Page 62 - The extraordinary leader

Great Leaders Make a Great Difference • 39

What Causes Good Leaders to Be Unchallenged
to Change?

1. When you mention that there is a leadership effectiveness problem,
many people automatically believe that the problem is poor leaders.
There exists a natural human tendency to blame problems on low
performers. We like to assign a scapegoat as the source of any
problems. This can turn into witch hunts for the “bad” leaders.
Frequently, many of the “bad” leaders are new, inexperienced
supervisors who need time and training to develop. It is more
tempting to ferret out the bad leaders than to face a different reality.
This troubling tendency was most aptly expressed by Walt Kelly’s
comic strip character Pogo when he often observed, “We have met the
enemy and he is us.” 5
Blaming bad leaders is a simple solution. It is much more difficult
to accept that the problem with leadership is the need for everyone to
undertake some level of improvement. Those who are good could
have a substantial positive impact on the organization if they moved
from good to great. In the year 1999, John Thornton, co-president and
COO of Goldman Sachs, announced to 500 top executives of the
firm, “We’re not as good as we need to be.” Their performance
appraisals and peer feedback processes showed serious deficiencies in
people-management skills and overall leadership strength. The growth
objectives of the firm were clearly not going to be met unless the
overall quality of leadership was ratcheted to a new level. 6
2. Training programs often send a false impression. When organizations
sponsor training programs positioned to take bad leaders and make
them into good leaders, it unwittingly sends the signal that those
leaders who are currently in the “good” category can coast. Beyond
that, most supervisory and management training courses are designed
to develop basic leadership skills. The focus is on acquiring and
understanding the fundamental skills required in a leadership role.
Many leaders act as if the introductory course in a series is the only
course that exists or is necessary for them. We are aware of only a
handful of corporate development programs targeted specifically to
make good people great.
3. Many 360-degree leadership assessments compare leaders’ results and
show how they compare with the average. The unintended message