Managers should avoid adopting behavioural models of success and consider more basic human qualities, says R Gopalakrishnan in his new book
Much of the management and leadership literature that business people are exposed to tends to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. More specifically, it is American. There is nothing wrong or right about it, but it is important to be conscious of the cultural moorings of the ideas espoused by such writings and books. The ethos in other societies owes its intellect tradition to a different culture. The display of the ‘good attributes’ from one culture to another as you climb up the career ladder can have contrary outcomes. One such attribute is the relative weight of being an extrovert or introvert.
In the 1920s, psychologist Carl Jung argued the differences between extroversion and introversion and pleaded for recognition of these as crucial building blocks for the personality. Extroverts are outward-looking, socialize and plunge into things. Introverts are inward-looking, reflective and prefer to observe things rather than plunge into them.
Throughout the twentieth century, initially in America before its spread elsewhere, there was a discount to being an introvert. Leaders and leadership behaviour had to be extrovert. Advertising and salesmanship required a successful person to be in-your-face and it produced an archetype for success.
Then there followed the Dale Carnegie wave of confidence and push as desirable personality traits. Recently there have been inspirational speakers like Shiv Khera and Tom Robbins who teach you how to unleash the power within yourself. You should not forget the influence of the B-School archetype: socialize endlessly, be the first to give an opinion (right or wrong), work as a team but exude charisma and border on being loud and gross.
The introvert has become all that is not extrovert. So a reticent leader, a person who thinks before speaking, and who speaks sparsely is seen as ‘introverted’. His or her leadership has come to be seen as somehow less effective than that of the extrovert type. This subject has been explored in a fascinating way by Susan Cain, a writer who specializes in psychological non-fiction, in her book.
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Therefore career builders should avoid adopting behavioural models of success but rather consider more basic human qualities for success. This chapter is about the 4 As and how they play out in different phases of your career.
I have found it convenient to think of the manager’s practical intelligence through the model of the 4 As, which stand for Accomplishment Affability, Advocacy and Authenticity.
- Accomplishment refers to the attribute of delivering results reliably. It has to be learned like all skills and practised periodically.
- Affability is the attribute of developing agreeable relationships and getting things done in an appropriate manner.
- Advocacy is the skill of envisioning new ideas and persuading others to debate those new ideas.
- Authenticity is the perception others develop about you, especially subordinates, and about who they think you are.
These four attributes vary in relative importance at each stage of your career journey. There are four stages or discrete steps on your career journey.
The box shows that the first step is referred to as Managing Tasks, when you have to plan activities to deliver results with the help of people who typically report to you: for example, to achieve sales targets with a team of salesmen, month after month. During this stage, it is crucial to accomplish and to deliver results (75 per cent weightage). The other three As take a lower share of importance. These weights are shown through the moon charts in the diagram.
The second step is when you move From Tasks to Relationships.
You obviously still need to deliver results, but now you rely on people who do not report to you. You need to get work done, not through hierarchical power, but through lateral relationships. For example, you are the regional manager, but only the sales managers report directly to you; the finance, personnel and legal colleagues report to head office with only a dotted line to you. During this stage, the importance of affability increases compared to the earlier stage.
In both the steps mentioned above, you need what academics recognize as a ‘disciplined mind’.
The third stage is termed From Relationship to Thought.
Your CEO is happy that you are a doer, but he needs to assess the quality of your thinking horsepower. So you are assigned a strategic role such as Marketing Manager, Product Development Manager or Strategy Manager. You rely on a ‘synthesizing mind’. Your ability to acquire and synthesize new knowledge becomes very important. At this senior level, you have to imagine the future and create market spaces that are not readily visible to many others, a skill which comes from the ‘creating mind’.
On the fourth and final step of the leadership journey, you need to be far more aware of yourself and your society by addressing deep issues about people and community; for example, why does your company exist? What is its unique societal contribution? Does it have ethical or moral standards to live up to, apart from the statutory standards? This kind of thinking emanates from the ‘respectful and ethical mind’. At this stage, your authenticity and how people perceive your nature become crucial. Can I trust him? If he asks me to jump, should I jump? These are the sort of questions your subordinates wrestle with.
Before becoming a successful leader, it is essential to be a great subordinate. All successful subordinates are judged by their bosses by observing how well they combine the four qualities of Accomplishment, Affability, Advocacy and Authenticity. These are not static attributes or qualities. They are relative.
You must be ‘sufficiently’ accomplished in getting things done, you must be affable enough and persuasive enough to be an excellent performer, and you must be ‘authentic’ enough to be accepted as a peer and as a leader in the roles you perform on the way up.
Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins Publishers India. Copyright R Gopalakrishnan 2012. All rights reserved.
WHAT THE CEO REALLY WANTS FROM YOU
AUTHOR: R Gopalakrishnan
PUBLISHER: Collins Business
PRICE: Rs 399
ISBN: 9789350293614
