed in this article. The potential benefits are far reaching: from improved profit and efficiency to increased innovation and motivation of employees. If you would like to receive further information about The Emergent Leadership Programme, please contact me on Vlatka@seniorexecutiveexcellence.com.

I am delighted to announce that our article “To Be a Better Leader, Give up Authority” is going to be published in November 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review. My co-authors are Professor Amar D. Amar from the Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey and Dr Carsten Hentrich from CSC Germany. Dr Bami Bastani, a former CEO of ANADIGICS, USA has also contributed to our research. This article summarises our research on implementing new leadership paradigms into the practice. At Senior Executive Excellence, we have taken this research further and designed EMERGENT Leadership Training Programme (http://www.seniorexecutiveexcellence.com/emergent-leadership-programme/) that implements new leadership paradigms in organisations using the latest developments in mind-body science and psychology of change. This is a leading edge, entirely unique programme that moves individuals and organisations to the new stage of development and performance.

I have now obtained an official feedback on my presentation  at the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) (http://www.berr.gov.uk/) on 2 April 2009 entitled “Leading Knowledge Workers: Enhancing the UK’s Capabilities in Innovation, Productivity and Business Performance”. The presentation was assessed by the audience as “excellent”, and I have  now been invited to provide my presentation material to the project group from BERR and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) working on a project on Leadership and Management arising from the New Opportunities White Paper published by the UK Government. They have also expressed an interest to be informed about any further research I will be doing in the emerging leadership paradigms. I am delighted that there has been so much interest for this research, and hope to see these new paradigms  implemented in practice on a wider scale.