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Leadership

II BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 

the edge: Leadership 

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY III 


IV 

VI 

In this issue 

Developing tomorrow’s leaders 

Are leaders born or can they be grown Both, says 

JOHN ADAIR a world authority on leadership 

Different clubs for different shots: 

improve your leadership styles 

Leadership is like golf, says NADEEM IQBAL. You need 

a range of clubs in your bag 

VIII Only an ethical leader takes you 

anywhere worth going 

If we must leaders, let us seek those who pursue the 

greatest good of their followers. 

XII 

X 

Why there are such few women 

business leaders - and what to do 

about it 

Are women born leaders What does it take for a 

woman to make it to leadership Do they succeed as 

leaders Do women lead differently 

Leadership in the Marketplace 

Great companies are also leaders- in their chosen 

markets. LLUIS RENART explains the trends and facttors 

driving contemporary market leadership. 

XVI The Chief Financial Officer: A leader, 

not a bean-counter 

CFOs have a unique perspective on the company. JIM 

Mc FIE challenges them to make more of their posittion. 

XVIII Leaders need a heart - but it must be 

made of steel 

There are many qualities that define leadership; but 

one satands out: Courage. SUNNY BINDRA shows us 

how great leaders manage their fear. 

Chief Executive Officer Linus Gitahi Chief Operating Officer Dennis Aluanga 

Editorial Director Wangethi Mwangi Group Managing Editor Joseph Odindo 

Managing Editor Nick Wachira Consulting Editor Sunny Bindra 

Project advisor George Njenga 

Chief Sub Editor Kariuki Waihenya Business Manager Julie Wanjala 

Creative Director Kamau Wanyoike Graphic Designer Conrad Karume 

Special thanks to Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania 

LEADERS QUOTES 

I must follow the 

people. Am I not their 

leader 

Benjamin Disraeli 

- A novelist, a brilliant 

debater and England’s 

first and only Jewish 

prime minister 

The leadership instinct 

you are born with is the 

backbone. You develop 

the funny bone and 

the wishbone that go 

with it. 

Elaine Agather- 

Chairman and CEO of 

Chase - Dallas. 

Delegating work 

works, provided the 

one delegating works, 

too. 

Robert Half- A 

financial and 

accounting 

recruitment agency 

owner. 

Only one man in a 

thousand is a leader of 

men -- the other 999 

follow women. 

Groucho Marx - Was 

an American comedian 

and film star. 

The very essence of 

leadership is that you 

have to have vision. You 

can’t blow an uncertain 

trumpet. 

Theodore M. 

Hesburgh - Professor 

of Philosophy and 

Theology in University 

of Notre Dame. 

OPENERS 

What do effective 

A Harvard Business Review classic 

article still rings true today in Kenya 

With the rising populari 

ity of the Internet and 

wide use of technology 

in the running of a business, busini 

ness executives are facing two big 

challenges. This is coping with infi 

formation overload and a world 

where time is almost a rare commi 

modity. Several decades ago, a 

classic Harvard Business Review 

article shed light on what effective 

general managers really do and 

one of the startling revelations 

was that they only got a continue 

block of eight minutes to focus on 

any particular issue. 

A gap has existed between the 

conventional wisdom about how 

managers work and the actual 

behavior of effective managers. 

Business textbooks suggest that 

managers operate best when they 

carefully control their time and 

work within highly structured 

environments, but observations 

of real managers indicate that 

those who spend their days that 

way may be undermining their 

effectiveness. 

In the HBR Classic, “What effi 

fective general managers really 

do”, John Kotter a professor at 

Harvard Business School explains 

that managers who limit their 

interactions to orderly, focused 

meetings actually shut themsi 

selves off from vital information 

and relationships. He shows how 

seemingly wasteful activities like 

chatting in hallways and having 

impromptu meetings are, in fact, 

quite efficient. General managers 

face two fundamental challenges: 

figuring out what to do despite an 

enormous amount of potentially 

relevant information, and getting 

things done through a large and 

diverse set of people despite havi 

ing little direct control over most 

of them. 

To tackle these challenges, effi 

fective general managers develoi 

op flexible agendas and broad 

networks of relationships. Their 

agendas enable them to react 

opportunistically to the flow of 

events around them because a 

common framework guides their 

decisions about where and when 

to intervene. 

And their networks allow them 

to have quick and pointed convi 

versations that give the general 

managers influence well beyond 

their formal chain of command. 

Originally published in 1982, the 

article’s ideas about time managemi 

ment are all the more useful for 

today’s hard-pressed executives. 

Kotter has added a retrospective 

commentary highlighting the artici 

cle’s relevance to current concepts 

of leadership. 

www.hbsp.harvard.edu 

How businesses are using Web 2.0 

After the implosion of Internet stock, business executives 

have been shy about touting their technology investments. 

In Kenya, companies and even the government have been 

investing heavily boosting its Internet capabilities, yet little is know 

of the returns that are coming out of these investments. 

Globally, a survey by McKinsey reveals that more than 75 per cent 

of the executives plan to increase or maintain their investment in techni 

nology trends that encourage user collaboration, such as peer-to-peer 

networking, social networks like MySpace, wikipedia, YouTube and 

Facebook, web services, blogs and podcasts. 

More than half of the respondents are pleased with their past invi 

vestments, though some regret not boosting their own capabilities 

to exploit technology, saying they should have acted faster. Retailers 

are stepping up their investments and many executives in emerging 

markets such as India intend to move faster to capture the perceived 

benefits of these technologies. 

They find Web 2.0 easier to implement and flexible and expect it to 

impact on business and help refine their current strategies. 

general managers really do 

A barometer of risk: will business 

confidence continue riding high 

Business confidence has been riding high 

in the two years, shows a report by the 

Steadman Group. 

The Kenya Business Leaders’ Confidence Index 

hit 74 per cent in July 2007, which was up 16 per 

cent since the same period in 2006. 

At the time, business leaders’ responses indicated 

a higher appetite to risk and therefore investments, 

higher spending and most likely business and econi 

nomic growth. Of the three East Africa countries 

covered by the survey, Uganda recorded the highei 

est increase in business confidence. 

However, across the three countries the Confidi 

dence Index is the highest in Kenya at 74. Though the 

executive expected their businesses to make more 

money generally, profit expectations were highest 

amongst business leaders in the financial services 

sector followed closely by hotels and tourism secti 

tor, while overall expectations in the agriculture 

sector remained lowest. 

Though Steadman’s Business Confidence Index 

has not received a lot of attention among Kenyan 

managers, the results of the November survey will 

be closely watched as the country heads to the genei 

eral election. Messages coming from the different 

presidential contenders have in the last few weeks 

injected some skittishness to the business outlook 

as reflected by the NSE 20 Index. So far, all the fundi 

damentals are in place in spite of inflationary pressi 

sures with the economy growing by 7.1 per cent. 

Global executives show optimism 

According to a McKinsey global survey 

of business executives published in July 

2007, executives worldwide plan to conti 

tinue hiring. “The trend of offshoring jobs to lowwage 

economies, however may be shifting,” says 

Mckinsey Quarterly. 

It observes that most new jobs will be located 

in the same country as the company’s headquarti 

ters. Among the minority of executives who says 

that most of their companies’ new jobs will be 

created abroad, more than three quarters expect 

these jobs to consist of new functions. Outsourci 

ing will account for only 20 per cent of the jobs 

to be eliminated. Executives in around the world 

also expressed optimism over the performance of 

their economies, despite slowing growth in the first 

half of the year, and most plan to continue hiring. 

Inflation however remains big threat. 

Management is doing 

things right; leadership is 

doing the right things. 

Peter F. Drucker - Writer, 

management consultant 

and a social science 

university professor. 

Don’t tell people how 

to do things, tell them 

what to do and let them 

surprise you with their 

results. 

Lt. Gen. George S. Patton- 

The most successful US 

field commander of any 

war. 

Leadership is the art of 

getting someone else to 

do something you want 

done because he wants to 

do it. 

Dwight Eisenhower- The 

34th President of the 

United States of America. 

The best executive is 

the one who has sense 

enough to pick good men 

to do what he wants done, 

and self-restraint to keep 

from meddling with them 

while they do it. 

Theodore Roosevelt- The 

26th President of the 

United States (1901- 

1909). 

A leader is a dealer in 

hope. 

Emperor Napoleon 

Bonaparte- Napoleon the 

1st of France. 

FROM THE EDITORS 

Leadership from 

different angles 

Welcome to the first edition of The Edge. This 

is a unique knowledge series that gives you 

access to the latest management thinking 

on a wide range of topics. 

Given that we are all caught up in the hurlyburly 

of a general election here in Kenya, 

what better topic to kick off with than Leadeership 

itself Before we make choices about 

who should lead us, we should sit back and 

think deeply about the kind of leadership we 

are looking for. We should borrow from the 

world of management to understand the natture 

and qualities of good leadership. That 

is what The Edge has laid out for you in this 

special pullout. 

Are leaders born, or can they be grown Can 

the faint of heart be leaders Do women 

have a special place in the pantheon of leadeership 

- and do they bring unique qualities 

to the table What merits do firms need to 

have in order to assume leadership in the 

marketplace Is the CEO the only leader in 

the business Is there a particular style that 

good leaders always have 

These are the age-old questions that surrround 

the subject of leadership. The Edge 

has trawled far and wide to bring you some 

answers. We have asked some the best 

minds, both here and abroad, to contribute 

their thoughts on leadership. And we have a 

great set of brains to place before you. 

Leadership is a subject that is addressed by 

many disciplines, and our group of contributtors 

reflects this diversity. 

We have articles written by economists and 

by accountants, by lawyers and by marketeers, 

by psychologists and by ethicists. We 

hope you enjoy the feast of knowledge. To 

get these brains, we partnered with Strathmmore 

Business School, an institution that is 

fast establishing a first-class reputation for 

providing high quality and innovative manaagement 

education both at the undergraduaate, 

graduate and executive level. 

Whether you are the chief executive of a 

multibillion company, a fast rising middle 

manager, an entrepreneur or a student, you 

will find something stimulating, refreshing 

and insightful in The Edge. 

The Business Daily is aware of the growing 

need for intelligent, insightful, current and 

distilled knowledge by our readers who are 

pressed for time and are facing information 

overload. This compendium of knowledge is 

intended to provide you with that solution; 

and will act as a reference guide as the value 

of knowledge lasts well beyond the shelf life 

of a general newspaper. This magazine will 

tackle many more cutting-edge topics in the 

coming months. Please e-mail us telling us 

about your experience with our first issue. 

Nick Wachira 

Managing Editor 

Sunny Bindra 

Consultant Editor

IV BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY 


Developing tomorrow’s leaders 

John Adair is the word’s first 

Professor of Leadership Studies 

and is widely acknowledged as a 

leading international authority 

on leadership. He is the founder 

of the Adair Leadership 

Foundation, and has authored 

over 40 books on the subject. 

BY Professor John Adair 

“Are there any organisations that grow leaders” 

they asked me. Two main board directors of ICI 

were with me in my room at the University of Surri 

rey, where I had recently become the world’s first 

Professor of Leadership Studies. 

That year – 1981 – had not been a good year 

for ICI, the “bellwether of British industry” as the 

company was universally known (a bellwether is a 

ram that leads a flock with a bell around its neck). 

ICI, they told me, had declared no dividend that 

year – the first time since 1926. Seven of atheir 

nine divisions were loss makers. 

ICI was broadly in the wrong markets – bulk 

chemicals as opposed to speciality ones – and its 

60,000 managers and staff were infected by a 

backward-working and bureaucratic organisati 

tional culture. 

The leadership growth imperative 

“At board level, we have identified six new policies,” 

they continued. “Top of the list is to develop manai 

ager-leaders. Who are the organisations – apart 

from the armed services, for we have looked at 

them – who are growing leaders Who do you 

recommend we should look at” 

I recall that silence fell as I looked thoughtfi 

fully out of the window. About 300 organisations 

that year were participating in leadership training 

courses based on my action-centred leadership 

model. But they didn’t ask me who was training 

leaders; they asked me who was growing leaders. 

“No one,” I replied. “Right,” they said, “ICI will do 

it. Will you help us” 

At my suggestion, ICI selected 25 young manai 

agers from all nine divisions to meet for five days. 

Our task was to work out a leadership development 

strategy for ICI, a strategy for growing leaders. It 

was the first time any organisation, public or privi 

vate, had done that. 

A few days earlier, the appointment of John 

Harvey-Jones as chairman had been announced 

and he joined us one evening. He shared with us 

his new strategic ideas for the group, making it 

clear that transforming managers into business 

leaders was a vital part of that strategy. Harvey- 

Jones added that he was going to start at the top 

with the main board, and he hoped that we would 

meet in the middle. 

Business leadership and business success 

Over the next five years, I worked with all nine divisi 

sions, at all levels and in every function. At the end 

of the five years, ICI was the first British company 

in history to make a billion pounds profit in one 

year. Of course, factors other than business leadei 

ership, such as favourable exchange rates, were 

involved in that result, but it nailed to the masthead 

forever the strong nexus between good leadership 

and business success. The armed services were 

never in doubt about that link. As the Greek poet 

Euripides put it, “ten soldiers wisely led will beat 

a hundred without a head.” 

In How To Grow Leaders (2005), I have summi 

marised my experience – not just with ICI but 

many other public and private organisations – of 

what works in developing leaders. 

The Seven Principles is a simple framework 

for you to apply in your context. Each one is easy 

to state and may sound at first like mere common 

sense. So they are, but common sense is seldom 

common practice. The seven are complementary, 

and you should expect some added synergy if you 

apply them as a whole. Together with the body 

of knowledge about leadership that has become 

established in the last five years they form the 

first coherent and really effective approach for 

growing leaders. 

Principle one: develop a strategy 

for leadership development 

Leadership exists on different levels. There is the 

team level, where the leader is in charge of ten to 

15 people. The operational leader is responsible for 

a significant part of the business, such as a busini 

ness unit, division or key functional department. 

Invariably operational leaders have more than 

one team leader reporting to them. 

At strategic level, the leader – often the CEO 

– is leading the whole organisation. Strategic leadei 

ership – a phrase I coined in 1970 – is actually an 

expansion of the original, for in Greek “strategy” 

is made up of two words: stratos, a large body of 

people; and the -egy ending which means leadei 

ership. Strategy is the art of leading a large body 

of people. 

The key to achieving sustainable business succi 

cess is to have excellence in leadership at all three 

levels. Strategic, operational and team leaders need 

to work harmoniously together as the organisati 

tion’s leadership team. 

The most common and most expensive error 

that organisations are committing at present is to 

focus leadership development on their more senior 

managers, so that becomes their entire “strategy”. 

In so doing, they completely ignore their team 

leaders. Yet it is the team leader who is closest to 

the customer. Make sure that your strategy embi 

braces all three levels. 

Principle two: selection 

“Smith is not a born leader yet.” When those words 

appeared on a manager’s report in the fifties, nobody 

thought that the person in question could do anything 

about it – still less the organisation that employed 

them. As a saying of the day had it, “leaders are born 

and not made”. 

We don’t think like that now. For in the sixties, a 

breakthrough occurred at the UK’s Sandhurst (Royal 

Military Academy) which proved that the proverb was 

only half-true – leaders can be trained or developed. 

The other half of the truth, however, is that people do 

vary in their relative amount of leadership potential. 

Since it is not easy to develop leaders, why not hire 

people who are halfway – or more – there already Or 

at least make sure that when you recruit from outside, 

or promote from inside, you know how to select those 

with a high potential for growing business leaders, for 

it is leaders that will grow your business rather than 

just administering it. 

There are no psychological questionnaires specifici 

cally for assessing leadership that have stood the test 

of time. But there are some proven group methods 

that are worth having in your repertoire when selecti 

ing team leaders. Most organisations can improve 

their powers of detecting leadership at more senior 

levels simply by becoming crystal-clear about the diffi 

ferences between being a leader and a manager, and 

most would benefit by updating their interviewing 

and assessment techniques. 

As I said in my recent book, a person can be appi 

pointed a manager at any level, but he or she is not a 

leader until their appointment has been ratified in the 

hearts and minds of those who work with them. If too 

few managers in your organisation are receiving that 

kind of accolade, who is to blame Not the manager 

in question, I suggest, but those who failed to apply 

principle two when they appointed the person in questi 

tion. You cannot teach a crab to walk straight. 

Principle three: training for leadership 

To train implies instruction with a specific end in view; 

educate implies attempting to bring out latent capabiliti 

ties. Of course, there is no hard-and-fast line between 

training and education. Think of it more as a spectrum 

of combinations between the two poles. For brevity’s 

sake, I shall refer here to both as training. 

As part of your strategic thinking, you should identi 

tify your business training needs in the leadership 

context and assign them priorities. Bear in mind alwi 

ways that training of any kind is going to cost your 

organisation time and money. You need courses or 

programmes that are both effective – they produce 

good leadership – and also cost-effective (in terms of 

time and money). If you have large numbers you need 

high-volume, high-quality and low-cost courses. The 

first level to look at is your team leaders, alias first-line 

managers. Do newly appointed team leaders have 

training in leadership prior to or shortly after appointmi 

ment In my view, it is actually morally wrong to give a 

person a leadership role without some form of training 

– wrong for them and wrong for those who work with 

them. We do not entrust our children to bus drivers 

who have no training, so why place employees under 

the direction of untrained leaders If you outsource 

your in-company leadership training education to 

providers, make sure that you retain “ownership” and 

overall control, so that the programmes fit in with 

your strategy and organisational ethos. Delegation 

never means abdication. 

Principle four: career development 

People grow as leaders by the actual practice of leadi 

ing. There is no substitute for experience. What orgi 

ganisations almost uniquely can do is to give people 

opportunities to lead. The trick here is to give a person 

the right job at the right time. It should be the kind of 

leadership role that is realistic but challenging for the 

individual concerned. No stretch, no growth. 

If your organisation is serious about applying this 

principle, it will, for example, have a conversation once 

a year with each leader or would-be leader in which it 

outlines the two or three options it has in store to offer 

the individual greater career progression. Equally, the 

individual should say what they aspire to do. They may, 

for example, want to move out of a specialist role to a 

more generalist (leadership) one. 

Fitting together this jigsaw of hopes and expectati 

tions is the name of the game, and it should be a winwin 

one. A strategic leader in the making – possibly 

as your successor – will need experience in more than 

one functional area of the business and, if you are an 

international company, in more than one country. 

Principle five: line managers as leadership develoopers 

In the midst of the Battle of El Alamein in 1942, Montgi 

gomery found time to telephone General Horrocks, 

one of his top operational leaders and a newly-appi 

pointed corps commander, and to give him a tutorial 

on leading at that level. For Monty had observed that 

he had been reverting back to being a divisional genei 

eral. All good leaders are also teachers. 

Developing the individual may include developi 

ing the leadership of a particular individual. That enti 

tails one-to-one meetings at regular intervals to offer 

constructive criticism, as well as encouragement or 

support. 

Above team level (and some would say even at 

team level) all leaders are “leaders of leaders”, as was 

said about Alexander the Great. Good leaders will use 

their one-to-one opportunities – formal or informal 

– to share their knowledge of leadership in a conversati 

tional but effective way. It is, if you like, the apprentice 

approach to learning leadership, and its necessary 

condition is mutual respect. It is that mutual trust or 

respect that makes us both eager to learn and ready 

to teach. You need a system of setting objectives and 

appraising performance – part of action-centred leadei 

ership – but it won’t be complete unless it is seen as a 

channel for two-way learning. 

Principle six: culture 

Wellington and Nelson, Slim and Montgomery – yes, 

the armed services do grow leaders. They select and 

train for leadership, but their real secret is that since 

the 18th century they place a high value on leadersi 

ship. 

They have a culture where it is valued at all levels. 

Above all, it is expected from all officers. The motto of 

Sandhurst expresses the ideal that is expected from 

every officer: Serve to Lead. 

Values are the stars your organisation steers by and 

together they define your distinctive ethos. Make sure 

your culture comes to place a high value on “good leadei 

ership and leadership for good”. In the final analysis, 

it is culture that grows leaders, so it is vital to review 

it and make changes where necessary. 

Corporate culture should also encourage a climate 

of self-development in leadership. Organisations only 

have 50 per cent of the cards in their hands; the other 

50 per cent are in the hands of the individual. There 

may be no leadership courses available to you, but you 

can still learn leadership. Books are the best method, 

together with reflection on your own experience. 

Principle seven: the chief executive 

In Effective Strategic Leadership (2003), I identified for 

the first time the seven generic functions of a strategic 

leader. One of them is: to select and develop leaders for 

today and tomorrow. In other words, as CEO, you own 

the problem of growing leaders. Personnel or training 

specialists are there to advise and help. 

They can assist you to formulate and to implement 

your strategy, but you are in the driving seat. If not, 

don’t expect any forwards movement. 

Apart from taking responsibility for the strategy, 

you should also be leading it from the front yourself. 

Be known to talk about leadership on occasion – not 

often but sometimes and always effectively. Visit any 

internal leadership courses and show your support 

for them. If you care about leadership, so will the orgi 

ganisation. 

Finding greatness in people 

In summary, developing future leaders is not a mystery. 

We know the “laws of aerodynamics” that undergird 

successful and sustained leadership development. The 

Seven Principles identified here are the foundations 

you are looking for. 

Why do it The answer is simple. You have great 

people working in your organisation. Do they not need 

great leaders For, as John Buchan once said: “The task 

of leadership is not to put greatness into people but to 

elicit it, for the greatness is there already.” 

This is an edited version of an article that originally 

appeared in the Confederation of British Industry’s 

Guide to Leadership, 2005. It is printed here with the 

special permission of John Adair, who visited Kenya 

recently. 

No one is a leader until their 

appointment has been ratified 

in the hearts & minds of those 

who work with them.

VI BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY VII 


Different clubs for different shots: 

improve your leadership styles 

Leadership is like golf, says NADEEM IQBAL. 

You need a range of clubs in your bag 

Make no mistake: even for the most gifted individuals, the 

process of becoming a leader is an arduous one. It involves 

walking on a path of continuous learning and self-developmi 

ment. Leaders can be found in all walks of life – be it politics, business, 

religion, sport, social or just about any medium which works to bring 

together a set of people working toward a common goal. 

The mystery of what leaders can and ought to do in order to 

spark the best performance from their people is age old. The result 

of this continuing mystery has been the growth of an industry with 

thousands of ‘leadership experts’ (this author included!) who have 

made careers of testing and coaching executives in pursuit of creating 

business people who can turn bold objectives – strategic, financial, 

organisational or a cocktail of all three – into reality. 

Raising the question “what do effective leaders do” will inevitably 

prompt a barrage of answers: Leaders set strategy; they motivate; 

they create a mission; they develop a culture; etc. If one asks “What 

should leaders do” we may get a more specific answer: the leader’s 

singular job is to get results. 

out for a drink one-on-one to see how they are 

doing, or bringing in a cake to celebrate a group 

accomplishment. They are natural relationship 

builders. The style is particularly recommended 

when trying to build team harmony, increase mori 

rale, improve communication, or repair broken 

trust. Leaders should however be aware not to 

solely rely on this style as it does risk mediocri 

rity being tolerated and going unnoticed in the 

work place. When people need clear directives to 

navigate through complex challenges, the affiliati 

tive style risks leaving them rudderless. Research 

suggests the affiliative style used in conjunction 

with the authoritative style can make the potent 

combination most business executives aspire to 

achieve: state the vision, set the standards, let 

people know how their work furthers the group’s 

efforts and alternate that with a caring, nurturing 

approach towards employees to achieve optimal 

overall results. 

The Democratic style is where a leader 

spends time getting people’s ideas and buy-in 

aiming to achieve trust, respect and commitmi 

ment. By letting workers themselves have a say 

in decisions that affect their goals and how they 

do their work, the democratic leader drives up 

flexibility and responsibility. And by listening to 

employees concerns, the democratic leader learns 

what to do to keep morale high. The drawback 

of this leadership style can be endless meetings 

where ideas are mulled over, consensus remains 

elusive with the only visible result being more 

meetings. At times employees can feel leaderless 

and confused. The style works best when a leader 

knows his vision but needs fresh ideas to execute 

his vision. In times of crisis though, consensus 

building is wrongheaded. 

Like the coercive style, the Pacesetting style 

has its place in the leader’s repertory, but it should 

be used sparingly. In this style the leader sets exti 

tremely high performance standards and exemplifi 

fies them himself, never deviating from walking 

the talk. He demands things to be done better and 

faster, and if not achieved, doesn’t hesitate to set 

heads rolling in motion. Unfortunately if continuoi 

ously used, employees feel overwhelmed by the 

pacesetters demands for excellence, and their mori 

rale drops. Workers are scared to raise questions 

in fear of being told “If I have to tell you again, you 

are the wrong person for the job.” People feel that 

the pacesetter doesn’t trust them to work in their 

own way or to take initiative; responsibility disai 

The coaching style says: “ I believe 

in you, I’m investing in you, and I 

expect your best efforts 

appears, and work becomes too task focused and 

‘routinised’, and eventually boring. Commitment 

dwindles under the ‘regime’ of a pacesetting leader 

because people have no sense of how their persi 

sonal efforts fit into the big picture. The approach 

can occasionally work well when all employees are 

self-motivated, highly competent and need little 

direction – for example it can work for leaders of 

highly skilled and self-motivated professionals, 

like R&D groups or legal teams. 

The Coaching style is where a leader helps 

employees identify their unique strengths and 

weaknesses and tie them to their personal and 

career aspirations. The leader helps establish longterm 

development plans, giving ample feedback. 

These leaders are happy to put up with short-term 

delays to further long term learning. Interacting 

with Kenya’s top executives, one realises that this 

style is least used locally with leaders arguing they 

don’t have the time for the slow tedious task of 

teaching and growing people. 

Those of you smart leaders out there choosi 

ing to read this article are advised to get even 

smarter by not passing up on this powerful tool 

of sharpening your people. Failing to address this 

will also result in failing to promote the need for 

a well-defined long succession pipeline which is 

a pre-ingredient for a leader’s successful legacy. 

Coaching builds commitment, because the style’s 

implicit message is, “I believe in you, I’m investing 

in you, and I expect your best efforts.” Employees 

very often rise to that challenge with their heart, 

mind and soul, getting pushed to work out their 

skins for their leader. 

The more styles a leader exhibits, the better. 

Leaders who have mastered four or more – especi 

cially the authoritative, democratic, affiliative and 

coaching styles – have the very best climate and 

business performance. 

The most effective leaders switch flexibly 

among the leadership styles as needed. Model 

leadership demands fluidity – being exquisitely 

sensitive to the impact actions have and having 

the common sense to switch as and when needed. 

Leaders today must demonstrate their character 

– the intention to do the right thing. They must 

demonstrate their competence – knowing how to 

do the right thing. They must also demonstrate 

their influence – the ability to deliver and execute 

the right thing. 

An effective leader, for instance, can read in the 

first minutes of a conversation that a talented but 

underperforming employee has been demoralised 

by an unsympathetic, do-it-my-way manager, and 

needs to be inspired through a reminder of why 

her work matters. Or that leader might choose to 

reenergise the employee by asking her about her 

aspirations and finding ways to make her job more 

challenging. Or that initial conversation might 

signal that the employee needs an ultimatum: 

improve or leave. 

Effective leaders have many styles 

The reality is that few leaders, of course, have all 

the discussed styles in their repertory, and even 

fewer know when and how to use them. Some 

leaders reading this article may question how it 

can be possible and may even argue that exhibiti 

ing the six styles may be unnatural and even confi 

fusing. Such feelings are understandable and the 

antidote relatively simple. A leader can build a 

team with members who employ styles she lacks. 

Alternatively, leaders can expand their own style 

repertories by identifying which aspects of emoti 

tional intelligence may be lacking in their personai 

al skill-set, and then developing and improving 

their quotient. 

Leadership will never be an exact science; but 

neither should it be a complete mystery to those 

who practice it. The business environment is conti 

tinually changing, and a leader must respond in 

kind. Hour to hour, day to day, week to week, exei 

ecutives must play their leadership styles like a 

golf pro – using the right one at the right time in 

the right measure. The payoff is in the results: by 

exhibiting and exercising the correct leadership 

styles, we may see the emergence of local tigers 

who transform Kenyan enterprises into truly 

world-class organisations. 

Nadeem Iqbal Ahmed is an 

Executive Fellow at Strathmore 

Business School, and has degrees 

from Said Business School, 

Oxford, and the London School of 

Economics. He runs a successful 

real estate business in Nairobi. 

Six styles of leadership 

Research by the consulting firm Hay/McBer, analysed critically and 

commented on by Daniel Goleman recently in the Harvard Busini 

ness Review, attempts to take much of the so-called mystery out of 

effective leadership. The research finds six distinct leadership styles 

which appear to have a direct and unique impact on the working 

atmosphere and performance. 

Most importantly, the research indicates that leaders with the best 

results do not rely on one leadership style; they use most of them in 

a given week – seamlessly and in different measure – depending on 

the business situation. In most progressing global economies, Kenya 

being no different, leaders and executives like to try their hands at 

the game of golf. In that context, imagine the leadership styles as the 

array of clubs in a golf pro’s bag. During a game, the pro picks and 

chooses clubs based on the demands of the shot. Sometimes he has 

to ponder his selection, but usually it is automatic. The pro senses 

the challenge ahead, swiftly pulls out the right tool, and elegantly 

puts it to work. 

High-impact leadership is similar – different leadership styles are 

needed for different conditions, objectives and most importantly for 

different people. The right selection of the leadership style, executed 

well by the leader, will result in unprecedented high-performance 

levels by followers. 

So what are these styles of leadership None should come as a 

surprise to workplace veterans as each style will likely resonate with 

anyone who leads, is led, or as is the case with most of us, does both. Coei 

ercive leaders demand immediate compliance. Authoritative leaders 

mobilise people toward a vision. Affiliative leaders create emotional 

bonds and harmony. Democratic leaders build consensus through 

participation. Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-directi 

tion. And Coaching leaders develop people for the future. 

Moving between these leadership styles is the challenge posed to 

our leaders today, as permanently sticking to one style may be succi 

cessful in the short run but is likely to lead to ineffective and simply 

bad leadership in other instances. 

The Coercive style is perhaps the least effective style of leadersi 

ship, yet widely practiced by new managers. This is where a leader 

feels that he must instill immediate, often dramatic changes to the 

order of the day, hence making his mark and announcing his arri 

rival. This style adversely affects flexibility in the organisation and 

the extreme top-down decision-making kills any hope of creativity. 

Morale drops as people feel disrespected and employees’ sense of 

responsibility, ownership and accountability fast evaporate as the 

manager totally ignores the existence of a common business DNA 

which ran through the organisation and its people, prior to his arri 

Caution with this 

style must be exerccised: 

The leader 

must not appear 

to be out-of-touch 

or pompous, especcially 

if leading a 

team of experts or 

peers who may be 

more experienced 

rival. There are few instances where this style may successfully work 

in the short run - such as during a major turnaround, or a hostile 

takeover or to shock people into new ways of working. However, the 

long-term impact of this insensitivity to employee morale can never 

bring about effective leadership. 

The Authoritative style is most useful when a leader is aiming 

to inspire her team to do better than a good-enough job. Vibrant 

enthusiasm and clear vision are the hallmarks of this style which in 

most business instances can be seen to be the most effective leadei 

ership style. An authoritative leader is visionary, successfully motivi 

vating people by making clear to them how their work fits into the 

organisation. Creativity in the organisation grows; the leader states 

the end but generally gives her people the leeway to devise their own 

means. Caution with this style must be exercised: The leader must 

not appear to be out-of-touch or pompous, especially if leading a 

team of experts or peers who may be more experienced. In general 

though, an authoritative ‘golf club’ is a wise bet as it may not guarai 

antee a hole-in-one but it certainly helps with the long drive, which 

is the starting point for top performance. 

Emotional bond with followers 

If the coercive leader demands “Do what I say”, and the authoritative 

leader urges “Come with me”, the Affiliative leader will say “People 

come first.” The proponents of this style value individuals and their 

emotions more than tasks and goals. The affiliative leader looks to creai 

ate harmony, building strong emotional bonds and then reaping the 

benefits of such an approach, namely fierce loyalty. Communication 

grows: people share ideas, share inspiration. Creativity flourishes as 

people are given freedom to do their jobs as effectively as they think 

right. Affiliative leaders offer ample feedback, not only negative but 

especially positive achievements getting highlighted. They are the 

masters of building a sense of belonging - by taking their direct reports

VIII BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY IX 


Only an ethical leader takes 

you anywhere worth going 

If we must have leaders, let us seek ethical leaders; 

those who seek the greatest good of their followers. The 

followers must on the other hand undertake to suffer the 

consequences of seeking, together with their leaders, 

the ultimate good, the greatest good. 

George Njenga is the Dean of 

Strathmore Business School and a 

board member of the Association of 

African Business Schools 

BY George Njenga 

Happiness is the ultimate goal of the human 

being - and the great leader is the one that 

delivers sustained happiness. 

Perceptions about leadership have evolved steadi 

ily over the years. Fields as divergent as psychology 

and anthropology, education, management, politics, 

military sciences and ethics have all contributed 

to an understanding of leadership. To understand 

the role of leadership in Kenya, we must not latch 

onto the latest reductionist fad, hoping to create 

better leaders immediately. Leadership is the result 

of complex system interaction. 

Leadership has multiple facets. It is not uni-disci 

ciplinary. It is a discipline in its own right and at 

the same time cuts across every aspect of life and 

human endeavour. 

Over the centuries there has been a plethora of 

theories on leadership. The great Greek philosopi 

phers gave us early insights on what leadership 

entailed. Plutarch Lives are a great attempt at proci 

claiming the characters of great men around the 4th 

and 5th centuries BC through well-written biograpi 

phies. Plato described the ideal philosopher-kings 

who provide wise and judicious leadership. In the 

sixteenth century Italy’s Niccolo Machiavelli illumini 

nated what most have applied as the practical side 

of political leadership where strong leaders could 

justify any means to achieve and sustain power. 

‘Great Man’ theories of leadership 

The ‘great man theories’ dominated in the early 

part of the last century. The key idea then was that 

leaders were born, not nurtured. Later, during the 

period of the great depression, the ‘group theory’ 

emerged with emphasis on group leadership. In the 

1940s and 1950s ‘trait theory’ re-emerged once more 

but dispelling the notion that there was any such 

thing as inherent leadership. In the middle of the 

century, ‘situational leadership’ - which promoted 

the idea that leaders could use decision trees to 

make decisions - was briefly popular. 

In the 1980s leaders were seen as men who led 

their organisations or enterprises towards excelli 

lence. Research in this period tried to find out the 

right list of traits, behavior patterns, group facilitati 

tion strategies, and culture-shaping practices for 

would-be leaders. This is the so called ‘theory of 

excellence’. Similarly, political sociologists distingi 

guished leadership from holding an office or positi 

tion and likened it to infusing values and purpose 

into an organisation. 

Leaders must seek ultimate happiness for their followers. 

Fragmented as all these eras of leadership theory 

were, there did not seem to be any reason whatsoei 

ever to deny they were all looking at the same ‘elei 

ephant’ from different perspectives. 

James MacGregor Burns, a historian and politici 

cal scientist, developed the model of transformati 

tional leadership which included an ethical and 

moral dimension. He was the first to assert that true 

leadership not only creates change and achieves 

goals within the environment, but changes the peopi 

ple involved in the necessary actions for the better 

as well; both followers and leaders are ennobled 

- both raise each other to higher levels of motivation 

and morality. 

Taking from all these leadership perceptions we can 

re-organise and surmise leadership as both a science 

and a habit – a virtue. A virtue that is a conglomerati 

tion of important competencies: prudence, sagacity, 

justice, fortitude, temperance, humility, friendship, 

simplicity, trustworthiness, coaching capability, industi 

triousness, order, sincerity, patience, and so on. 

The more competencies a leader has the greater a 

leader he or she is. Can one lead with a minimum of 

virtues, you may ask In the land of the blind, the oneeyed 

man may well be king; but a leader with serious 

limitations will also have a defective vision of the ends 

of man and hence lead his kith and kin to the pit. 

Can we have leaders with all the virtues And, are 

all the virtues necessary The answer to both questi 

tions is no. There are certain competencies more impi 

portant for a business leader than for a parent or a 

political leader. An effective leader must emphasise 

the key virtues most important to the task at hand. 

Needless to say, all virtues tend to be intertwined. 

Hence, building any virtue will always mean buildi 

ing many others at the same time. As a study, leadersi 

ship is a science that gives knowledge of the content 

of leadership per se. As a virtue, it is to be lived and 

practised in every aspect and endeavour of mankind. 

Leaders must live a virtuous life and in doing so they 

become the direction, the beacon that influences the 

behaviour of others. 

A virtuous leader evokes the right motivation 

A virtuous leader evokes from followers a certain moti 

tivation towards co-operating in the vision and purpi 

pose of the institution. Such motivation can either be 

extrinsic, intrinsic or transcendental. Transcendenti 

tal motivation refers broadly to the satisfaction felt 

as a result of personal contribution, through work, 

of achievement of the company’s mission. Transcendi 

dental leadership therefore most aptly elaborates the 

notion of the virtuous leader; only a virtuous leader 

can evoke such motivation in followers. 

There is a German saying: “The further back one 

sees the further his vision of the future.’ Does the state 

of world affairs not beg many questions of our past 

leadership In today’s world many people are devoid 

of purpose and means. There is a persistent gap beti 

tween the haves and have-nots - only 10% of the earth’s 

population controls over 90% of the earth’s resources 

and means. There is great technological progress in 

the world and at the same time widespread destituti 

tion around us. Is man as a whole happier today for 

his all his progress (which is indeed ever greater than 

the past) 

A keen analysis will certainly tell us that this is 

not the leadership we have been looking for over the 

centuries. We need leadership that will liberate, empi 

power and bring to many more people the ability of 

attaining their own needs. An even sadder reflection 

meets us when we consider the panorama of African 

leadership. Looking at it soberly leaves a bitter taste: 

that leaders of our nations and organisations have been 

busy amassing personal wealth rather than growing 

societal wealth. More have become poorer in Africa 

at the altar of leaders’ selfish greed. 

Leadership is an exercise of influence over another 

or others towards a common end. What about ethics 

It is concerned with the deepest meaning of the real 

world - the ‘ends of man’. It is the practical study or 

science of the morality of the deliberate and free humi 

man actions. Even if particular human actions seem 

devoid of an end, we must admit that from an overall 

perspective of man, every action has an end or termini 

nus. A leader, therefore is one who imbues ethics very 

deeply - otherwise he or she will lead the others to a 

very limited or wrong end. 

Which raises the question: what is the end of man 

Where should leaders aim to take their followers 

What are the ends of our leadership 

Let me answer that the end of man is not material 

(economic) wellbeing only, nor is it physical wellbeing 

only, nor is it any limited object/subject. It is happini 

ness. All ends or purposes of the vast pursuits of man 

and woman, material or otherwise, are just means to 

happiness, a delight that resides in the will of man. 

This is the wisdom of Aristotle. 

Possessing many cars, for instance, is only a transiti 

tory happiness. Sensual happiness, which is the happini 

ness a car would give you, is not an essential aspect of 

true happiness since true human happiness consists 

in an infinite thing. 

It is this ultimate happiness that leaders must seek 

for their followers. And what is the ultimate happiness 

of Man or Woman First let me say that happiness is 

a delight in the will that arises from having achieved 

what is appropriate and due by nature, which in turn 

is what we call a perfection. Ultimate happiness can 

only come from ultimate perfection. 

The totality of incentives 

For example, the CEO of a business enterprise must 

not only concern himself with material incentives but 

also the totality of incentives, a combination of both 

moral and material. It is in the moral that some manai 

agement scientists believe is the source of transcendi 

dental leadership, rather than simply transformative 

leadership, which aims at the subordination of staff 

through mainly material incentives. A CEO must lead 

men and women who share deeply and have fun in 

following the organisational vision and are totally 

Ethical leadership demands both courage 

and prudence. It seems to me that the world 

is full of courageous bandits and timid 

leaders. Could they be birds of a feather 

committed to its mission. When the leader has high inti 

tegrity and has ensured that trustworthiness is deeply 

rooted in the culture of an organisation, it is fun to 

work for that organisation despite all the difficulties 

to be encountered. 

Does this mean that material things - roads, techni 

nology innovation, profits, material incentives - are 

to be underestimated On the contrary, they must be 

sought after with the clear understanding that they 

are a means to a moral happiness. Thus, one will alwi 

ways be able to incentivise or influence others with 

the ultimate purpose of work rather than the limited 

goals only. 

Keep in mind that there are many leaders who have 

ignored this crucial orientation. For instance, think 

Theories of leadership 

Lenin 

‘Great man’ 

leadership 

‘Great man’ theories dominated 

the early 20th century. They 

focused on the born leader, the 

larger-than-life visionary who leads 

like a messiah. 

Teddy Roosevelt 

‘Transformational’ 

leadership 

‘Transformational’ leadership assserts 

that true leadership transfforms 

the people involved - enables 

and improves them 

of Hitler. He put one of his main objectives or ends of 

his leadership in the pursuit of ‘the purity of race’ who 

should own the world and eradicate the less endowed 

species such as those of Jews or Africans or the maimed 

or the lesser stock of men in general – a quite gross aim; 

and with disastrous results! Let his example reflect 

upon all those with similarly deficient goals. 

Ethical leadership is good for business 

For any business leader, ethical leadership (transcendi 

dental leadership) is good for business, particularly as 

a long-term growth strategy. It also avoids legal probli 

lems and legal fees! Think of Enron and WorldCom; or 

indeed our own Trade Bank and Trust Bank. In addition 

to having the correct ultimate goal, ethical leadership 

contributes to employee commitment, satisfaction, 

comfort, and even fun. People enjoy working for an 

ethical organization, and it helps the organisation atti 

tract and retain the best employees. Finally, employees 

in an organisation led by an executive ethical leader 

will imitate the behavior of their leader and therefore 

the employees will be more ethical themselves. 

Jim Collins, of Good to Great fame (a management 

tome that has sold more than 2 million copies worldwi 

wide) explains that the characteristics of ‘Level 5’ leadei 

ers (highest level) are humility and an endearing will 

power. Translate this to read that great leaders have 

profound humility and a sacrificing love for what they 

do and those they lead. 

How sad, then, that we are surrounded by such 

weak leaders; people ready to compromise the longterm 

good, the ultimate good, for transient and desi 

structive ‘happiness’; and with them so many people 

in a stampede towards their own destruction. Think 

of the Rwandese Genocide, think of the never-ending 

war in Palestine. 

Further, think of the corruption prevalent in so 

many companies and societies around us that result in 

so much injustice to their contemporaries. They deny 

many, many people their right to pursue their ends 

freely and with just reward for their efforts. 

If we must have leaders, let us seek ethical leadei 

ers; those who seek the greatest good of their followei 

ers. The followers must on the other hand undertake 

to suffer the consequences of seeking, together with 

their leaders, the ultimate good, the greatest good. 

The ephemeral good is a conflagration that delights 

but for a moment and leaves only ashes. The pursuit 

of the endearing good, the ultimate good of man, will 

always bring an endearing delight. 

Ethical leadership demands both courage and prudi 

dence. It seems to me that the world is full of couragi 

geous bandits and timid leaders. Could they be birds 

of a feather 

Mahatma Gandhi 

‘Transcendental’ 

leadership 

‘Transcendental’ leadership focusees 

on virtue and takes followers to 

the correct destination: a place of 

intergrity and moral happiness 

Web link 

See the articles on 

www. bdafrica.com

BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XI 


Leadership in the marketplace 

Great companies are also leaders - in their chosen markets. LLUIS 

RENART explains the trends and factors driving contemporary 

market leadership. 

Lluis Renart is a Marketing 

Professor, IESE Business School 

in Barcelona, Spain, and Visiting 

Professor, Strathmore Business 

School. 

Lluis G. Renart, Ph.D. 

Leadership in the marketplace is an elusive concept, usually assi 

sociated with a company having captured the largest market 

share, either in physical volume or in monetary terms. Howei 

ever, in some other occasions, the label of ‘market leader’ is associated 

with the most innovative, or the fastest and most agile company. It 

may be no longer true that the big fish eats up the small fish. It may 

rather be true that the fast fish eats up the slow fish. 

Over the years, we have witnessed an evolution of the concepts 

and ideas, the factors which seem to be generally accepted as anteci 

cedents or generators of market leadership. 

Let us review some of them. 

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the conventional wisdom was that 

leadership in the marketplace could be attained by means of desi 

signing and implementing a sound marketing plan. Such a plan 

was considered to be created by first defining the specific contents 

of the ‘Four Ps’, later evolved into the six elements of the Marketing 

Mix: demand analysis and segmentation; product or service, and 

brand; pricing; channels of distribution; sales team management; 

and advertising, promotions and public relations. 

These elements continue to be necessary and continue to be the 

basic building blocks of any marketing action plan. These six elemi 

ments of a winning marketing plan had to be strong in themselves (a 

high performing sales team, or memorable advertising campaigns, 

etc.); but there was also a need for coherence of the whole. 

Eventually, just designing and implementing a good marketing 

plan was considered no longer enough to allow a company to capture 

a market leadership position. A new research project was launched 

in 1970: the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) in Cambridge, Massi 

sachusetts, launched a project by the name Profit Improvement of 

Marketing Strategy, better known by the acronym ‘PIMS’. 

Vast amounts of quantitative information on marketing plans 

and the subsequent profitability attained by different business units 

were introduced in a large data base, with the objective of finding 

out what marketing factors generated high profitability. 

In a review article published by Robert Buzzell in the Journal of 

Business Research in 2004, the author describes the main research 

findings of PIMS: market share and profitability were positively 

related; there was a strong positive association between quality of 

each business unit product and its profitability; in mature consumer 

and industrial product markets, market pioneers enjoyed sustainai 

able market share advantages vs. later entrants (even though such 

market pioneer advantages tended to decline over time); and there 

was a negative relationship between capital intensity and return on 

investment. It may be broadly said that PIMS dominated strategy 

research between 1975 and 1990. 

Somewhat overlapping these years, a new paradigm in marketing 

thought seemed to start emerging: marketing was changing from a 

‘transactional paradigm’ into a ‘relational paradigm’. 

It was now increasingly feasible not so much to concentrate marki 

keting efforts in capturing new customers (or mindlessly treating 

existing customers as if they were new customers each time they 

transacted with the company), but rather to concentrate on the exi 

isting, captured customer base. 

More effort, and an increasingly higher proportion of the marki 

keting budget should be geared toward the objectives of satisfying 

existing customers, attaining high levels of loyalty, developing a highquality 

relationship with each one of them, and finally, maybe even 

facilitating the emergence of a community of loyal customers. 

The members of such a community would not only maintain a 

long-term relationship with the supplying company, but would also 

Globalisation is 

akey factor driviing 

market leadeership 

today 

communicate among themselves and maybe even organise and parti 

ticipate in various kinds of events around the focal company and 

its products. One often mentioned example were the owners and 

users of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, who organised ‘posse parti 

ties’, long-range motorcycle runs sometimes across the whole of the 

United States. 

Creating a high quality, personalised relationship with each indi 

dividual customer, or at least with the best customers, developing 

‘one-on-one marketing’ would allow the company to attain two impi 

portant results: first, to continue capturing new customers; but secoi 

ondly, and even more importantly, to keep them loyal and satisfied 

for the long term. 

Even though some companies have failed dismally when trying 

to apply relationship marketing strategies, some others have atti 

tained very high levels of success. For instance the Hewlett Packard 

division devoted to Large Format Printers (LFPs) in 1998 launched 

Designjet Online. This came to be a highly successful, mostly online, 

relationship marketing programme which has allowed the company 

to create and sustain long-term relationships with more than a milli 

lion LFP users located throughout the world. 

This new relationship has resulted in a larger total worldwide 

market for LFPs, a higher market share for HP, and presumably has 

also generated higher levels of profitability, derived from the simulti 

taneous increase in loyalty (repurchase) levels, and a decrease in 

some kinds of marketing costs, such as media advertising, marketi 

ing research, or customer service (individual customers extensively 

use low-cost, online, automatic self service mechanisms, instead of 

high-cost call-centre human assistance). 

More recently, we find another indication of the fact that designing 

and implementing a fairly simple marketing plan or a longer term 

marketing strategy based on the 4 Ps or the six elements of the marki 

keting mix is no longer enough to attain market 

leadership. This new indication is found in the 

fact that many new competitors who seem to be 

able to attain market leadership seem to do so by 

creating a completely new business model. 

Such a business model is the configuration 

of a differentiated map of activities. Examples 

abound: luxury ice cream maker Häagen-Dazs; 

low-cost airlines such as Southwest Airlines in 

the USA or Ryanair and EasyJet in Europe, Gol 

in Brazil, etc. 

Such a map of activities (not only marketing 

activities, but also design, manufacturing, finance, 

etc) is the result of difficult- to-make trade-offs: 

management must decide what the company will 

do or wants to become excellent at doing. Even 

more difficult, it has also to decide what it does 

not want to do or to become. For instance IKEA 

sells modern, mostly Nordic design furniture, 

manufactured anywhere in the world, sold only 

at IKEA stores, to customers who accept not only 

the task of carrying the products home by themsi 

selves (whatever they bought), but who also do 

the mounting or assembling of the pieces of furni 

niture bought, out of a flat package containing 

all the necessary parts and pieces. 

One single company controls the whole procei 

ess, from design to retail sale, a far cry from the 

traditional furniture sector where different indepi 

pendent protagonists or companies did the desi 

sign, the manufacturing and the retail selling. 

In other words, another characteristic of conti 

temporary companies seemingly capable of capti 

turing marketing leadership positions seem to be 

the increasing level of ‘verticalisation’. The same 

company controls the whole process, all necessary 

steps between product design and retail selling 

to final customers. 

‘Controls’, incidentally, does not necessarily 

mean that the company does by itself all these 

steps. What it does mean is that the same company 

prescribes and controls the way these steps are 

performed, even if they are actually performed 

by a third party. 

IKEA does not undertake the manufacturing of 

furniture. Contract manufacturers do the actual 

manufacturing. For the most part, McDonald’s 

does not cook and sell its hamburgers; franchisees 

do it, under strict McDonald’s specifications. 

A parallel trend which seems to be a factor 

leading to contemporary market leadership is 

globalisation. As beautifully described by Thomas 

L. Friedman, in his acclaimed book The World is 

Flat, contemporary companies capable of escali 

lating market leadership positions are frequently 

global companies. That is, corporations capable 

of locating their activities wherever necessary 

in the world, in order to benefit from low costs, 

high efficiency and high levels of operational inti 

tegration. 

Again, such “global value chains” may be made 

up of parts or units which are organically part and 

owned by a corporation. That is, they are staffed 

by its own employees. Bur very frequently some 

portions are outsourced and carried out by exti 

ternal partners on a contract basis. 

Within Europe, we have witnessed the relentli 

less progress of regional integration. From an 

initial nucleus of just 6 countries, the European 

Union has become a fairly unified market of 28 

countries. In May 2004, ten more countries joined 

the European Union. And on January 1st, 2007 

Bulgaria and Romania were also admitted. At 

the time of writing this article, Croatia is making 

swift progress towards its admission. And as we all 

know, Turkey and the rest of the Western Balkan 

countries are also knocking at the door. 

In a piece of research carried out by four IESE 

professors just before the 2004 enlargement, we 

saw how some Spanish companies were designing 

and implementing marketing strategies in order 

to generate the most advantage out of the enlargemi 

ment of the European Union. And some of them 

seem to be able to capture marketing leadership 

positions, at least at the European level, by swiftly 

and efficiently penetrating these new markets. For 

the most part, as we know, the new entrants were 

former communist countries. Therefore, there 

was a lot of marketing opportunity for fast and 

efficient Western European companies. 

Let us consider the last factor contemporary 

companies seem to be considering: attracting, 

retaining and motivating the best teams of peopi 

ple. 

Market leadership does not come easy. Compi 

panies need a certain level of material resources. 

And they certainly also need systems, equipment, 

all kinds of material things. But more and more 

managers are coming to see that the key factor 

is having a high quality human team, capable 

of designing and implementing some or all the 

above mentioned action plans. More and more, 

top managers need to clarify the mission of their 

company, so that would-be managers and empi 

ployees can identify and wholeheartedly adhere 

to it. And this kind of ‘organisational unity’ is only 

possible if top managers have clear ideas about 

their motivations. 

It is true that companies and managers are 

moved by extrinsic motivations. In other words, 

they are moved because they will receive some 

kind of material reward, such as a well-earned 

salary. This is necessary but it may not be enough. 

Managers also need to have a certain level of inti 

trinsic motivation. That is, to enjoy what they do, 

to be able to learn and self-actualize themselves 

in their jobs. And finally, they must also have a 

certain amount of transcendent or altruistic moti 

tivation. They must perceive that their activity is 

not only self serving; that the company is not just 

geared towards maximising profits for the sharehi 

holders. Any company must be also orientated 

and strive to other stakeholders. It must fulfil a 

social purpose. And it must follow high ethical 

standards of operation. 

The combination of these three kinds of moti 

tivations is what determines the level of motivati 

tional quality. And many top managers seem to 

be increasingly convinced that only companies 

and leaders with high motivational quality, with 

a sensible mix of all three kinds of motives, seem 

to be able to attract, retain and motivate the best 

teams of people. In turn, such highly and correctli 

ly motivated teams come to be able of attaining 

high levels of performance and market leadersi 

ship positions. 

There are many factors then that drive the atti 

tainment of leadership in the marketplace. Well 

designed marketing plans ; highly personalised 

relationships with key customers; creating diffi 

ferentiated activities that result in an entirely 

new business model; building global or regional 

value chains; all of these would serve Kenyan 

companies seeking market leadership well. But 

in the final analysis, it is the quality of your peopi 

ple that matters most. A highly (and correctly) 

motivated set of teams may well be the ultimate 

driver of market leadership.

XII BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XIII 


Why there are such few women business 

leaders in Kenya and what to do about it 

Dr Laila Macharia is the 

principal of Scion Real, a 

property investment firm. 

She serves on the boards of 

the Kenya Private Developers 

Association, the Lollipop 

Project and Friends of the 

Nairobi Arboretum. She holds a 

doctorate in law from Stanford 

University. 

Are women born leaders What does it 

take for a woman to make it to leadersi 

ship Do they succeed as leaders Do 

women lead differently These questi 

tions recently re-emerged in public debate on the 

Affirmative Action bill. In bar-rooms and hair sali 

lons across the nation, some grumbled that women 

were asking for favours and should earn their right 

to lead rather than asking for a leg up. Others reti 

torted that male leaders already get a leg up from 

cultural bias that locks women out on measures 

other than merit. 

Few of these animated opinions are based on 

sound knowledge. Research on Kenyan women’s 

leadership is hard to come by. However, thanks 

to research from Catalyst (US), Aurora and Oppi 

portunity Now (UK) and Women in Management 

Review (NZ), the negotiation program at Harvard 

University and others, we now know more about 

how women perform as leaders. We know intuiti 

tively that individuals who are decisive, principled, 

confident, competent, inspiring and empathic, 

whether they are male or female, are identified 

as leaders by their peers. Research in the UK and 

US found that women business leaders are highly 

persuasive and favour an inclusive team-oriented 

style of problem solving and decision making. They 

are also more likely to feel the sting of rejection but 

rebound from adversity with an “I’ll show you” attiti 

tude. A striking finding, echoed in study after study, 

is that once in authority, women and men are far 

more similar than they are different, with women 

out-performing men slightly on some measures. 

Also, companies that have more women at higher 

levels tend to have significantly higher returns on 

equity and total return to shareholders than those 

that exclude women. 

So why are women so poorly represented in leadei 

ership ranks After decades of examining this conti 

tradiction, investigators are now settling on socially 

constructed barriers, especially stereotyping. Tradi 

ditionally, females are seen as affectionate, appreci 

ciative, mild, sensitive and emotional, while men 

are expected to be dominant, ambitious, self-confi 

fident, rational and tough. Since ‘masculine’ traits 

are linked to leadership, women at work can be 

hampered by the common perception that women 

‘take care’ while men ‘take charge’. 

Stereotypes are powerful. They can be positive. 

Women, especially in the public sector, benefit from 

the common belief that women are less corrupt than 

men. Comparative analyses do show that countries 

with more women in political leadership score lowei 

er in corruption rankings, although the implications 

of these findings are still controversial. 

More often, however, stereotypes work to the 

detriment of women. There is the common pheni 

nomenon, for instance, where a profession becomes 

devalued as soon as women enter it in large numbi 

bers. One anecdote is that medicine in Russia was an 

elite profession until communism offered women 

the opportunity to infiltrate the profession. Thereai 

after, it became seen as an arena in which it didn’t 

take much to succeed. The converse is also true. In 

Kenya, female hair stylists are currently facing unexpi 

pected competition from male hair ‘designers’ who 

charge a premium for the same services frequently 

with the same training and less experience. 

But women are especially hard hit in the area of 

negotiation. Both women and men expect women 

to accept less for themselves and leave ‘more on the 

table’. For example, studies have shown that at car 

dealerships, salesmen are likely to quote higher 

starting prices to women and blacks. But female 

negotiators also contribute by selling themselves 

short. In salary negotiations, researchers identifi 

fy an ‘entitlement gap.’ Men gloss over their own 

weaknesses and tend to forge ahead even when 

unqualified or unprepared. Women by contrast 

are self-critical and hold back even when equally 

or better qualified than men, focusing on their own 

shortcomings rather than strengths. Some commi 

mentators have gone as far as to suggest that the 

negotiation gap is the largest driver of compensati 

tion gaps between men and women. 

The burden of double standards 

But this could be over-simplifying matters. Senior 

women and CEOs when polled indicate that despite 

their best efforts, stereotyping and bias are devasti 

tating. Even extremely successful women negotiate 

burdensome double standards on a daily basis. 

The first ‘double bind’ is extreme perceptions. 

Women note that when they act in ways that are 

consistent with gender stereotypes, they are seen as 

too soft to lead. But when they behave outside the 

feminine mold, they are seen as too harsh. Linked 

to this is a common perception that female leaders 

are either competent or likeable but rarely both. 

When women behave competently, they are seen 

as less effective on the personal front than women 

who adopt a more feminine style. Men, by conti 

trast, are judged under a more lenient standard 

in which they can be simultaneously tough and 

compassionate. 

The second dilemma women face is a higher 

competence threshold. Women consistently report that 

they have to perform far better than male peers for lowei 

er rewards. They also face a credibility gap where they 

have to prove that themselves over and over again and 

confront additional trade-offs than their male counti 

terparts. In one study, male CEOs were credited when 

their companies did well whereas female CEOs had to 

substantiate that positive results were attributable to 

them to receive credit. 

The double bind intensifies in traditionally male domi 

mains such as general management, finance, sales and 

information technology. In these workplaces, workers 

with female bosses often hold harsh stereotypes of womei 

en leaders. Because people pay more attention to data 

which confirms their stereotypes, even subordinates 

will tend to ignore instances where their supervisors 

behave in counter-stereotypic ways. As a result, rathei 

er than implementing stratei LEADERSHIP, Page XIV » 

VIEW POINT 

Women in leadership: 

Skills, not biology 

Dr. Aline Masuda 

As a senior project manager at an international consi 

sulting company based in Chicago, part of my job was 

to present the results of employee opinion surveys 

to top management teams of global corporations. I 

remember the first time I went to one of these meeti 

ings. 

There were about 15 leaders in the room. One 

of them was a woman. I sat next to her and waited 

patiently for my colleague to start the presentation. 

I was new at the job and was there to be trained. 

While I was waiting, the leaders began to engage in 

a passionate discussion. The topic of the conversati 

tion: Football. 

I noticed that the only other woman in the room 

did not participate in the discussion so I decided to 

engage in a conversation with her. I chose to talk about 

what I typically do when I find myself chatting with a 

person I hardly know. The topic of the conversation: 

The person I hardly know. 

I asked where she was from, where she lived, and 

how long she had worked as a director in that parti 

ticular company. My colleague was ready to do his 

presentation when the woman began telling me about 

her sister who, like me, was also an industrial organisi 

sational psychologist. 

My colleague’s presentation went well. In the end, 

the CEO of the company thanked us for completing 

the project successfully and invited my colleague to 

play golf. 

That day, I felt that my training went beyond that 

of learning about presentations and organisational 

surveys. I experienced how gender may influence 

leadership. 

Masculine and feminine traits 

Research on gender and leadership has shown that 

despite someone’s biological sex, a leader may dispi 

play two gender role orientation traits: The masculini 

ity trait, which is characterised by emphasis on task 

orientation, assertiveness and competition; and the 

femininity trait, which is characterised by expressiveni 

ness and nurturance. 

Dr. Aline Masuda is an 

industrial organisational 

psychologist and 

researcher at the IESE 

Business School in 

Barcelona. She is also 

academic director of 

the Center of Work and 

Family at Strathmore 

Now, which leader is more effective 

Professor Karen Korabik from 

the University of Guelph in 

Canada and Professor Roya 

Ayman from Illinois Institute 

of Technology in the U.S.A. have 

surveyed several leaders in the 

corporate world searching for 

an answer to this question. 

They concluded that despite 

what most people may think, 

women and men do not have 

different leadership styles; in 

fact, they are both equally effecti 

tive as leaders. However, they 

observed that effective leaders, 

whether they were men or womei 

en, were likely to display both 

masculine and feminine traits. 

In other words, effective leadei 

ers were more likely to adopt 

an androgynous style of leadersi 

ship. Their research shows that 

leaders who score highly on the 

masculinity trait tended to engage in task-oriented 

leadership behaviors, such as directing, setting goals, 

and competing. Leaders scoring highly on femininity 

traits tended to display a person-oriented leadership 

style by often engaging in behaviors such as mentori 

ing, supporting, and listening to their employees. 

Their research shows that an effective leader will 

engage in both directive and person-oriented leadei 

ership behaviors whenever appropriate. 

Interestingly, even though their findings show 

that an effective leader is high on both gender traits, 

their survey revealed that women managers that are 

higher up in the corporate ladder tend to display a 

masculine style of leadership and often fit the masculi 

line stereotype of the ideal manager better than their 

male colleagues do. They argue that this may occur 

because managerial tasks are socially viewed as a task 

that requires stereotypically masculine behaviors. In 

fact, in an educational setting, women leaders tended 

to display an androgynous style of leadership more 

so than in traditional corporate environment. 

Why and how are these findings relevant for womei 

en in leadership The obvious implication is that in 

order to climb the corporate ladder, women must 

express their assertiveness. 

 This brings me back to my story. When I was sitti 

ting with the 15 leaders waiting for my colleague to 

start his presentation, I could have chosen to engage 

in the sports conversation instead of talking with the 

woman about personal matters. At that moment, it 

was a perfect opportunity for me to network and 

meet the other 14 leaders in the room including the 

CEO of the company. Unfortunately, I was inexperi 

rienced and felt more comfortable talking with the 

only woman in the room. Perhaps I would have been 

asked to play golf if I had participated in the heated 

debate with the 14 leaders about football. 

Same skills required 

This is not to say that an effective leader is one who 

knows all about sports. Being more assertive, especi 

cially when it comes to networking, may nevertheless 

improve a woman’s chances of corporate advancemi 

ment. The key point, however, is that whether one is 

a man or a woman, it takes the same skills to become 

an effective leader. That is, a leader must direct and 

motivate employees toward a compelling and transi 

scendental vision. While directing employees toward 

this vision, a leader might find it necessary to either be 

assertive - by directing employees toward challengi 

ing goals; or nurturing - by listening to employees’ 

concerns and viewpoints before taking action. 

Either way, biological sex does not prescribe leadei 

ership. Only values, vision and integrity do.

XIV BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XV 


» From page XIII e g i e s , 

women spend considerably 

more time than male leadei 

ers negotiating with subordini 

nates and getting their buy-in. 

Anti-female bias also creates a 

poisoned work environment 

fraught with ‘micro-inequiti 

ties’: the unconscious subtle 

put-downs, dismissive gesti 

tures and sarcastic tones that 

undermine colleagues, especi 

cially those who are branded 

as ‘outsiders’ in some way. 

A second source of pressure, 

also linked to gender roles, is 

the burden on women as the 

caretakers in the nuclear and 

extended family. Although seni 

ior women often make more 

than their spouses, their male 

peers are significantly more 

likely to have a spouse worki 

ing part-time or not at all. This 

home-front support that men 

enjoy gives them an undoubtei 

ed advantage. When professi 

sional women in turn are freed 

from domestic pressures, they 

compete more effectively with 

men. In fact, at least one inqi 

quiry systematically builds the 

case that women in the US are 

not paid less than men, per se. 

Both men and women unconsi 

sciously make trade-offs, some 

as early as secondary school, 

that affect how much they will 

eventually take home. For insi 

stance, women who are able and 

willing to do traditionally male 

jobs (jobs that are frigid, far or 

fraught with peril) are paid on 

par with men. Single women in 

particular advance faster than 

men, particularly in scientific 

fields. The advantage for the 

unencumbered, including the 

‘child-free’, can be powerful 

in more advanced economies 

where domestic help and child 

care are expensive and a major 

source of domestic friction. It 

would be interesting to see if 

this still holds in developing 

countries where middle-class 

households can afford domesti 

tic help and child care. 

All these factors offer a 

poignant explanation for trends 

in women’s participation in the 

workplace. Some overseas studi 

ies show that in financial servi 

ices, for example, women in 

their 20s are even more ambiti 

tious than their male peers as 

they start out. However, their 

morale begins to drop precipi 

itously in their 30s and firms 

start to see dramatic attrition of 

their most seasoned and commi 

mitted staff. This loss has been 

attributed to women conceding 

defeat in the struggle to resist 

stereotyping and balance conti 

tradictory demands. It is at this 

point that the women become 

most aware of glass ceilings - insi 

stitutional barriers to women’s 

advancement. What results is 

a self-fulfilling cycle in which 

women begin to invest less even 

as the firm begins to see them 

as less committed. 

Despite all these challenges, 

there are ways to help women 

succeed as business leaders. 

At the personal level, research 

shows that women can make 

certain moves to improve their 

odds of success. On their part, 

organizations can be more 

proactive in promoting and 

keeping their best female talent. 

By adopting these approaches, 

they save the costs of attrition 

and retraining in a global labour 

market where talent is increasi 

ingly scarce. 

Individual Strategies 

Women can identify and choose 

fields and environments in 

which they are more likely to 

succeed. They can choose highpaying 

fields and also sub-speci 

cialties that offer both flexibility 

and compensation. 

Women perform better 

where performance is graded 

on objective criteria such as 

hours billed, documents prodi 

duced or commissions earned 

on revenues generated. They do 

worse where entitlements are 

ambiguous or based on “wheeli 

ing and dealing” or “horse 

trading”. Thus, they may benei 

efit from performance evaluati 

tions which are more neutral 

and quantitative. 

Women need to anticipate 

the challenges of family-work 

balance and remain fully aware 

that the home front can affect 

their performance if not propei 

erly managed. Pressure can be 

mitigated, if not fully resolved, 

by choosing a supportive mate 

at the outset, negotiating fairer 

division of labour at home, taki 

ing off-ramps (periods of time 

outside the workforce) or flextime 

and hiring domestic suppi 

port. In all cases, it means maki 

ing informed choices. 

Women must improve their 

negotiating style. Although 

structural change and cultural 

bias may take a while to overci 

come, this is one area in which 

women can see immediate rewi 

wards. Women must learn to 

judge themselves less harshly 

and adopt some of the entitlemi 

ment that men bring to the tabi 

ble, especially in ambiguous 

situations. 

Female CEOs in the UK admi 

mit that they have succeeded 

through two key strategies: 

over-performing and adopting a 

style with which male peers and 

superiors find non-threatening. 

Unfair maybe, but true. 

Organisational Strategies 

Companies can sponsor resi 

search into women leaders 

and how to support and retain 

them. Some of the information 

that is needed to inform policy is 

the number and profiles of Kenyi 

yan female leaders, especially in 

the corporate world, what challi 

lenges they face and what can 

be done to support and advance 

them. The power of stereotypi 

ing means that companies have 

to go beyond increasing the 

numbers of women in leadersi 

ship to actually counter-acting 

and challenging stereotypical 

assumptions and hostile work 

cultures. 

Firms can begin by identifyi 

ing and counter-acting bias in 

the workplace. Diagnostic tools 

exist to measure existence of 

anti-woman bias as well as other 

discrimination which creates a 

hostile environment for certain 

groups. For example, Cisco has 

successfully implemented an 

initiative to eradicate ‘microinequities’. 

Structural changes 

can then be implemented to ensi 

sure that objective performance 

criteria are defined and applied 

dispassionately. 

Many women report that 

rather than formal programs 

which call attention to and run 

the risk of ‘ghettoising’ women, 

they prefer individually-customi 

ized approaches which identify 

and nurture all high-performi 

ing women and hold managemi 

ment accountable for their advi 

vancement. Excellent women 

who are held back under the 

old ‘patronage-style’ workplace 

will thrive under open and fair 

competition. 

In order to retain women in 

the critical 35-45 age group, top 

financial firms in the US have 

had some success in creating 

‘on-ramps and off-ramps’ which 

offer top-performing women 

flexible work arrangements 

that allow them to balance 

work and family and re-enter 

the workforce when external 

pressure lets up. This provides a 

win-win solution since the firm 

continues to benefit from seni 

ior women’s experience and expi 

pertise. These off- and on-ramp 

programs have been found to 

greatly increase women’s commi 

mitment to and tenure in their 

firms. However, unless they enji 

joy genuine support from the 

top leadership, and are available 

to both men and women, they 

can become an additional badge 

of stigma for women.

XVI BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XVII 


The Chief Financial Officer: 

A leader, not a bean-counter 

Dr Jim McFie has been 

a lecturer in Accounting 

at Strathmore College for 

many years. He now 

lectures Accounting 

at Strathmore University and 

at Strathmore Business School. 

He has taught and mentored 

many of the region’s current 

business leaders. In addition, 

he has held non-executive 

director positions in leading 

institutions, including the 

Capital Markets Authority. 

CFOs have a unique perspective on the company. JIM Mc FIE 

challenges them to make more of their position. 

The ability to collect information from, and 

disseminate it to, a global audience, nearly 

instantaneously, has had a profound impact 

on the nature, role and focus of financial managemi 

ment throughout the world of business. This impi 

pact has significantly changed the role of the Chief 

Financial Officer (CFO) and his or her staff. Instead 

of labour-intensive, clerical procedures focused on 

operational and fiduciary issues, financial managemi 

ment has evolved into a system that can provide 

strategic insights, improve effectiveness, reduce 

costs and add value – making the enterprise more 

competitive. 

Often, fewer staff can produce more information 

and more relevant information for the managemi 

ment of the enterprise. However, who is going to 

ensure that enterprises adopt systems to produce 

the information required, so that the financial manai 

agement system is integrated with other strategic 

and decision-making functions in order to serve 

the overall mission and goals of the organization 

It is clearly the task of the CFO. 

And to know what improvements he (I will use 

he to mean “he or she” from now on) needs to bring 

about in the organization to which he contributes 

his talents, he needs to be at the top of his game. 

The CFO has to be a real professional. And he has to 

be a leader - not only in his ability to get work done 

efficiently and effectively, not only in constantly 

thinking about ways by which greater control of 

the organization’s assets can be achieved; not only 

of thinking of ways of reducing costs in the organizi 

zation, but also being at the forefront in knowing 

about and adopting world class best practice. 

It could probably be said, however, that few CFOs 

are really leaders; many fall into the routine of doi 

ing their work in the same old way from one month 

to another and, in turn, from one year to another 

– with no real desire of achieving real productivity 

improvements in their departments. 

A CFO must be a person who has worked his way 

up the organization so that he understands better 

than anyone in his department how things work 

in that department. He must also be a person who 

can write a clear, concise understandable and logici 

cal report on any area of operation of the finance 

department and of the organization as a whole. 

There is a danger today that CFOs think that it is 

imperative that they possess an MBA. Many MBA 

degrees in today’s market are not worth the paper 

they are written on: and employers who insist that 

a CFO must have an MBA do not realize that this 

insistence displays the employer’s ignorance of the 

importance of obtaining an MBA from a reputable 

institution. Some MBA holders are unable to express 

themselves properly in English - the international 

language of business. This detracts from the MBA 

holder’s ability to argue logically and coherently. In 

addition, some MBA programmes are taught by persi 

sons who could never obtain employment in a top 

rate company: is there any wonder that a number of 

MBA holders have a smattering of bookish knowlei 

edge which is shallow, illogically put together and 

not a real basis for sound decision making 

If any member of the CFO’s team comes to him 

with a problem, he should lead the thought procei 

ess by which a solution to that problem is found: 

however, he should also be aware that problem 

solution is not his task alone – it is a task of every 

member of his team – and he needs to develop the 

problem-solving skills of every member of the fini 

nance team. Employees can learn much more from 

a leader CFO than they would ever learn on many 

MBA programmes. If the CFO finds that after repi 

peated encouragement, a member of the team is 

not progressing, is not capable of developing in 

himself a “killer instinct” (by which I mean the empi 

ployee wants to do his work better than his CFO) 

- the CFO needs to have the strength of character 

to point out to that team-member that a change is 

needed – and if no improvement is made by that 

person, whoever he may be, he should be encourai 

aged to look for employment elsewhere. 

If new methods are introduced in any sphere 

of operation of accounting departments, the CFO 

should be aware of them and he should have the humi 

mility to realize that he has to master them himself 

before he requires his staff to also master them. The 

quality of his work has to be an inspiration to his 

team members – he has to lead by example. 

A CFO can be responsible for the recovery of 

the financial health of an organization. One of my 

past students was appointed the CFO of an ailing 

company. She realized that the company had severe 

cash flow problems because there was no control 

over debtors or accounts receivable. She got to work 

to ensure that debtors paid the company on time. 

The success of this single activity saved the compi 

pany more in overdraft interest costs than what it 

spent on her salary. Once the credit period given 

to debtors was under control, and the company’s 

overdraft was eliminated, she ensured that suppliei 

ers were paid on time. 

She went one step better: she started negotiating 

discounts from suppliers because she was able to 

pay them cash on delivery of their goods. She made 

sure she maximized the foreign exchange earnings 

of the company by using basic hedging techniques. 

She then turned her attention to the company’s 

inventory. A stock count had not been done for a 

considerable period of time prior to her appointmi 

ment. When the stock was actually counted, what 

she suspected to be the case turned out to be true. 

The stock figure on the company’s computer system 

was inaccurate; as a result of the stock taking exerci 

cise, she discovered that produce was being stolen 

during the company’s night shift – and that some 

produce was not selling and yet it was continuing 

to be produced by the company. It is clear that this 

CFO was aware that her task was not limited to ensi 

suring that the accounting records were properly 

maintained. She realized that she helped managemi 

ment to run the company: and she played a vital 

role is returning the company to financial health. 

Some time after she had achieved this, she was headhunted 

to a vegetable exporting company where 

she set about the task of increasing the profitability 

of the company and installing controls to ensure 

that the stealing of the company’s assets that was 

prevalent before her arrival was minimized. 

Another of my past students displayed her leadei 

ership skills in a different way. She was recruited by 

the Kenyan subsidiary of a multinational company 

that was required to submit monthly reports to Londi 

don by the tenth day of the following month. When 

she joined the company, she spent a few months 

understudying an expatriate CFO. The reporting 

deadline would always be missed by two days or 

more, even though people in the finance departmi 

ment were working up to one and two o’clock in the 

morning. When the expatriate left for London and 

she took over as CFO, she gathered the finance team 

together and told them that from then on things 

were going to change. From then on, no-one would 

work after five in the evening. 

When staff came to work in the morning, the 

first thing they would do was to draw up a “To Do 

List”: they would ensure that the most important 

things were done first each day. They were to work 

as a team: if one member of the team found that 

he had time on his hands, he was to communicate 

this fact to the CFO who would be in touch with the 

whole of her team and who would know who was 

being overwhelmed with work – the person who 

had free time on his hands would help that person 

out. At the end of the first month after her taking 

over the reins, the subsidiary still did not meet the 

London reporting deadline – by two days. The secoi 

ond month, the reports were one day late. But from 

the third month on, the reports were on time, and 

even ahead of time. One lady who worked in the 

finance department came to see this CFO to thank 

her for saving the lady’s marriage: she used to get 

home at one o’clock every morning and her husband 

was about to divorce her! The CFO taught her team 

how to use their working hours productively. They 

worked smarter. They concentrated on doing the 

important things first. And the work/life balance 

Few CFOs are really leaders; many fall into the same old routines. 

of all the staff in the finance department benefited 

from her insistence that the staff work with order and 

they work as a team. 

You may be thinking from the above that only womei 

en have the ability to be leaders. But another past 

student was the CFO of the subsidiary of an Americi 

can multinational which has subsequently ceased 

manufacturing in Kenya – the output of the Kenyan 

factory simply could not compete with the quality of 

the imported alternative goods available after Kenya 

liberalized its import policy. This became clear to the 

CFO some time before the company took the decisi 

sion to close its manufacturing plant – he could see 

it in the figures he prepared for the parent company 

in the US. 

What he did not know until later was that the 

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company was 

adjusting the numbers in the financial statements 

prior to submitting them to the US. When he saw that 

the future of the company was far from optimistic, 

he suggested to the company’s sales people that they 

would have to cease running company cars because 

the company could no longer afford this expense. The 

sales persons’ reactions were similar to that of spoilt 

children: they simply would not accept such an outri 

rageous suggestion. The American holding company 

decided to substantially reduce the size of the Kenyi 

yan subsidiary not long afterwards. The CFO came 

to tell me the story after he secured an even better 

job in an alternative organization. I often wonder 

whether the sales people ever managed to get alterni 

native employment. 

Finance or accounting departments in US compi 

panies today cost their companies on average three 

quarters of one per cent of sales while achieving the 

capability of a “one day close”. If you are a CEO of a 

company, or if you are the CFO, and you have reached 

this far in this article, check to see whether the costs 

and productivity of your accounting department are 

in line with world class performance. 

If they are not, it is the job of the CFO to bring the 

accounting department up to world class performai 

ance. Kenya’s athletes are often much better leaders 

than many other Kenyans: they are world champions 

because they have God-given talent, but, in addition, 

they are world champions because they work hard 

to be the best in the world. If I drive around Nairobi 

during the day, I often see these athletes sweating 

their guts out to be at the top of their game. 

If Kenyan industry and the Kenya Government 

If Kenya is not 

world class, part of the 

blame falls on us 

is not world class, part of the blame falls on me – and 

the CFOs I have taught who are not ready to make the 

same sacrifice, to lead by example, in the same way as 

the Kenya runner. Only one person can change that 

state of affairs – that person is me. Let us show that 

we are leaders by the example we give. 

In that way, we shall have less explaining to do when 

people claim that Kenyan industry cannot compete, or 

when they claim that the Government does not work. 

At least we will be doing our part in making industry 

or government function. 

Some of my past students who live abroad have 

told me that they are ashamed to have to admit that 

they are Kenyans, because of the poor image that the 

world has of the corruption, crime and inefficiency 

in Kenya: only you and I can change that. 

And we change that not by simply contradicting 

what others claim about us: we change it by changi 

ing ourselves – by becoming world class leaders in 

whatever we do. 

The CFO is a leader with a unique vantage point. 

More must be made of this position, and it is the job 

of every CFO to rise to the challenge.

XVIII BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XIX 


Leaders need a heart, but 

it must be made of steel 

There are many qualities that define leadership, but one that 

stands out is courage. SUNNY BINDRA shows us how great leaders 

manage their fear. 

Sunny Bindra is a popular 

business columnist who writes 

for both the Sunday Nation 

and the Business Daily. He 

is a renowned management 

consultant who advises the 

CEOs and boards of leading 

local corporations. He is 

a member of Strathmore 

Business School’s Advisory 

Board, and leads the School’s 

flagship strategy programme for 

senior executives. 

There are many, many qualities that great leaders need: 

unusual zest for work; acute judgement; a sense of fairni 

ness; empathy and genuine interest in the welfare of othei 

ers; and unquestionable integrity and trustworthiness. 

Without those qualities, you will not lead, for others will 

not follow you for long. 

But there is perhaps one quality that sets leaders apart: courage. 

By this we mean the ability to do something that actually frightens 

you. It is the capacity to demonstrate strength and fortitude in the 

face of difficulty. This is the thing that separates the women from 

the girls, the men from mere lads. It is the willingness to grasp the 

nettle or put your hand in the fire when no-one else will. 

Nelson Mandela’s courage took him to imprisonment, with the 

conviction that his actions would lead to a result not days but decai 

ades later. It was the strength of his courage that provided leadersi 

ship to black South Africans - not his presence on the ground. His 

fortitude under great duress provided the beacon that sustained a 

long struggle. That same courage allowed him to do something even 

bigger for his country when he was finally released: to understand 

that the difficult (but necessary) thing that he needed to then do was 

to forgive so that the nation could be healed. 

Mahatma Gandhi’s courage took him into an even stranger place: 

the belief that a little man in a white loin-cloth could bring down an 

entire empire. Few, if any, would be willing to face the mighty guns 

of Britannia armed with nothing more than a set of beliefs. But he 

demonstrated the kind of nerve that we rarely see in today’s leaders, 

whether of countries or of corporations. 

I see two key aspects of courage: the first is the ability to stand 

tall in the face of adversity; the other is the ability to stand being 

unpopular. 

Every leader needs a period of adversity in his or her life. Great 

leadership is often forged in the flames. It’s relatively easy to lead 

when times are good; but great leaders are often born in the fire. 

Take the example of our own homegrown success story: Equity 

Bank. Its dramatic recent trajectory has been marked by adversity 

at every stage. First, it faced financial ruin as a fledgling building 

society; next, it had the courage to walk boldly into a market territi 

tory everyone else was abandoning (the rural poor); later, it had to 

make very bold investment decisions to allow it to cope with the effi 

fects of the dramatic growth in account-holders that its boldness 

had ignited; and now, it faces a relentless barrage of questions about 

its practices, fuelled not least by self-seeking politicians. 

It is difficult to predict where Equity Bank will end up, since 

none of us predicted it would get this far. A seemingly unending 

stream of adversities still litters its path. But what is certain is that 

its leadership team is born of those very adversities; the flames have 

made it what it is. An easier path to success might well have led to 

a lower pinnacle. 

Kenyan banks are often a great place to learn leadership - the hard 

way! Terry Davidson found that out when he took over the reins of 

Kenya Commercial Bank from a string or predecessors who had been 

consumed rather than consummated by the fire. Davidson walked 

into a job few wanted: a large, badly run, highly politicised bank 

dogged by a legacy of a monumentally bad loan book. 

For a while, it looked like the flames would lick him too. But 

he built protective cover and undertook some bold initiatives, and 

within little time was fashioning an historic turnaround. He retired 

recently with full honours and the gratitude of his customers and 

shareholders, to whom the bank once appeared doomed. It is now 

a rebranded, revitalised institution, ready for the exciting new compi 

petition in the industry. 

Courage is about more than adverse conditions, however; it is 

Every leader 

needs a period of 

adversity in his 

or her life. Great 

leadership is oftten 

forged in the 

flames. 

also about the capacity or willingness to accept unpopularity. That is 

harder than we think: the human animal is conditioned to want the 

acceptance and acclaim of his species above most other things. 

I remember watching an episode of that irreverent and very interei 

esting American cartoon series, The Simpsons. Young Bart Simpson 

faces a moral dilemma at school - he has to make a difficult choice. 

Unwisely, he takes this dilemma to his father, the inappropriately 

named Homer. “Dad, what’s more important: to do the right thing or 

to be popular” asks Bart. Homer is flabbergasted, and replies: “You 

gotta be popular son - if you’re not popular, you’re doomed!” 

We would all laugh at that, but few of us would be able to do the 

unpopular thing when faced with major and minor dilemmas of 

this sort. 

Consider the example of our own dear Kenya. Sorting out our 

country once and for all requires a leader with the capacity to court 

deep unpopularity for a period of time. The things that need doing 

will not win any votes, at least not initially. These include: reinvent 

the civil service, from top to bottom; weed out the rot in the police 

force and the judiciary; stop making tribal appointments; send some 

big, influential leaders to jail in order to make a real statement about 

corruption. 

Unsurprisingly, we have yet to find a president with the gumption 

to pay more than the most superficial lip service to the tackling of 

these terrible problems. Yet, we will not go anywhere meaningful 

as a nation unless someone does tackle them, head on. 

The ability to withstand great unpopularity was demonstrated by 

two recent international leaders: Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain, 

and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. Mrs Thatcher took power and immi 

mediately put her country to the sword: attacking the welfare state 

and the trade unions with unprecedented gusto. Both battles were 

guaranteed vote losers in the Britain of the time; but the prospect of 

unpopularity only seemed to egg the famous grocer’s daughter on. 

Buoyed by the unexpected popularity created by her leadership in 

the short-lived Falklands War with Argentina, she went on to win 

two more elections. 

History records that she took her reforms and her in-your-face 

attitude too far. She ended up leaving office in the middle of her third 

term, betrayed by her own party panicked by growing unpopulari 

ity. She was dumped by her party; yet she had 

never lost an election for them! Few would deny 

Thatcher’s courage in adversity; and most would 

concede that she gave back to her people a belief 

in enterprise and self-help that they seemed to 

have lost. 

Singapore’s Lee is viewed more favourably 

by the historians. He famously took his country 

“from third world to first” in just one generation. 

He transformed this tiny set of islands into a counti 

try whose GDP per capita compares with those 

of France and Britain. Lee also had to start his 

work with some very unpopular policies: treating 

the cancer of corruption, for instance, by chargi 

ing several ministers with graft and jailing them. 

He also introduced a mandatory savings scheme 

which, in a poor country, won him few friends 

amongst his impoverished countrymen. 

Even more controversially, Lee recognised 

his country’s skills gap and set about filling it 

by importing labour - a guaranteed vote loser in 

any country. Yet his people soon saw the point 

when economic growth took off: nearly a fourth 

of Singapore’s workers now traditionally come 

from abroad. 

Lee, too, has his detractors - which famous 

leader does not His critics will point you to his 

record of political intolerance, and his elitist and 

autocratic nature. But he never set out to be populi 

lar, and once stated that he would rather be feared 

than loved. In the final analysis, can we doubt that 

he put his country on the world map 

Great leaders know what they need to do - and 

don’t really care if anyone else likes it. Henry Ford 

was fond of disdaining the requirements of othei 

ers as he set about inventing and producing the 

first motor car. “If I had asked the people what 

they wanted,” said he, “they would have said a 

faster horse!” 

Popular leaders seem to work well at times of 

prosperity and complacency - but troubled times 

or periods of great change often demand more 

steel. Winston Churchill was a great wartime 

leader for Britain - but failed when calmer times 

prevailed. 

When tough measures are needed, the leader 

with a need for applause will not measure up. If 

you get your kicks from people liking you, the 

leadership of a great enterprise is probably not 

for you. You will end up doing what’s popular 

rather than what’s right, and the two don’t often 

coincide. 

There is a danger with those who thrive on 

unpopularity, though: they often take it a step 

too far. Margaret Thatcher eventually believed in 

herself over all others, and became closed to good 

sense. None of her allies could ultimately abide 

here. The trick for the leader is that no matter 

how courageous you are, good judgement should 

never desert you. 

I recently attended ‘The Leader’s Circle’ - a 

special forum organised in Nairobi by Stepwise 

Management, and the Depot where accomplished 

leaders gather together to share stories. The subji 

ject of the day was ‘Courage in Leadership’, and 

my twin premises about courage - the ability to 

withstand adversity and unpopularity - were confi 

firmed by the stories I heard there. 

There can be little doubt that courage is needed 

in large doses by those who lead others on to greatni 

ness. Vimal Shah would not have transformed 

Bidco from a small textile company to a regionai 

al consumer goods giant if he had been faint of 

heart. Michael Joseph would not have created 

the region’s most successful telecommunications 

company if he had been reluctant to do things that 

were more than a little frightening. 

What words can these giants offer budding 

leaders Perhaps the greatest insight is that courai 

age does not mean being fearless; it requires you 

to feel your fear, face it - and then do something 

about it. Action diminishes fear, and repeated 

action makes it vanish. Good judgement is needei 

ed to know what the best action is; courageous 

leadership combines good judgement with deci 

cisive action. 

Nelson Mandela probably put it best: “Courage 

is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. 

The brave man is not he who does not feel fear, 

but he who conquers fear.” 

Leadership is the art of influencing people to 

do the right thing, and you cannot influence peopi 

ple to behave courageously without having that 

quality yourself. A good leader is a great taskmaster; 

but one who, most importantly, does not 

spare himself. You will know you have a great 

leader before you when you see a steady convicti 

tion and a willingness to stay the course. A weak 

leader panics at the first sign of reversal or public 

disapproval. A strong one hardens her heart and 

manages her fear. 

Let us end on a note of spiritual advice from St 

Augustine, who himself suffered many challenges 

and reversals before finding the path of truth. This 

prayer is often quoted by John Adair, the great 

professor of leadership studies whose work is feati 

tured elsewhere in this issue of The Edge: 

“To my God, a Heart of Flame 

To my Fellow Human Beings, 

a Heart of Love 

To Myself, a Heart of Steel.” 

I see two key aspects of 

courage: the first is the 

ability to stand tall in the 

face of adversity; the other 

is the ability to stand being 

unpopular

XX BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XXI 


Talking with the receptionist, pausing when you speak and secrets of leadership success 

Being generous with 

praise and recognition 

will earn leaders 

what Harrison calls 

“psychic income.” 

Several years ago, while visiting a regional 

branch of Lee Hecht Harrison, a global cari 

reer management services company, thenpresident 

Stephen Harrison was stopped 

short by “Ray,” his chief operating officer. 

“You didn’t greet the receptionist,” said Ray, who proci 

ceeded to show Harrison how to do what he called the 

“two minute schmooze.” Introducing himself, Ray inqi 

quired about the receptionist’s commute and impressi 

sions of the company. Ray explained to Harrison: “A 

receptionist is a corporate concierge. 

They will talk to more important people in a day - 

- suppliers, customers, even CEOs -- than you will talk 

to all year.” 

Enron-level scandals are not averted by talking to the 

receptionist alone, but Harrison, speaking at the recent 

11th annual Wharton Leadership Conference, contendei 

ed that small acts like this are part of what makes for 

an ethical corporate culture. And culture, not “heavy 

handed legislation” like the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 

is a key safeguard against moral lapses, he said in his 

talk. Also presenting at the conference, which centered 

on the theme of “Developing Leadership Talent,” was 

Richard Greene, a public speaking coach and author 

of the book, Words that Shook the World: 100 Years of 

Unforgettable Speeches and Events. Conference sponsi 

sors included the Center for Leadership and Change 

Management, the Center for Human Resources and 

Wharton Executive Education. 

Harrison, who is now chairman of Lee Hecht Harrisi 

son, pointed to the failure of Sarbanes-Oxley to stop inci 

cidences of corporate fraud and misconduct. He quoted 

a 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers survey that reported 

a 22 per cent increase in global fraud over the last two 

years. When the Federal Sentencing Commission disci 

covered this gap between intention and results, said 

Harrison, it held a year of hearings and then added one 

line to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines stating that 

public companies must “promote an organizational 

culture that encourages ethical conduct.” 

Executive Pomposity 

Shortly after this addition was made, Harrison was appi 

pointed Worldwide Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer 

of Lee Hecht Harrison’s parent company, Adecco, a positi 

tion he held for two years and one that is mandated for 

publicly traded companies complying with Sarbanes- 

Oxley. He, along with other newly appointed ethics 

and compliance officers, wanted to know: What does 

“ethical culture” mean to the Federal Reserve Board 

Harrison spoke with Federal Reserve Board officials 

and attended conferences where board members addi 

dressed the issue. 

“All of us had pens in hand, waiting for the answer. 

They couldn’t give it to us,” Harrison recalled. “So I deci 

cided I would dig into this myself.” What he concluded 

mirrors the words of former SEC Commissioner Cynti 

thia Glassman, who said that while the government can 

mandate ethical compliance, “we cannot legislate ethici 

cal behavior.” For Harrison, even the word “ethics” itself 

seems too abstract; he replaces it with what he sees as a 

more intuitive, common-sense word: decency. 

“Decency is not just about being nice,” noted Harrisi 

son, author of The Manager’s Book of Decencies. Rather, 

it is about creating a “bubble wrap” of good deeds that 

will protect a company in hard times. “Our willingness 

to be decent at work cannot depend on whether busini 

ness is up or whether we’re in a bad mood or whether 

it’s raining. Decencies don’t amount to anything unless 

we take the trouble to make them come alive through 

concrete acts in all kinds of weather.” 

For those at the top, this can mean such actions as 

being the first to volunteer for ethics training; honori 

ing those with unglamorous jobs, like office cleaning; 

and listening to people at all levels of the organization. 

He pointed to the example of Herb Baum, former CEO 

of Dial, who used to host “Hot Dogs with Herb” on the 

factory floor, where he invited employees to talk with 

him about anything on their minds. 

Executive power 

Being accessible is as important as being humble, said 

Harrison. “Remember Ed Koch” The former mayor 

of New York, in his second year in office, drove from 

borough to borough, asking people, “How am I doing” 

“He went from being well-liked to well-loved.” Harrisi 

son also recalled meeting up one night with a long-lost 

college roommate, Ruben Mark, chairman and CEO of 

Colgate Palmolive. Over a Japanese dinner, Harrison 

asked him how he explained his success. “He leaned 

across the table and said, “That’s easy. I make absolutely 

sure nothing creative or important is ever identified as 

my idea,’” said Harrison. “Now that’s humility.” He also 

counseled executives to avoid the trap of “executive 

pomposity.” He first heard that term in a 1967 speech 

from the CEO of Technico, who spoke specifically about 

executive “telephone pomposity.” Said 

Harrison: “I have answered my own 

phone since then.” Being generous with 

praise and recognition will earn leaders 

what Harrison calls “psychic income.” 

He gave the example of the chairman 

and CEO of Campbell Soup who “at the 

end of every day gathers his people to 

hear about neat stuff done that day and 

then handwrites thank-you notes to 

the people who did it. If you go around 

Campbell Soup, all over the world, you 

will find those notes framed.” 

A key test of a leader’s sensitivity 

comes at layoff time. While Western 

companies, and particularly American 

companies, have come to accept the 

reality of the need for layoffs, “what 

they should not come to terms with is 

a downsizing episode that is anything 

but sensitive, well thought out and has 

preserving personal dignity as the highei 

est priority,” Harrison said. 

Immediately after layoffs take place, 

for example, a leader should be “very 

visible and accessible,” ready to answer 

questions, reduce anxieties and even 

assuage the guilt of those who survive 

the layoffs. “It takes courage to put your 

chest out, shoulders back, and be there 

to deal with this. It’s a decency, and 

people will appreciate it.” 

At the end of the day, said Harrison, 

the words of poet Maya Angelou ring 

true: “People will forget what you said, 

they will even forget what you did, but 

they will never forget what you made 

them feel.” 

Dream speech 

As public speaking coach Richard 

Greene knows, however, a few unique 

individuals are able to combine words 

and feelings in stirring, almost miraculi 

lous ways. “I would rather hear Marti 

tin Luther King read the Philadelphia 

White Pages out loud than hear almost 

anyone in corporate America delivei 

er the “I have a dream’ speech,” said 

Greene during his presentation. 

While King had natural gifts that 

only a chosen few possess, Greene argi 

gued that most people have never been 

trained in public speaking, in part beci 

cause the subject is not usually taught 

in schools. “It’s a mechanical process 

and every single employee, with a little 

bit of intention, focus and time spent, 

can learn a new skill set. They haven’t 

had a chance to see how good they can 

be,” said Greene. 

The first task of a speaker is to reai 

alize his or her purpose in speaking, 

whether it involves addressing sevei 

eral prospective customers across a 

boardroom table or a convention of 

thousands. 

“Public speaking is nothing more 

than having a conversation about 

something you’re passionate about 

with two or more people, while you 

just happen to be standing up, or not,” 

said Greene, who has advised CEOs of 

Fortune 500 companies and coached 

presidents, prime ministers, and, in 

1996, Diana, Princess of Wales. 

One of the biggest pitfalls for speakei 

ers in a corporate communication setti 

ting is perceiving a speech or presenti 

tation as a performance. “It’s easy to 

get nervous and think, “I want them to 

know how smart I am and how much 

I know,’” said Greene. “But if it’s just 

about downloading data, then stay 

home, hit the send button and save 

everyone’s time and expense.” 

This article was first published by 

Knowledge@Wharton. It has been 

republished with special permission 

from the Wharton School.

XXII BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007 | BUSINESS DAILY XXIII 


BOOK REVIEW 

The Art of Woo: Selling your 

ideas to the entire organisation 

The word “woo,” the authors 

note, has many meanings, but 

all of them relate to focusing 

on the person you are trying to 

persuade more than on your 

own needs and fears 

Former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocci 

ca once noted, “You can have brilliant 

ideas; but if you can’t get them across, 

your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” In 

their new book, The Art of Woo: Using 

Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas, Wharton 

School’s legal studies and business ethics professor 

G. Richard Shell and management consultant Mario 

Moussa provide a systematic approach to idea selli 

ing that addresses the problem Iacocca identified. 

As an example of effective persuasion, they tell the 

story of rock star Bono’s visit to then-Senator Jesse 

Helms’ Capitol Hill office to enlist his help in the 

global war against AIDS. 

Bono had all the facts and figures at his fingerti 

tips, and launched into a detailed appeal based on 

this data. He was, in essence, speaking to Helms the 

same way he had recently spoken to executives and 

technical experts at the many foundations and corpi 

porations he had approached about this issue. But 

within a few minutes, Bono sensed that he was losi 

ing Helms’ attention, and he instinctively changed 

his pitch. Knowing that Helms was a deeply religious 

man (and drawing on his own born-again Christi 

tian values), Bono began speaking of Jesus Christ’s 

concern for the sick and poor. He argued that Aids 

should be considered the 21st century equivalent 

of leprosy, an affliction cited in many Bible stories 

of the New Testament. Helms immediately sat up 

and began listening, and before the meeting was 

over had promised to be the Senate champion for 

Bono’s cause. 

Examples such as this one illustrate what Shell 

and Moussa mean by “woo”: It’s the ability to “win 

others over” to your ideas without coercion, using 

relationship-based, emotionally intelligent persuasi 

sion. “The rock star Bono is superb at the art of 

woo because he understands what it takes to be a 

super-salesman, in the best sense of that term,” says 

Shell. “Here you have a rock star with tinted glassei 

es and an elderly, conservative Southern senator. 

But when Bono had the good sense to switch from 

public policy talk about debt relief — what we call 

in our book the ‘rationality’ channel— to religious 

talk about poverty and disease — what we call the 

‘vision’ channel — he touched Helms’ heart. He sold 

his idea and, in the process, created trust.” 

The word “woo,” the authors note, has many 

meanings, but all of them relate to focusing on the 

person you are trying to persuade more than on 

your own needs and fears. “There is the obvious 

meaning related to courtship and romance,” says 

Shell, “but there is also the more general idea of 

wooing people to seek their support. In addition, 

Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton have reci 

cently used the word ‘woo’ in their books to describe 

the ability to easily establish rapport with many 

different people.” However “woo” may be defined, 

the authors argue that effectively selling ideas — 

using persuasion rather than force — is one of the 

most important skills that everyone from CEOs 

and entrepreneurs to team leaders and mid-level 

managers need to learn if they want to be effective 

in their organizations. 

The Spirit of St. Louis 

The Art of Woo presents a simple, four-step appi 

proach to the idea-selling process. First, persuadei 

ers need to polish their ideas and survey the social 

networks that will lead them to decision makers. To 

illustrate this step, Shell and Moussa recount how 

an unknown mail pilot named Charles Lindbergh 

turned his dream of being the first person to fly 

nonstop across the Atlantic into a reality. His idea 

was radical: He would make the crossing in a singi 

gle-engine plane flying without a co-pilot or even 

a life raft. The idea was followed by his campaign 

to overcome people’s disbelief that such a venture 

could ever work and to win over supporters in his 

hometown of St. Louis. Lindbergh started with conti 

tacts at the local airport who could see why his plan 

made sense and eventually worked his way up to 

the most influential businessmen in the city, using 

each person along the way to leverage an interview 

with the next. 

The second stage of the Woo process is confronti 

ing what Shell and Moussa call “the five barriers” -- 

the five most common obstacles that can sink ideas 

before they get started. These include unreceptive 

beliefs, conflicting interests, negative relationships, 

a lack of credibility and failing to adjust one’s commi 

munication mode to suit a particular audience or 

situation. Great persuaders throughout history 

have shared with Bono an instinct for overcoming 

this last barrier. For example, when Napoleon was 

a young officer at the siege of Toulon, he set up an 

artillery battery in such a dangerous location that 

his superiors thought he would never get troops to 

man it. They would have been right had Napoleon 

relied on the conventional “authority channel” and 

issued threats and orders to get his way. Instead, he 

demonstrated his social intelligence by switching to 

the visionary channel and creating a large placard 

that was placed next to the cannons. It read: “The 

Battery of the Men without Fear.” The position was 

manned night and day. 

Similarly, when Nelson Mandela was incarcerai 

ated on the notorious Robben Island in South Africa, 

he managed to obtain blankets and other necessities 

for his fellow prisoners by foregoing the expected 

high-minded appeals to politics and human rights. 

He worked instead on the relationship persuasion 

channel. By learning the guards’ Afrikaans language 

and reading their literature, Mandela earned their 

respect and won them over to his idea of fair treatmi 

ment — even as he continued to face hostility from 

the officials who ran the prison. 

The third stage is to pitch your idea in a compi 

pelling way. Shell and Moussa note that at Google, 

employees selling ideas to upper management are 

given a challenge: to distill their business concepts 

into short, punchy presentations that get right to 

the essence of what they are proposing. This discipi 

pline forces them to figure out exactly what probli 

lem their idea addresses, how their idea will solve 

it and why their idea is better than both the status 

quo and available alternatives. The authors offer a 

template for pitching ideas in this format and give 

examples of distinct ways one can personalize an 

idea to make it memorable and distinctive. 

The final stage of Woo is to secure both indivi 

vidual and organizational commitments. “One of 

the most common mistakes people make in selli 

ing ideas,” says Shell, “is to think that their job is 

finished once they succeed in getting someone to 

say ‘yes’ to their proposal. That’s only the beginni 

ning. Research shows that in most organizations, 

a minimum of eight people will need to sign off on 

even simple ideas. The number goes up from there. 

So after you move the individual, you also have to 

move the organization.” 

Shell and Moussa use a number of cases from 

business history to illustrate this point. For exampi 

ple, they tell the story of Charles F. Kettering, a brilli 

liant inventor and engineer from the 1930s whom 

many consider an equal of Thomas Edison. Ketteri 

ing invented such things as the automatic transmi 

mission and safety plate glass, but one of his best 

ideas — the air-cooled automobile engine— sat on 

the shelf for decades until the Volkswagen Beetle 

incorporated it. 

Kettering convinced Alfred Sloan, GM’s top exei 

ecutive, that producing the air-cooled engine was 

a good idea, and the company’s executive committi 

tee gave the go-ahead to make a limited number of 

cars with the prototype. But instead of following 

the idea through, Kettering went back to his lab to 

concentrate on the technical aspects of the project. 

The committee handed the production assignment 

to the Chevrolet division, whose top managers had 

never been brought into the persuasion process. 

They let the idea languish and it was eventually 

abandoned. “Kettering made a fundamental misti 

take: He didn’t follow up and keep the pressure on,” 

Shell notes. “He didn’t do the political coalitionbuilding 

needed to implement his idea.” 

Andy Grove’s ‘Constructive Confrontation’ 

Individual personality plays a key role in how 

you influence others, Shell adds. The book therefi 

fore includes two personalized “diagnostic” tests 

that readers can take to discover their persuasion 

strengths and weaknesses. One of the diagnostics 

is the “Six Channels Survey,” which is designed to 

help people learn which of the key channels of infi 

fluence they feel compelled to use most often at 

work and which they would prefer to use if given a 

choice. These channels include Authority, Rationai 

ality, Vision, Relationships, Interests and Politics. 

The idea is to help readers understand both how 

these six channels work and when they should adji 

just their pitch — as Bono did with Senator Helms 

and Mandela did on Robben Island— to appeal to 

different kinds of audiences. 

A second self-administered test, the Persuasion 

Styles Assessment, helps readers determine the degi 

grees of assertiveness and natural social intelligence 

they bring to the idea-selling process. The authors 

point out that there is no one “correct” style of persuasi 

sion; rather, the key is being self-aware so you know 

how you perform and how others will perceive you. 

For example, Shell and Moussa illustrate the “Drivei 

er” style (a highly assertive type who gives only limited 

attention to the social environment) by examining 

how Intel CEO Andy Grove managed the persuasion 

process at Intel during his years as that company’s 

leader. Labeled the “screamer,” Grove could be inti 

timidating to people who didn’t know him well. But 

he was also willing to listen if people stood up to him 

and matched his passion. 

To facilitate communication, Grove instituted what 

he called a culture of “constructive confrontation” that 

freed everyone to be as blunt and assertive as he was. 

The result was a high-stress environment, but one in 

which everyone could speak their minds. 

The Art of Woo goes on to describe four other disti 

tinctive styles with examples drawn from business 

history. Banker J. P. Morgan is given as the model for 

the Commander (a Grove-like person who has a quiei 

eter demeanor), John D. Rockefeller exemplifies the 

Chess Player (a quieter person who attends strategici 

cally to the social environment), Andrew Carnegie’s 

life provides the example for the Promoter style (a 

gregarious type who uses high levels of social intelli 

ligence), and Sam Walton is the model for the style 

that strikes the balance among all the others — the 

Advocate. 

Three Typical Mistakes 

Both Shell and Moussa have wide experience in the 

area of negotiations. Shell is director of Wharton Exei 

ecutive Education’s Negotiation Workshop and author 

of Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies 

for Reasonable People. Moussa teaches executive edui 

ucation courses on negotiation and organisational 

change and is head of the Negotiation Practice Group 

at management consulting firm CFAR (the Center for 

Applied Research). 

This year, Shell and Moussa launched a new Wharti 

ton Executive Education programme called the Strati 

tegic Persuasion Workshop. 

The idea for the book arose from the comments 

of executive education participants who frequently 

spoke about internal negotiation problems they were 

facing in their companies. These conversations gave 

the authors the idea to “talk about persuasion inside 

organizations, with a focus on selling ideas,” says Shell. 

“We had a laser beam into the crisis moment when 

you’re sitting at the table and you’ve got an idea or 

an initiative or a programme, and you’re trying to get 

buy-in from a decision maker. From there, we built 

out the strategic process that can prepare you for that 

moment in the best possible way. By doing that, we 

were able to identify the key personality traits that 

great persuaders share and develop the diagnostic 

surveys to help people gain insights into their own 

styles and approaches.” 

A second mistake is the belief 

that there are no systematic 

ways to persuade people to 

accept an idea. “A lot of people 

just wing it, thinking they can 

count on their own experience 

and instinctive powers of 

persuasion to carry the day 

Asked what the top three mistakes are that people 

make in selling ideas, Shell notes that the number 

one-error is “egocentric bias,” or “focusing on yoursi 

self instead of your audience. People assume that the 

person they are trying to sell on their idea is just like 

them, that he or she has the same primary goals and 

frame of reference, and that what they are talking 

about is important to the other side. But other people 

may not care at all about what is important to you.... 

It’s a killer assumption.” 

A second mistake is the belief that there are no systi 

tematic ways to persuade people to accept an idea. “A 

lot of people just wing it, thinking they can count on 

their own experience and instinctive powers of persi 

suasion to carry the day,” says Shell. “But in fact, you do 

need a strategy. That is what this book is about.” 

The third most common error is to forget about 

organizational politics, as Charles Kettering did at 

General Motors. “Whenever a new idea might affect 

resources, power, control or turf,” Shell says, “politics 

will be part of the problem at the implementation 

stage. You need to prepare an idea-selling campaign, 

not just a presentation.” 

The authors suggest that people working in any 

group — from the largest Fortune 500 company to an 

entrepreneurial startup — can benefit from improving 

their skills at the art of persuasion. As Shell notes: “Infi 

fluencing others in an organization to accept and act 

on your ideas is a challenge that never goes away.” 

This article was first published by Knowledge@Whart 

ton. It has been republished with special permission 


XXIV BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAy, OCTOBER 26, 2007 


BOOK REVIEW 

Exploring the role good judgement plays in leadership 

It’s hard to say what makes a 

good leader. Charisma and inti 

telligence are, of course, importi 

tant, as is character. 

But just as vital is good 

judgment. It is the quality that guides 

leaders in knowing which opportuniti 

ties to pursue, what people to hire and 

how to mold cohesive organizations. 

Without good judgment, charismatic 

and intelligent leaders will lead their 

organization down the wrong path—or 

start down the right one, only to find 

that no one is following them. 

So just what is good judgment Is it 

innate or can it be taught And if it can 

be learned, how does one study it 

In Know-How: The 8 Skills That 

Separate People Who Perform from 

Those Who Don’t, author Ram Chari 

ran offers a blueprint for developing 

good organizational judgment. The 

well-known consultant and guest facui 

ulty with Emory’s Executive Developmi 

ment Programs, analyzes the importi 

tance of good judgment then breaks it 

down into eight skill sets. These skills 

are elemental ways of looking at the 

business world and interacting with it. 

By honing these skills, or know-hows, 

developing leaders will improve the 

way they work and think. 

The first know-how he describes is 

positioning. This is the choice of goods 

or services, markets or possibilities on 

which a business focuses. The most elemi 

mental of Charan’s know-hows, though 

possibly the most difficult to achieve in 

this time of quickly evolving technologi 

gies, are markets and business modei 

els. “The essence of the know-how of 

positioning is to know when a change 

needs to be made,” he says, “to determi 

mine the shape of the change, and to 

tightly link it with the fundamentals 

of moneymaking.” 

Charan cites some early warning 

signs that indicate an organization 

should reposition itself. They include 

the rise of new businesses, customers 

and nontraditional competitors, as well 

as changes in consumption patterns 

or the positioning of a key competitor 

and the emergence of new business or 

management models. 

In the course of a forty-five year cari 

reer, a business leader will reposition 

four or five organizations, estimates 

Charan. Each repositioning will be 

wrenching but should eventually leave 

his or her organization in a sounder posi 

sition. These moves also may open an 

organization to new opportunities. 

The trick is knowing when to reposi 

sition and when to ignore changes in 

a business’s operating environment. 

This is the subject of Charan’s second 

know-how, which he calls connecting 

the dots. Leaders who excel at this skill 

discern trends and predict their effects. 

They recognize when a change will be 

fleeting, how another may harm their 

organizations, and what opportunities 

a third may offer. 

Charan provides questions that 

leaders should ask themselves to deti 

tect and analyze changes in their operai 

ating landscape. He also advises them 

to examine their own predispositions. 

Are they overly optimistic or pessimisti 

tic Do they take unnecessary chances 

or avoid risk Charan points out that 

leaders cannot assess the world outside 

if they’re not accurately attuned to the 

person within. 

Insightful leaders need effective orgi 

ganizations, and leaders who have not 

inherited effective organizations must 

build them. Charan’s third know-how 

is getting people to work together, also 

known as herding cats. In poorly led 

organizations, departments distrust 

each other and hoard information. 

Divisions protect their turf, and no 

one tells the CEO what he or she reai 

ally thinks. Savvy leaders root out and 

eliminate these dysfunctional behavi 

iors by using rewards, punishments, 

and good examples. 

No one person, though, can change 

an organization single-handedly. Chari 

ran’s fourth know-how describes how 

to develop a team of leaders who will 

ensure that the organization runs effecti 

tively and aligns itself with corporate 

goals. He offers guidelines for spotting 

and grooming such leaders and stori 

ries of how various CEOs have practi 

ticed this skill. Indeed, Know-How is 

filled with stories drawn from Charan’s 

professional experience working with 

CEOs of major corporations. These 

glimpses into the trials and successes 

of the corner office provide both inspiri 

ration and insights into the application 

of his ideas. Charan’s fifth skill is team 

building. The first step in this knowhow 

is disseminating information so 

“every member of the team masters the 

basics of the business: its markets, marki 

ket segmentation, customers, and buyi 

ing behaviors; the nature of the compi 

petition; and what drives or inhibits 

the ability to make money.” 

This article was first published by 

Knowledge@Wharton. It has been 

republished with special permission

The Edge - Strathmore University

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