Führungskunst

Folgende Kernmerkmale kennzeichnen Führungsbegabte aus:

1. Diszipliniertes Arbeiten
2. Konsequente Visions- und Lösungsorientierung
3. Vertrauen in die Mitarbeiter und ihre individuelle Begabung
4. Fähigkeit und Bereitschaft, begabte Mitarbeiter zu hohen Leistungen zu inspirieren.

Erfolgreiche Führungspersönlichkeiten richten sich aus auf:

1. Chancen und Lösungen, weniger auf Probleme
2. Zukünftiges, weniger auf Gegenwärtiges
3. Wesentliches, weniger auf Dringendes
4. Intentionale Ziele, weniger auf deren strategische Einzelheiten.

Die Studie ermittelte vier Schlüssel, die erfolgreiche Führungsbegabte durchgehend anwenden:

1. Sie wählen talentierte Mitarbeiter nach Begabungsprofil aus, weniger nach Erfahrung, Intelligenz oder Einsatzbereitschaft.
2. Sie halten mit ihren Mitarbeitern eine gemeinsame Vision [das angestrebte Ergebnis], ohne sich auf vermeintlich "richtige Arbeitsschritte" zu berufen.
3. Sie konzentrieren sich auf die Stärken ihrer Mitarbeiter, ohne ihre Schwächen beseitigen zu wollen.
4. Sie fördern ihre Mitarbeiter interdisziplinär (flexible Breitbandstruktur mit überlappenden Gehaltsspannen) und helfen ihnen die passgerechte Stelle im Unternehmen zu finden, ohne in starren Hierarchie- oder Aufstiegs-Kategorien zu denken.

Quellen:

• Eckhart Flöther, Es könnte so einfach sein, brand eins Magazin, Februar 2001
• Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman, Erfolgreiche Führung gegen alle Regeln. Wie Sie wertvolle Mitarbeiter gewinnen, halten und fördern, Campus Verlag, März 2001

Chaotisch-geordnetes Schwirren ist die Ausdrucksweise der Welt. Dee Hock prägte en Begriff chaordisch, der den ausgewogenen Zustand zwischen Chaos und Ordnung beschreibt, in dem die Evolution am besten gedeiht.

Dee Hock, founder and CEO Emeritus of VISA USA and Visa Intl., founder of the non-profit organization The Chaordic Commons, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., 1999

• We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born – a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Dee Hock

• To be precise, one cannot speak of leaders who cause organizations to achieve superlative performance, for no one can cause it to happen. Leaders can only recognize and modify conditions that prevent it; perceive and articulate a sense of community, a vision of the future, a body of principle to which people can become passionately committed, then encourage and enable them to discover and bring forth the extraordinary capabilities that lie trapped in everyone struggling to get out. Dee Hock

• One need not know and be able to prove in advance what could be accomplished. One need not have a precise plan about how to get there. In a complex, rapidly changing world, a clear sense of direction, a compelling purpose, and powerful beliefs about conduct in pursuit of it, seemed to me infinitely more sensible and robust than mechanical plans, detailed objectives and predetermined outcomes. Dee Hock

• A true leader cannot be bound to lead. A true follower cannot be bound to follow […] if the behavior of either is compelled, whether by force, economic necessity or contractual arrangement, the relationship is altered to one of superior/subordinate, management/employee, master/servant, or owner/slave. All such relationships are materially different than leader/follower. Induced behavior is the essence of leader/follower. Compelled behavior is the essence of all others. Where behavior is compelled, there lies tyranny, however benign. Where behavior is induced, there lies leadership, however powerful. Dee Hock

• One's time will be consumed managing self, superiors, and peers. There will be no time to manage subordinates. […] One need only select decent people, introduce them to the concept, induce them to practice it, and enjoy the process. […] What is there to do but see they are properly recognized, rewarded and stay out of their way? It is not making better people of others that management is about. It's about making a better person of self. Income, power and titles have nothing to do with that. Dee Hock

• Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership.
  If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct.
  Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers. Dee Hock

Three questions

1. "Why are organizations ... increasingly unable to manage their affairs?"
2. "Why are individuals ... increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organizations of which they're a part?"
3. "Why are society and the biosphere increasingly in disarray?"   Interview with Dee Hock, Transformation by Design, presented by US magazine Enlightenment Next, issue 22, Melissa Hoffman

• The brain is organized on a set of chaordic principles.
  Governments and organizations are mental concepts around which people and resources gather in pursuit of common purpose. The heart and soul of healthy governments and organizations is healthy purpose and principles. When clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, they are the genetic code of any healthy organization. [...] Once you get a group of people who really begin to understand this, then energy, excitement, and enthusiasm literally explode out of them — they know what to do. [paraphrased] Interview with Dee Hock, Transformation by Design, presented by US magazine Enlightenment Next, issue 22, Melissa Hoffman

• Great leaders created enormous social change – take Christ, take Muhammad, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Jr. When you look back at their history, almost without exception they were nobodies. Nobody! Gandhi was just a mediocre attorney who got thrown off a train into the dust by the British because he was Indian. Mother Teresa—just an ordinary nun. What made their ideas so compelling? Their ideas weren't that unique. Why, then, did their articulation of their beliefs have such profound effect? They really examined what was happening around them, and examined all the existing institutions, and saw with clearer vision. They didn't delude themselves about it. Furthermore, they had the capacity to project themselves into the future and deal with the four aspects that I think are essential to understanding anything:

1. how things were (history),
2. how they are today,
3. how they might become or where they're heading,
4. and how they ought to be.
   They had the capacity to take that larger question of "how things ought to be" into the future and decide how they ought to be. once they began to live as though what ought to be was true, they had an authenticity that was just compelling. Complexity theory would call it a strange attractor, a legitimacy, an authenticity. And then they talked about it. They never wavered, no matter what the obstacle, or what the condemnation. And many of them died because they couldn't live any other way. Some of them were killed.   Interview with Dee Hock, Transformation by Design, presented by US magazine Enlightenment Next, issue 22, Melissa Hoffman

• We're on the knife's edge where we're going to undergo cataclysmic institutional failure.
  ... two possible scenarios.

1. The first would be that we'll have a massive series of institutional failures, social anarchy, and enormous societal and biological carnage — ... almost total centralization of power and control, which will result in a widespread loss of liberty and freedom. That will last for a while, but it ultimately will not work, much like the Soviet Union.
2. The second scenario is that enough momentum can be put behind more chaordic ideas of organization, and there can be enough interconnection and enough actual examples of these organizations built so that as the old institutions are failing, the energy of the people goes into the emerging new forms. Existing organizations can even come to realize that transformation is essential for their health and continued existence. You would then see people's energies and resources move away from destructive behavior toward constructive behavior. If that happens, it's going to be the emergence and rebirth of a community in harmony with the human spirit and biosphere.   Interview with Dee Hock, Transformation by Design, presented by US magazine Enlightenment Next, issue 22, Melissa Hoffman

The scope of Forum 2004 – on becoming great leaders and good leaders

• More than ever, a new concept, and practice of leadership which transcends the dichotomy of "hard" and "soft" power is needed.
  "Hard power", the font of conventional leadership, is the resultant force of our mental, material and competitive assets: intent, analysis, competence, insight, speed, dexterity, physical resources.
  "Soft power", the least utilized and most difficult to exercise, is the resultant force emerging from our conscience, heart and soul: values, principles, inspiration, the spark to dream and take action, empathy, humanity, open-mindedness, the energy to be just warriors, compassion, love.
  Lasting success in business, enterprise, politics or civil society, today and in the years to come, can only be achieved by recombining the elements of hard and soft power into a new fabric of leadership. Newly discovered knowledge, such as the science and spirit of interconnectedness and emotional-physical linkages, need to be added to the ingredients that make up this new fabric. Forum 2004: Great Leaders. Good Leaders, Spirit in Business, Kernaussage der Leadership Konferenz, Gottlieb Duttweiller Institut (GDI) Rüschlikon, Zürich (CH)

• [It] involves the presentation of ambitious claims to transform managerial practice, organizational structures and cultures and, crucially, organizational performance, through the recommendation of a fundamental almost magical cure or transformation that rejects the past, and reinvents the organization, its employees, their relationships, attitudes and behavior. Timothy Clark and Graeme Salaman, Telling Tales: Management Gurus' Narratives and the Construction of Managerial Identity, Journal of Management Studies 35, 137-61; S. 138, 1998

• How is it possible that the strongest of all instincts, that for survival, seems to have ceased to motivate us? One of the most obvious explanations is that the leaders undertake many actions that make it possible for them to pretend they are doing something effective to avoid a catastrophe: endless conferences, resolutions, disarmament talks, all give the impression that the problems are recognized and something is being done to resolve them. Yet nothing of real importance happens; but both the leaders and the led anesthetize their consciences and their wish for survival by giving the appearance of knowing the road and marching in the right direction. Erich Fromm, To Have or To Be?, 1976

• Inspiration, not motivation, is the key to transforming people and organizations.  Great leaders identify fears, erase them with love, and therefore inspire. Lance Secretan

• Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine. Lance Secretan

• A study at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management found that compassion and building teamwork will be two of the most important characteristics business leaders will need for success a decade from now. Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, Heartmath Institute

• Selfsecurity will be a hallmark of the leaders and exceptional organizations of the future. Selfsecurity in an individual or a system brings a high ratio of coherence. Leaders or organizations with selfsecurity can push power and authority downstream and develop centers of innovation and excellence at all levels of the organization. Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, Heartmath Institute

• Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success;
  leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
  Stephen R. Covey, author of best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, 1989

• Don't wait for the leaders. Do it alone. Person to person. Mother Teresa

• When you want to get a herd to move in a certain direction, you stand at the back. [...] A few of the more energetic cattle move to the front and the rest of the cattle follow. You are really guiding them from behind. This is how a leader should do his work. [...]
  I try not to be a rabble rouser. People want things explained to them clearly and rationally. They recognize when someone is speaking to them seriously. They want to see how you handle difficult situations and whether or not you stay calm. Nelson Mandela, Richard Stengel, TIME article The Making of a Leader

• I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be. Thomas Jefferson

• [...] know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. Barack Obama, 44th president of USA, Inaugural Address (directed to rogue state leaders), 20. January 2009

• Leaders who will thrive and whose organizations will flourish in this era of ubiquitous electronic tattletales are the ones who strive to make their organizations as transparent as possible. Despite legitimate moral and legal limits on disclosure, leaders should at least aspire to a policy of "no secrets." Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, authors of Transparency: Creating a Culture of Candor, Creating a Transparent Culture, presented by Leader To Leader, No. 50, Fall 2008

• As we have found again and again, one of the dangerous ironies of leadership is that those at the top often think they know more than they do. There seems to be an inexorable filtering out of bad news that often leaves those in the highest positions with potentially disastrous information gaps. Our research, for instance, shows that the higher leaders rise, the less honest feedback they get from followers about their leadership. Direct reports understandably hesitate to enumerate the boss's leadership failings. And so top leaders easily lose touch with the ways others see them and may remain poor listeners, abrasive, tuned out, or otherwise clueless about their own limitations. Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, authors of Transparency: Creating a Culture of Candor, Creating a Transparent Culture, presented by Leader To Leader, No. 50, Fall 2008

• But leaders have to do more than ask for the counsel of others. They have to hear it. All of us would do well to reflect on how receptive we are to the suggestions and opinions of others and alternate points of view. One motive for turning a deaf ear to what others have to say seems to be sheer hubris: leaders often believe they are wiser than all those around them. The literature on executive narcissism tells us that the self-confidence top executives need can easily blur into a blind spot, an unwillingness to turn to others for advice. Kevin Sharer, CEO of Amgen, keeps a cautionary portrait of General George Custer in his office to remind himself of the dangers of overestimating his leadership ability. And Sharer commissioned a portrait of Horatio Nelson to add to his office gallery, after reading a biography of the English naval hero and learning of his genius for collaborative decision making and consensus building. Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, authors of Transparency: Creating a Culture of Candor, Creating a Transparent Culture, presented by Leader To Leader, No. 50, Fall 2008

• The wisest leaders seek broad counsel, not because they are so enlightened but because they need it. Power does not confer infallibility. There's a compelling reason to become more open to information from people at every level: those close to the action usually know more about what's actually going on with clients, with production or customer service, than do those on the top floors. (There's truth to the maxim, "None of us is as smart as all of us.") Effective leaders find their own ways to elicit many points of view. The CEO of a Pacific Rim bank, for instance, schedules twenty days each year to meet with groups of his top eight hundred people, forty at a time. Aware that isolation in a corner office may weaken his ability to make good decisions, he seeks frank feedback from many sources on a regular basis.

• Everyone quickly realizes that it is folly to speak unwanted truth to power, no matter how crucial the information may be. Leaders must show that speaking up is not just safe but mandatory, and that no information of substance is out of bounds. It is not always easy for even the most confident leaders to embrace hard truths, especially when they are presented awkwardly by someone who is neither a friend nor a trusted colleague. But failing to hear critical information, whoever delivers it, may put the entire enterprise at risk. Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, authors of Transparency: Creating a Culture of Candor, Creating a Transparent Culture, presented by Leader To Leader, No. 50, Fall 2008

• Wise leaders find ways to get information raw. They solicit and embrace the bad news as well as the good. Among the leaders acutely aware of the need to get unbiased information was George Washington. According to David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, Washington solicited intelligence from as many people as possible, even civilians, before going into battle. Washington seems to have had an intuitive grasp of the dangers of the shimmer effect (and few, even among the founding fathers, shimmered as dazzlingly as he did) and its tendency to make subordinates compliant. As Fischer writes: "It was typical of Washington's leadership to present a promising proposal as someone else's idea, rather than his own. It was his way of encouraging open discussion and debate." Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and Patricia Ward Biederman, authors of Transparency: Creating a Culture of Candor, Creating a Transparent Culture, presented by Leader To Leader, No. 50, Fall 2008

• If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit. Oprah Winfrey

Sources: James C. Collins, American business consultant, author, and lecturer,
Good to Great. Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, 2001
Audio presentations by James C. Collins:
* Greatness is Not a Business Idea, 2:07 minutes duration, MP3
* What is Level 5?, 0:45 minutes duration, MP3