Outlook Global leaders Credit: Philippe Aubry Manfred Kets de Vries 48 T <strong>Magazine</strong> Issue 07 <strong>Ernst</strong> & <strong>Young</strong>
Biography A clinical professor of leadership and organizational change, Manfred Kets de Vries holds the Raoul de Vitry d’Avaucourt Chair of Leadership Development at INSEAD, France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi. He is the Founder of INSEAD’s Global Leadership Centre and the program director of INSEAD’s top management seminar: “The Challenge of Leadership: Creating Reflective Leaders.” His most recent book is The Hedgehog Effect: The Secrets of Building High Performance Teams (John Wiley & Sons, 2012). Developing global leaders There are few greater challenges than leading a large organization in today’s fast changing and competitive world. Leaders face a baffling array of questions: How do you create highperformance organizations? How can you design effective teams? How do you hold virtual and cross-cultural teams together, working for a common purpose, in complex, matrix-like structures? As the pace of economic globalization continues, senior leadership teams are becoming increasingly diverse. And with the growing importance of the developing world, this trend is only going to continue. Although most large corporations try and create all encompassing homogenous global corporate cultures — that only goes so far. To succeed, CEOs and senior leaders need more than ever to understand the international dimension of leadership – to learn how to work with a diverse group of leaders from different countries and cultures. Present-day leaders need to be savvy in building networks in these organizations through co-creation. They need to know how to tap the brains of an increasingly diverse workforce. Managing a diverse team is challenging because people tend to like the familiar, what they know well and understand. Executives feel most comfortable working in teams where team members share the same background, values and experience: in such instances, they know what to expect. But executives can be challenged when faced with the unknown, when they have to deal with individuals whose culture or mind-set is unfamiliar to them. And in some cases this can trigger certain defensive psychological behaviours and fears — not least as our evolutionary history has programmed us to expect the worst when we do not understand something, which can lead to seemingly paranoid reactions. This potential has become exacerbated in recent years because we now live in an age of virtual teams, where members need to work at a distance. To be successful, leaders must learn to overcome and to manage these responses. They must understand that they do not always make decisions rationally and that they may have blind spots in their decision-making processes. My work with CEOs focuses on helping them to become self-aware, to sensitize them to how and why they make decisions, to help them become more authentic, reflective leaders; to help them engage in the delicate balancing act between “doing” and “being.” The best global leaders are open to new experiences. They are able to suspend disbelief when dealing with new cultures and different perspectives. They are able take into account contextual factors and have a measure of flexibility. In addition, leaders must be resilient because they can be subjected to an enormous amount of stress. I also like to emphasize that the most effective leaders are emotionally aware. They have a high degree of empathy that enables them to get along well with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures. They know how to listen to other people’s stories, and can integrate these stories into the organization’s narrative. How do you help leaders to become better global leaders? I have learned from experience that one of the best ways to build trust is to get leaders together in a workshop situation to share and learn about each other. We are, after all, a story-telling species! I have found that this group leadership coaching is a very effective intervention method to help organizations to become more agile. The impact of group coaching can be even stronger – and more beneficial for the organization – if the intervention method is applied to “natural” working groups, in particular top executive teams. To jump-start the process, an in-depth leadership audit will precede the intervention to collect material that can be shared. Critical insights are requested from a wide variety of people, not only individuals at work but also friends and family members. This material is then used for participants to deepen their understanding of themselves and each other. This kind of leadership coaching has proven to be highly effective in breaking down barriers and preventing silos. By building trust, which is essential for successful teamwork, and enabling leaders to understand themselves more deeply, it can help to create “boundary-less” organizations. The process also helps executives to deal with lingering “elephants in the room” – conflicts that should have been dealt with years ago but that continue to create major problems. What’s more, this intervention method also helps leaders to become more authentic. A good example of this is Nelson Mandela, who remains the world’s most respected living leader because he lived according to his ideals and his values. His authenticity provides an inspiring lesson for leaders today. Manfred Kets de Vries, Professor of leadership and organizational change at INSEAD <strong>Ernst</strong> & <strong>Young</strong> Issue 07 T <strong>Magazine</strong> 49
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