Work Levels
Insights on Strategic Leadership
Work Levels
Insights on Strategic Leadership Leadership Overview The essence of leadership has been difficult to capture despite the efforts of academic analysis. Theorists and practitioners have largely focused on establishing the doing of leadership. Whilst this has provided some illumination, the tendency has been towards identifying a list of ‘must-do’s’. Given the fact that, as in all things, ‘context is king’ trying to establish a universal list of leadership behaviours is bound to have its limitations. Being a leader has been left to the ‘hero’ chief executives to write about in their autobiographies. But often they do not provide much in the way of insight as they focus on the decisions that they made rather than how they made them. Not only don’t leaders analyse how they made decisions, they don’t know how to! There is a gap in our understanding. We think we know a lot about our own experience but in fact we don’t. Few people are able to suspend the preconceptions and assumptions that make up their approach to the world and examine the structuring and layering of experience that guides our decision-making. As such it is easy to focus on the outward trappings of leadership- the behaviours and actions. However, leadership cannot be reduced to such observable aspects and certainly cannot be summed up by lists of ‘competencies’. The purpose of this article is to introduce a body of knowledge that can be summarised as Work Levels. This draws upon
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Green Paper series
a rich seam of research spanning almost 40 years and provides insight into both the work of leaders and how they have to think in order to meet today’s business and organisational challenges. Work Levels Work Levels is a management methodology used by some of the world’s leading organisations. The essence of Work Levels is that all work can be allocated to one of a specified number of levels of work - each with its own theme, purpose and core contribution. Core contribution describes the outputs of the job and the value of these to the organisation is in direct proportion to the complexity of the environment in which decisions have to be made. Based on the integrated framework, a direct 'mirror-image' connection is made between the outputs of work and the inputs- the personal capabilities required to achieve these. At each successive level the capability to get one's head around the scale of the challenge needs to change profoundly. Making this connection provides a dynamic link between people and jobs and this enables us to delve into the inner world of leaders. Decisions that Leaders Make Work Levels is helpful as it makes a distinction between leadership and Strategic Leadership. All work involves discretion and certain levels of judgement and therefore it is possible to say that everyone has the opportunity to take a leadership position in their area of responsibility.
Work Levels Strategic Leadership is different. It is a creative process that involves bringing into being new possibilities. Strategic work presents ‘wicked’ problems where one or more of the elements necessary for a solution are unknown or not known with any degree of certainty. Wicked problems require the capacity to go beyond analysis and draw also on intuition and judgement to handle complexity, dilemmas, diversity, ambiguity, paradox and ‘not knowing’. Three kinds of Strategic Leadership work are identified below; Global Transformation The main purpose of a job at this level is to build corporate and social architecture - at the very highest level. The work establishes the value system for all others to work within. The added-value of this level is the picking up on small signs of future possibilities and nurturing these into being the industries and social-norms of the future. Vision and Mission The main purpose of a job at this level is to lead the development and transformation of an organisation. The work directly relates to building value-chains and increasing the net-worth of the intangible assets. The added-value of this level is brought about by the quality of the communications- both internally and externally. Through this, the strategic path is set and the means for delivery are established.
Insights on Strategic Leadership shape the strategic developmentacross an organisation and taking accountability for the effects of business-wide policies. The work directly relates to building long-term competitive advantage and removing value-destruction. It has to successfully translate strategic intent and purpose into clear goals. The added-value of this level is to create strategic options and bring about change. Strategic Leadership is very different from operational leadership with its focus on resource effectiveness, efficiency and best practice. How Strategic Leaders Have to Think The problems that Strategic Leaders deal with arise from the challenge of managing both constancy and change and making original links between established pieces of knowledge. Dealing with such problems demands that you both have your head in the clouds and also your feet firmly on the ground. This ‘pull’ can create tension that needs to be managed. If this is not managed there is the danger of either sticking with the tried and tested or getting caught up forever in ‘blue sky’ thinking. In the face of uncertainty, people must make a judgement even if this is only a tentative and temporary one. Making a judgement means that we create a ‘mental –model’ of an expected universe so that we can make a prediction. For leaders that face unprecedented levels of change and uncertainty, the sophistication of the mental-model has to be at least in-line with the degree of complexity that is faced.
Breakthrough The main purpose of a job at this level is to
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Work Levels On Becoming a Strategic Leader Becoming a Strategic Leader involves making a successful transition from operational work to tackling the challenges within the level called Breakthrough. Breakthrough requires a shift from focusing on the solving of known problems to the identification of problems and opportunities that move the organisation to a different place. Breakthrough involves a greater interaction and focus on the external environment. From a range of signals and noise in the system, meaning has to be created. This requires interpretation of the changing social and organisational environment. A good interpreter is sensitive to environmental change and is able to fit observations into their mental model. This mental model must include a wide range of elements many of which are outside of their technical or professional expertise. These elements include politics, economics, sociology, technology and information science. Setting the Conditions for Others In today’s organic and dynamic business environments the intangible dimension – that is, the domain of human interaction and relationships – is moving from the periphery to centre stage. The core leadership activity now involves dealing with the intangible variables of social behaviour and managerial action. What follows from this is that leaders, in order to do well, have to learn to pay attention to a different set of variables: variables that used to be referred to as ‘soft’, such as intentions, interpretations and identity. The domain of human interaction and relationships involves creating an environment that engages the workforce. In conditions of uncertainty and change and where you are dealing with knowledge workers that have scarce talent it is necessary to treat
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Insights on Strategic Leadership people as people. Not surprisingly, in the world of work where human beings are seen as resources, this is an approach that is not as evident as it might be. The temptation to forget that people are people and to treat them as things – to be switched on and off ? becomes great. In treating people as people it is useful to start with an understanding that: People are the makers of meaning, Each person is a member of informal and formal groups, Each is an irreducible mystery and, Treating people as people is messy. These ‘Ms’ aren’t particularly attractive as they reinforce the truism that managing people as individuals is hard work. Weak leaders see it as optional; high-capability leaders recognise it as essential to create the conditions under which people can be treated as people’. (G Stamp Bioss) The art of Strategic Leadership is to convey an appreciation of what everyone is doing, while holding rigorously to a quantitative analysis of activity. Qualities of Strategic Leaders Many authors have written about the personal qualities required of leaders. The recurring theme relates to self-awareness. Self-awareness is critical to leadership success. This means having a deep understanding of one’s emotions as well as one’s strengths and limitations and one’s values and motives. There is one further crucial element. This relates to the awareness of the psychological ‘weight’ of work, which is generated by not knowing the outcome of judgements. As jobs grow in size, there are more alternatives. Jobs become more complex and there is greater ambiguity, contradiction and even paradox.
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Work Levels The discretionary aspects are personal and consist of judgements made about priorities, the pace of work and the pursuit of one alternative rather than another. The exercise of discretion is characterised by doing things without being certain that they are the right or appropriate things to be done at that moment. In work, a manager must tolerate anxiety and uncertainty about the future outcome of their commitment of personnel, finances and material resources. This is the aspect that gives work its “weight” in a psychological sense. Strategic Leaders need to be in tune with the psychological weight of work and be aware of the level of unease that ‘not knowing’ generates. Unease can soon slip into worry and anxiety and leaders need to be aware of an increase in their emotional state. The psychological weight of work increases in proportion to the timeshorizon over which the outcomes of the judgement become known. The longer the period of not knowing the outcome of a decision, the greater the psychological weight of work. Self-awareness enables you to know how you feel about change, how it stimulates, excites, frightens or raises unease? Strategic Leaders reflect on how they feel about change and its underpinning – impermanence and transience. Once the feelings are recognised the first step is to graciously accept that uncertainty is all there is and to provide the conditions in which other people can work effectively within that understanding. Although a truism, Strategic Leaders genuinely live in an understanding that change is the only constant. Summary The challenge of being a Strategic Leader, at a time of great opportunity and challenge, is to bring into being new opportunities through sensing and discerning emerging patterns, quickly appreciate the range of future possibilities and make judgements based upon this.
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Insights on Strategic Leadership In conditions of increasing levels of uncertainty and complexity, Strategic Leaders need to develop a relationship with uncertainty where there is a clear awareness of the level of concern but not such that it impedes decision making either through analysis-paralysis or over- hasty action designed to reduce tension. As organisations continue to face significant and continuous change the relationship between leaders and team-members has to be brought into sharper focus. The constant need to adjust to new structures or new environments highlights the necessity to establish a culture of engagement where people feel able to make a significant contribution to the success of their employing organisation. This means that leaders have to set the conditions and context for others. As such they have to determine the ‘quality of the space’ that enables rational and trustful behaviour. Conclusion Strategic Leadership is dependent upon a person having a sophisticated enough mental model to deal with the complexity of today’s business and organisational challenges. Work Levels provides the framework or ‘ruler’ against which a person’s internal world, perspective and mental models can be measured. Relevant profiling tools based on Work Levels can establish whether they have what it takes to deal with complex issues that in some instances may be completely new. Past judgments and their associated rationale provide the means to delve into the inner being of a leader and generate insight.
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