Is failed leadership in corporate Ghana avoidable?
Good organisational leadership such as emotions are infectious. Research by Zenger and Folkman has shown that good leadership creates engaged employees, high productivity, customer satisfaction, increase sales revenue among others.
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Equally, bad leadership has negative and trickle-down effect on employee morale, productivity and the like. Susan Reynolds, the physician turn leadership coach is of the view that an organisation’s leadership can have excellent strategy, inspiring implementation plan, money at the bank but if the organisation has the wrong people on the board or the right people at the wrong positions, it will be very difficult for such an organisation to harness and utilise all the resources and competencies at its disposal.
Critically assessing the Ghanaian corporate landscape from public to private and from profit to non-profit, one is quick to endorse Susan’s assertion over the replete of failed leadership stories of corruption, failure to ensure value for money, nepotism, conflict of interest and the like reported by sections of the media in both public and private companies.
One may argue that the offenders constitute a small percentage of corporate leaders and that vast majority of corporate leaders are effective so there is no need talking about the issue.
But the old saying that one bad lot spoils a whole bunch of nuts suggests that sweeping the issue under the carpet and not analysing the possible push factors and some corporate governance intervention strategies will eventually cost the nation if the canker is not addressed.
Failed leadership
Failed leadership as explained by Kirk Dando is a form of leadership that knowing what one knows now about the leader if one should interview the leader for the same position in future, the reaction would be automatic NO!
It is a leadership situation where the leader gets negative feedback from multiple sources and similar feedback from several areas of the organisation and the leader consistently misses goals.
At this fading stage in Kirk Dando’s view “No amount of sales, marketing, neatly crafted core values or previous success can overcome failed leadership”. That is why Colin Powell the former US Secretary of State once said, “Leadership is about solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded that you do not care. Either case is failure of leadership”.
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Simply put, once organisation members lose confidence in the leader’s persistent claim that the organisation is heading at the right direction and the vision is on course, and do not identify with the leader’s message, it is surely a sign of failed leadership.
Failed leadership – Some push factors
So why are some leaders, who were engaged by many companies with the strongest conviction that they will deliver the results, become inept, ineffectual and miserably failing in their roles?
Weak or out-dated hiring processes
Many leading companies have departed from the once distinctive combination of hiring processes, strategies and values that set them apart from their competitors and which brought talented people into the company.
The recruitment processes have been replaced by routine hiring processes which do not necessarily address the changing demands of skill set needed by the job within its competitive space thereby hiring smart people who are ineffectual because they do not possess the critical skills needed for the job - square pegs in round holes.
Donald Sull describes such conditions as active inertia –the tendency to follow established patterns of behaviour even in response to dramatic environmental shifts. Physicists have used active inertia to explain a moving object’s tendency to persist in its current trajectory. Though the companies are recruiting talented people their skill-sets do not address the current job requirements.
The potential leader’s background looks brilliant and attractive on paper but lacks critical skills to deliver. So what many companies are doing is hiring brilliant jerks that are inept because of the outmoded company hiring processes.
Current job descriptions don’t distinguish the must-have from nice to have
Every job has the basic non-negotiable set of competencies and experiences that goes with it especially in a corporate situation where competition requires that the company must avoid expensive mistakes.
It is therefore astonishing that many companies hire without paying particular attention to the current job description requirements in terms of skill-set, knowledge and experience necessities.
Once companies have used unique set of hiring formula which tremendously propels them to success, the same job description is used over and over again without fresh thinking concerning current work processes and competitive requirements. Some companies may consider these requirements, however nepotistic considerations cloud the common sense of the hiring authority which end up hiring people who do not have what it takes to occupy the position leading to the square pegs in round hole syndrome.
Hired personnel premium on professional competence
Professional qualification in a particular field does not automatically guarantee effective leadership. Knowledge is necessary for success at certain points of leadership, but in other stages, technical astuteness in a discipline does not assure effective leadership and success.
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The above is buttressed by the popular management idea that lower-level managers must focus on activities that are results-driven whilst top-level managers concentrate on strategic issues. Intuitively, these ideas make practical sense, strangely outstanding senior leaders surveyed pronounced that they were equally focused on delivering results and many lower-level managers know into details the strategy and vision of the company. So what skill must leaders possess at all levels?
Zenger and Folkman have provided scientific explanation to this by suggesting six most important leadership skills after asking 332,860 bosses, peers, and subordinates what skills have the greatest impact on a leader’s success.
These are inspire and motivate others, display high integrity and honesty, solve problems and analyse issues, drive results and communicate powerfully and prolifically. Sadly, hiring authorities in companies focus mainly on qualifications forgetting that what would make potential leaders succeed at all levels are these soft skills which most potential leaders do not possess.
Clear position goal and metrics
If one wants to know why leaders fail in their positions in many companies, one must look no further than the company’s unclear missions and visions which have cascaded into the leader’s position’s goals and metrics.
John Hamm noted that over and over again companies’ missions and visions are presented in grand and overarching manner to the extent that some top management disagree with these vague missions and instead of asking for explanations-a request which will make them look stupid pass these unclear missions to potential leaders in the form of goals and metrics with several interpretations which end up making them ineffective before they even start the work.
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In the absence of clear concise leadership goals and metrics, people imagine all kinds of goals and metrics and often result in confusion and purposelessness. Potential talented leaders then lose focus, waste precious time, resulting in missed targets or failed projects.
Corporate governance intervention strategies
An integrated approach which combines both ‘hard’ management and ‘soft’ leadership skills based on research and what is practical for each corporate entity must be pursued if corporate Ghana wants to minimise the failed leadership syndrome. Innovative hiring processes in terms of how job descriptions and specification are designed and are reviewed from time to time must be implemented, coupled with transparent interview techniques to select potential high performing leaders - this will surely go a long way in addressing the menace. Leadership requires a certain mind-set and strength of character which can be acquired through training and mentoring.
As Zenger and Folkman professed ‘extraordinary leaders are distinguished by the existence of strength, not the absence of weaknesses’. So it goes without saying that successful leaders do make mistakes but their strengths which are resident in their soft leadership skills set make them great and that is what corporate Ghana must follow if failed corporate leadership is to be minimised.
The writer is the Dean, Faculty of Management Studies, University of Professional Studies, Accra.
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