“Spark-full” Leadership for

Challenging Times

Presentation to Hampshire Chamber of Commerce

Conference

November 2012

Stephen Gates

Managing Director

Denplan Ltd

Chair – Winchester Area Committee, CoC

Agenda

• Why should we care about “Spark-full” Leadership?

• The difference between good Management and “Spark-

full” Leadership

• Definable Characteristics that “Spark-full” Leaders need

to display

• Releasing „Discretionary Energy‟ from your team

Sunday Times “Top 100

Companies to Work For” 2002 -

2012

“Spark-full” Leadership – Why

should I care?

The Leadership Trust

• According to the Institute for Strategic Change, the "stock price of

'well-led' companies grew by over 900% over 10 years, compared

with 74% for poorly led companies"

• In research with Harvard Business School, executive search

consultants Odgers, Ray & Berndtson found that the quality of

leadership accounts for some 15-20% of the total variance in

companies' performance

• Ineffective leadership was found to be the cause for the removal of

CEOs in 73% of cases, exceeded only by financial or ethical

malpractice and mental or physical incapacity

It‟s not all about the money……

• Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine August 2008 (Dr. Kuoppala Jaana of Finland);

• Workers with good leadership were 40 percent more likely to be in the highest category of job well-being, with low rates of symptoms like anxiety, depression, and job stress

• Good leadership was associated with a 27 percent reduction in sick leave and a 46 percent reduction in disability pensions

• The findings support the 'job well-being pyramid model', a theory suggesting that a strong foundation of leadership, healthy work environment, and good working conditions reduces worker health problems

Leadership

“Leadership is using one’s personal power to win the hearts and minds of people to achieve a common purpose – the

minds by giving people a clear understanding of what they have to do, why and how it might be done – the

hearts by generating feelings of challenge, involvement, ownership, commitment and excitement.”

Paul Winter

Leadership Trust Foundation

The Leadership Gap – what

would your company say?

Chartered Management Institute

Preferred

55%

41%

36%

26%

23%

21%

20%

19%

Experienced

11%

31%

31%

21%

25%

8%

21%

39%

Gap

-44%

-10%

-5%

-5%

+2%

-13%

+1%

+20%

Inspiring

Strategic thinker

Forward-looking

Honest

Fair-minded

Courageous

Supportive

Knowledgeable

Inspiration

“It is fascinating to me that our respondents choose what, in my view, is the most difficult quality to define in a general

sense.

The power to inspire goes far beyond the power to motivate, which is more related to tangible rewards.

To inspire involves convincing people that the direction you are taking is the right one, and one from which they will get

some personal satisfaction.”

Mary Chapman

Chartered Management Institute

Creating the right culture to

succeed….

Level 5 leadership

Jim Collins – Good to Great

• Level 1 = Highly capable individual

• Level 2 = Contributing team member

• Level 3 = Competent manager

• Level 4 = Effective leader

• Level 5 = Level 5 executive

• Humility + Will = level 5

• L5 leaders are a study in “Duality”;– Modest and wilful

– Shy and fearless

Duality

• Modesty is a differentiator of level 5 leaders;– Hardly talk about themselves

– Talk about the contribution of other executives, deflecting any

discussion of their own role

• Display tremendous professional will;– Lack of pretence, inspired standards, iron-will and stoic resolve

– Have ambition not for themselves, but for the company

The Window and the Mirror

• Look out of the window to apportion credit to factors

outside themselves. If they can't find a specific person or

event to give credit to, they credit good luck.

• Look in the mirror to assign responsibility – never

blaming bad luck or external factors when things go

wrong.

“Spread the fame and take the blame”

Those who don‟t have the level 5

seed within them

• Never bring themselves to subjugate their own needs to

the greater ambition of something larger or more long-

lasting than themselves

• For whom work will always be first & foremost about

what they get, fame, fortune, control, power, adulation

..etc..

• For whom work will never be about what they build,

create and contribute to

Ken Blanchard

“Too many leaders feel that their main job is

making other people feel unimportant…”

The difference between good

Management and Leadership

“The key to being a good manager is

keeping the people who hate me away

from those who are still undecided.”

Casey Stengel

(1891 - 1975)

“Spark-full” Leadership ...

“The art of mobilising others to want to struggle for shared

aspirations”

The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes & Posner

“The ability to influence a group toward the achievement

of goals”

Abraham Zalezmik - Harvard Business School

Simply because you “are” the boss doesn‟t

make you a leader

“The right to lead is not something we are either born

with or granted with authority.

It is something intangible we are endowed and

bestowed with, by those we are responsible for.

It is these hearts and minds that make us great

leaders, and it is these hearts and minds that will

judge and condemn ...”

Why?

Murdock 1962

Looking inside at US!

Tired and worn out people make

mistakes....

“The researchers found the odds of injury were 1.9 times greater for fatigued respondents

versus their non-fatigued peers; the odds of medical errors or adverse events were 2.2

times greater; and the odds of safety-compromising behaviour were 3.6 times

greater.”

The meaning of success?

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn

the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find

the best in others; to leave the world a little better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a

redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is the meaning of success."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The one eternal truth!

No-one ever lay on their death

bed and said

“I wish I’d spent more time in

the office”

Hurry Sickness

Otis Lifts• Average door dwelling time has reduced from 4

seconds to 2 seconds in last 20 years

• Stop pressing the button!

“Don’t press the lift call button more than once. It isn’t a signal to the lift of how important you are.”

Knell & Reeves – The 80 Minute MBA

Guide to Life?

“Work like you don‟t have to.”

“Love like you‟ve never been hurt.”

“Dance like no-one‟s watching.”

Nigel Risner

Definable characteristics that

“Spark-full” Leaders need to display

Your teams watch you very

carefully – for the “subtle” signs of

leadership

30

Show Character

“Leadership is a combination of strategy and

character.

If you must be without one, be without the

strategy."

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf

Understanding, and developing,

your team‟s dynamics

Seeing “the whole picture”

The ability to change your mind

Align your Values, Behaviours and

your Reward system

Let‟s keep it in perspective!

Discretionary energy

• “Discretionary energy is the energy an employee uses when going above and beyond the call of duty to complete a task or get the job done. Every employee has discretionary energy.”

• “The amount of energy released and employed at work depends on their attitude, how well they enjoy being at work, how they are treated and how they feel about the company.”

Effective Coaching Releases Employee Discretionary Energy

By Rick Johnson ezinearticles.com 2005

“The path out of darkness begins with those

exasperatingly persistent individuals who are

constitutionally incapable of capitulation.”

“Failure is not so much a physical state as a state

of mind: success is falling down, and getting up

one more time, without end.”

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and

blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy

cause; who at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither

victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt,

"Citizen in a Republic", April 23, 1910

Can you be a “Spark-full” Leader?

The End