" The very highest leader is barely known Then comes the leader they know and love Then the leader they fear Then the leader they despise.
The leader who does not trust enough will not be trusted. When actions are performed without unnecessary speech
The people will say, ”we did it ourselves.”
Lao Tsu


 

Thought leadership
Dr Marshall Goldsmith

I have been convening leadership masterclasses for the past 7 years and we have worked with some of the top thinkers and leadership gurus to date. Perhaps one of the most engaging thought leaders that I have had the pleasure of being with is that of Marshall Goldsmith. People in the know, plus 80 of the world top CEOs as well as leadership commentators regard Marshall as one of the leading top executive educators, one of the most respected executive coaches and a great thinker and leader in the field of management. His executive coaching and leadership development programmes has impacted on more than a million individuals. Apart for his scholarship and leadership development work, Marshall is fun to be with, witty, charming and down to earth.

So what is it that Marshall Goldsmith does that makes him standout? Well Marshall has a PhD in organisational behaviour and most of his professional career has been spent in measuring and analysing behaviour in organisations as well as teaching large groups of senior leaders how to change their own behaviour as well as that of their peers. A chance opportunity brought him in contact with a CEO who had attended one of his programmes and now wanted some help with one of his senior executive despite the fact that the executive was “young, smart, dedicated, ethical, motivated, hard working, entrepreneurial, creative, charismatic, arrogant, stubborn, know all...” in an organisation that pride itself as being strong on team values. It should be stressed that Marshall does not confine himself to working with only senior leaders. Whilst he recognise that help and support is vital at that level, he is quick to point out that leaders at all levels need help too.

His focus is on people who are successful in the first place but who want to be even more successful and his approach is different. He focus is on action and in particular training people to behave effectively in the work place. But his training regime is stark. After enrolling a leader onto his training programme, he solicits “360 –degree feedback from the leader’s colleagues: as many as I can talk to...up, down and sideways in the network chain.. often including family members.” The basic intention of this is to build up as a rich a profile of their strengths and weaknesses.

Based on this data, Marshall will then share the assessment with the leader. He will provide an honest account of what everyone consulted thinks of the leader. The intention is to use this feedback to get the leader to accept the information, agree that they would like to improve and perhaps most importantly commit to change.
The training programme [ executive coaching] to the senior leader is directed at enabling him/her on how to:

apologise to everyone affected by his/her flawed behaviour;
advertise their efforts to get better[ the rationale here is that unless you tell people that you are trying to change they wont notice it on their own;
follow up religiously every month with their colleague as to how one is doing;
listen without prejudice to what others are saying;
show them that the only proposer response to whatever they hear is gratitude [I teach them how to say “thank you” without ruining the gesture or embellishing it];
elicit advice from people on what they can do to get better in the future[ what he calls the miracle of feedforward].

This kind of training programme is based on Marshall’s observation that the leaders he coaches have one noble quality; that is that they all want to get better. There is a bit of a paradox here though. So we are relatively successful in the first place and want to get better. But what is stopping us from getting better? Marshall argues that the very past success we have enjoyed may have a bearing on our inability to get better on our own as “the key beliefs that help us become successful can make it tough for us to change.” The four beliefs he identifies are I have succeeded in the past so I can succeed again and because I have the motivation I will succeed and perhaps as important is that I have choice ie I choose to succeed.

These beliefs can however make us “ superstitious” or even “deluded”. He argues that “one of the great mistakes of successful people is the assumption that because I behave this way and achieve results...may lead one to conclude that I must be achieving results because I behave this way.” He is making the point about the difference between success that happens because of behaviour and the success that comes in spite of our behaviour”. His work focuses on enabling leaders to see this difference and to get them to identify what really matters to them as this will enable them to commit to change.

This kind of approach has enable Marshall to identify a long list of “annoying interpersonal behaviours” or habits [ yes all soft and fluffy stuff but with serious consequences] that hold us back from becoming more successful and they include:

  1. winning too much
  2. adding too much value
  3. passing judgement
  4. making destructive comments
  5. starting with “no”, “ but” or “however”
  6. telling the world how smart we are
  7. speaking when angry
  8. negativity “let me explain why that wont work”
  9. withholding information
  10. failing to give proper recognition
  11. claiming the credit that we don’t deserve
  12. making excuses
  13. clinging to the past
  14. playing favourites
  15. refusing to express regret
  16. not listening
  17. failing to express gratitude
  18. punishing the messenger
  19. passing the buck
  20. an excessive need to be “me”.

A long list indeed and some I readily recognise in my own behaviour. The success of Marshall Goldsmith’s work though is about enabling leaders to identify interpersonal behaviours that affects their performance as well as the every day actions that they can stop or change to make a difference. As a case in point about what to stop, Marshall cited the piece of advice he garnered from Peter Drucker which ran as follows ”we spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do.... we don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”

A reading of his recent book “ What got you here wont get you there: how successful people become even more successful; Profile Books (2008) is a great week end experience that can lead to life long results.

 

Peter Drucker Emanuel Gobillot Harrison Owen Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff Don Tapscott Dr David Cooperrider Dr Marshall Goldsmith Rosabeth Moss Kanter Prof Lynda Gratton Rod Beckstrom