Customer Reviews

Results-Based Leadership

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

"The quest to become a more effective leader will neither begin nor end with this work. However, we want to shift how to think about and become a better leader. It is faddish to think of leaders as people who master competencies and emanate character. While agreeing with this perspective, we believe that it falls short of assuring that leaders lead. Leaders do much more than demonstrate attributes. Effective leaders get results. This book refocuses and reframes the search for effective leadership by connecting attributes to results...By so doing, this book makes a bold statement about the next generation of leadership thinking. This does not mean less attention to the leader's attributes, but it does mean making sure that leaders understand and commit to the results they must produce-and how they are produced" (pp.1-23).

In this context, D.Ulrich, J.Zenger, and N.Smallwood suggest the following fourteen specific actions described in Chapter 7 can help leaders make results a major part of their leadership equation, at whatever level they function in their companies:

1. Begin with an absolute focus on results.

2. Take complete and personal responsibility for your group's results.

3. Clearly and specifically communicate expectations and targets to the people in your group.

4. Determine what you need to do personally to improve your results.

5. Use results as the litmus test for continuing or implementing leadership practice.

6. Engage in developmental activities and opportunities that will help you produce better results.

7. Know and use every group member's capabilities to the fullest and provide everyone with appropriate developmental opportunities.

8. Experiment and innovate in every realm under your influence, looking constantly for new ways to improve performance.

9. Measure the right standards and increase the rigor with which you measure them.

10. Cnstantly take action; results won't improve without it.

11. Increase the pace or tempo of your group.

12. Seek feedback from others in the organization about ways you and your group can improve your outcomes.

13. Ensure that your subordinates and colleagues perceive that your motivation for being a leader is the achievement of positive results, not personal or political gain.

14. Model the methods and strive for the results you want your group to use and attain.

Ulrich, Zenger, and Smallwood argue that these suggestions which may be implemented right now by any leader occupying any position, will modify behavior and improve performance- all without a month-long absence from work or expenditures of large sums of money.

Highly recommended.

The authors have done a wonderful job in advancing the position that results -- not just characteristics -- matter. This bottom-line approach to management, as explained well in the text, is a boon for customers and employees alike. Congrats for a well-written work.

As a companion to this must-have book, I recommend a couple that I recently read and use extensively (even though they advance leadership from a different angle): the original "Seven Habits" and the newer "The Leader's Guide: 15 Essential Skills."

Working with other co-authors, Ulrich has produced a book that is rich in tables that bring together areas that require managerial or leadership attention, identify the key points for attention and suggest measures of success. Little of the content is particularly new or surprising and there are some notable gaps (see below), but the book may be worth getting for the frameworks, tables, figures and 'instruments' alone. The authors have worked hard to produce a book that is thoroughly user friendly without being simplistic, and they have succeeded well. It is however, somewhat 'slick' for my taste and it definitely belongs to the world we are leaving rather than the world to which we are moving.

I have three criticisms.

There is a strong whiff of setting up a 'straw man' so that they can knock it down while building their case. I do not have any sense that other writers have unduly neglected results in writing about leadership attributes and the authors' insistence on that alleged failure gets a bit tedious. A related aspect of the same issue is that the author team is at least as good at marketing gimmickry as it is at building tables and figures. "Leadership" and "results" are two words of known selling power and they are used to the point of distraction. For this reader, the resulting 'hard sell' style casts a bit of a shadow over the authority of the work as a whole and contributes to the excessive glorification of 'leaders' as the source of all success that seems to be endemic at present.

Much more important is a major gap in the range of leadership concerns covered. They devote a chapter to each of four major groups of stakeholders: employees, the organisation, customers and investors. There is no mention at all of society, the community or the environment as stakeholders, yet any substantial organisation ignores that very important group of stakeholders at their peril.

Similarly there is little direct mention of other critically important areas for leadership attention, for example their role in nurturing the supply chain, or in managing the technologically driven step changes so well described in Baghai et al: The Alchemy of Growth. While there is some brief discussion of alternative processes for developing strategies the essential leadership role of developing strategic direction is also treated very cursorily.

The third criticism is more subtle. Concern with results necessarily means concern with measurement or assessment. The authors in general deal quite well with the issue of establishing measures of results across a range of areas concerning their four chosen groups of stakeholders and recognise the importance of qualitative as well as quantitative measures. I think they should have given more attention to the associated risk of giving inadequate attention to things that are hard to measure just because measurement is difficult. One of the great societal questions at the moment is how we value things - like the environment and community harmony - that can not easily be expressed in terms of money. Defining and measuring balanced results is getting much harder, not easier, whether at a societal or an organisational level. It involves wisdom, not just skill, and any book that seeks to relate leadership to results should directly recognise that and directly address it.

So what you have is a book that solves the problems of the 80's and 90's rather than one that addresses the dominant concerns of the next century. But within its own framework, the book does quite a good job.

I have read close to 100 management and leadership books and found this to be one of the best. It stands apart because it looks at both halves required for leadership, whereas most of the other books focus on one or the other. The halves are Results and Character. The authors also provide a framework called the Model of Balanced Outcomes, which I am actually using in my organization. In fact, I just completed a diagnostic and prescriptive paper for my MBA program, which focused completely on this model. This book is one of the few that provides practical application without a whole lot of theoretical mumbo jumbo. Highly recommended!

I read and re-read Results-Based Leadership over the fourth of July weekend, along with some additional materials provided by Provant, and I truly believe this book is a major management 'hit'! I took 50 pps of notes, and even bought a copy for a friend of mine (truly a rare event) who is about to start up a major division for a large local firm. I love the way the authors integrated Kaplan's Business Scorecard Process with the Leadership Development process. Truly a marriage of employee development and strategic 'results'. The 'so that' and 'because of' virtuous cycle is especially clever. I've subtitled the book 'The Missing Linkage'. You've solved so many conceptual issues I've had over the years that I felt that I was reading the 'Rosetta' stone.

The authors provide valuable insights on the true nature of being an effective leader. The ability to show the linkage of results and attributes provides a substantial move forward for the leadership field. This book is an important read for leaders at all levels organizations from senior executives through team leaders. It will enable these leaders to find a strategic line of sight for their leadership actions and get results.

Together with Kotter's "Leading Change" and Fogg's "Implementing Your Strategic Plan," this is one of the best books ever written on leadership and strategy implementation. Contrary to what an earlier reviewer stated, this book only mention's Enron on two pages (out of 234). And, in each instance, is very specific about what can be learned from the ill-fated company (this book is far from a "cheerleading session" for Enron). Instead, the book focuses on the mechanics of leadership and strategy implementation. As a strategy consultant, I find myself recommending this book to clients again and again. I believe it should be a part of any serious manager's business library -- particularly if you are a senior manager. Overall grade: A/A+.

Successfully integrates and builds on the best of balanced scorecard objective setting and leadership competency development practices. Recognizes the criticality of aligning organization systems with desired results to establish an environment within which leaders can excel. An innovative conceptual framework combined with practical implementation guidelines. Best current thinking on what it takes to create and strengthen a leadership brand that achieves superior business results.

Argues that personal attributes - character, style and values - work in combination with results that are measurable to equate to effective leadership. Following a discussion of quintessential attributes, the authors examine leadership in terms of the employee, organization, customer, and investor results.

The touchstone of the work is the formula: effective leadership equals attributes x results. This is a thoughtful work that primarily probes the "results" side of this equation.

The emphasis on results is a refreshing change of pace from the garden-variety leadership publication. For anyone searching for a work of substance on a subject of supreme import-leadership-this is a book worthy of your attention. Reviewed by Yvette Borcia, Managing Partner, Stern & Associates, co-author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

The authors do a good job of showing how to focus on results rather than activity -- an important issue in today's corporate environment. However, if this is a concern, then I think it's also valuable to read RESPONSIBLE MANAGERS GET RESULTS, by Gerald Faust et. al. Taken together these two books provide both an informative and entertaining look at the challenges of producing results.