OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (3): WHAT HAPPENS BEFORE (THE ANTECEDENTS) IS IMPORTANT

The improvement process cannot overlook what happens before the act of learning. Improving performance by acting on behaviors can be done with work on two aspects: 1. on what occurs before it (antecedents); or 2. on what occurs after it (consequences). We are going to refer to antecedents in this section, leaving consequences for the next one.

Inside the organization, an antecedent is any person, place, thing or situation which arises prior to a behavior and drives us to execute that behavior. Antecedents may be of various types (Lopez Mena, 1989: indicators (‘prompting’), modeling, goal-setting and participation; they serve to transmit information (about behavior and its consequences) and ‘work’ because they are associated with the consequences. In the case of managerial leadership, we would like to highlight two of these antecedents: one with an attributional character (subject’s dispositional states) and another of a more social nature (modeling).

The first one of them has a lot to do with beliefs about change. The subject’s mental condition and other attributional variables are related to beliefs about change. A number of studies by Heslin, VandeWalle & Latham (2006) have shown that many managers do not believe in personal change. Some managers believe in natural talent and do not look for people with a potential to develop. However, good managers do believe in their collaborators’ unlimited capacity to improve. Everything can be acquired with the right training (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999). For W. Bennis (1989), most great leaders believe that a leader is made, not born, and is made to a greater extent by themselves than through media that are external to them. Gilbert (1978) claims that the average manager’s overcoming potential is 360%. Any person, of any age and in any circumstances, is able to carry out self-transformation (which is not the same as becoming a leader).

A lot of corporative training will have little value without a strong belief in the development of human beings. McCall (1998) believed that the real leaders of the future are those who have the ability to learn from their experiences and remain open to continuous learning. Carol Dweck (2006) has faithfully collected this idea in her research on ‘mindset’ when she draws a distinction between two groups of individuals: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset ones. The former think that intelligence is static, which leads to a tendency to avoid changes, to adopt a defensive attitude before obstacles, to see effort as something useless, to ignore the useful feedback from others, to feel threatened by other people’s success and as a result of all this, to be unable to develop their whole potential. Instead, the latter believe that intelligence can be developed, which leads to a permanent wish to learn and a tendency to desire changes, to persist in overcoming hindrances, to see effort as the way to mastery, to learn from criticism and find inspiring lessons in other people’s success. The most important lesson in this respect is that the ‘growth mindset’ can be taught to managers. Dr. Dweck has created workshops called “brainology” which have as their aim to develop the ‘growth mindset.’

The second one of the antecedents we referred to above, modeling, has been used for the training of managers (Sims & Manz, 1982) and has proved its effectiveness as a form of learning. It is based on the fact that managers learn through the observation of other managers’ behaviors (models) which constitute an important set of antecedents for behavior that is valuable for its frequency of appearance. Modeling is possible through four sets of learning activities: modeling strictly speaking, role game, social reinforcement and training transfer or generalization (Goldstein & Sorcher, 1974). The observation of the right behavior, its practice and the achievement of positive feedback has proved very useful in the development of management and problem-discussion skills. 

OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (3): IT IS NECESSARY TO WORK HARD

Leadership development under the talent model we propose includes designing and performing the actions which allow us to pass from the initial state to a situation where we can exercise talent (mastery). A process of active learning which produces increase in a specific expertise domain is needed to reach a high level of achievement in the exercise of leadership. But leader thinking is a complex phenomenon, and leadership cannot be developed through a single, short-term intervention. It requires a progressive and sequential series of interventions.

Becoming competent in a field requires a suitable intervention program and a considerable dose of work, effort and motivation for achievement and excellence (Touron, 2001). In his change model, McClelland (1985) suggests going through at least six stages when an attempt is made to change a set of behaviors. From a behavioral perspective, specialists speak about going through at least five stops (Luthans & Kreitner, 1985).

The adoption of a training approach in which effort and continuity are combined can guarantee the level of dedication that will permit to reach mastery at a certain skill or a considerable improvement in highly demanding tasks (Tannenbaum, 1993). The knowledge about the field of expert performance provided by Professor A. Ericsson and his team, gives us the patterns to define how this type of training is going to be implemented. Studies in a variety of domains have provided us with lessons learnt from expert research (Colvin, 2008):

1. Expertise requires extensive practice. High levels of expertise demand years of practice. Productive talent in any area, and this includes leadership, becomes evident in achievements that take years or months to be reached. Someone has even quantified the amount of effort required. It is approximately 10,000 hours. We need an intensive activity within a specific area where highly positive results and exceptional performances can be obtained, a full 8-to-10-hour working day for about 10 years (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Romer, 1993).

2. Expertise is domain-specific. Fields of expertise are very narrow, because expertise relies on a large body of specific knowledge accumulated over time in memory. That knowledge stored in the memory is the basis for expertise.

3. Expertise requires deliberate practice. The key activity for the acquisition of expert performance is deliberate practice, which implies a tiring, intensive routine of training activities designed for the sole purpose of improving the current action levels (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). The core assumption of deliberate practice is that expert performance is acquired gradually and that the effective improvement of performance requires the opportunity to find suitable training tasks that the performer can master sequentially-typically. The design of training tasks along with the monitoring of the attained performance is done by a teacher or a coach (Ericsson, 2006). The effects of mere experience (routine practice) differ to a great extent from those of deliberate practice. This is specifically tailored to improve their performance and requires a concentration that can be maintained only for a limited period of time.

4. Experts see with different eyes, and then choose the most appropriate strategies to solve problems or improve performance. Building expertise is training the brain to see problems through the eyes of an expert.

5. Experts can get stuck, can be inflexible, and they can have trouble adapting to new problems.

6. Expertise grows from two intelligences. Crystallized and fluid abilities must and can be developed, initially through direct instruction and thanks to cooperative learning by means of learning projects that emphasize abstraction (Neitfeld, Finney, Schraw & McCrudden, 2007).

7. Challenging problems require diverse expertise. Most of the problems faced by large organizations are complex enough to require diverse expertise. Innovation will increasingly depend on what psychologists call ‘distribution cognition’ (for example work teams). It is necessary to consider not only training but also other vehicles for the leveraging of diverse skills. The evolution of web 2.0 with social software such as wikis opens new channels for distributed expertise in organizations.

Leadership development must become a systematic process, not an event. Perhaps the most meaningful principle is that successful leadership development depends more on consistent implementation than on the use of innovative practices (Day & Halpin, 2001). Leadership development is an investment in the future and it is important to recognize that it may take years before dividends are realized. But only few managers are willing to maintain the effort. As is pointed out by Zenger & Folkman (2002), leaders initially go through a period of great learning, but once they have learnt the basic aspects, they no longer try to improve. They are satisfied with doing their job properly enough instead of wishing to become better leaders.

Cognitive and personal competencies modulate the speed of change within this tiring learning process. Among them, self-regulation processes largely contribute to producing permanence in behaviors leading to managers’ goals. Self-evaluation and monitoring; goal setting and strategic planning; strategy implementation and monitoring, and strategic outcome monitoring constitute the ‘steps’ of self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 1996). Self-control and the ability to face the obstacles appearing on the way equally form part of the behaviors which facilitate the improvement process. In this sense, specific practices about how to take self-talks into account (Makin & Cox, 2004); overcoming procrastination (Zeigarnik, 2007), using training in self-instructions or double thinking (Oettingen & Mayers, 2002) can also be helpful to reinforce self-regulated behavior and focalize training toward the outcomes sought.

OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (2)

In addition to the method itself, there are other variables which come into play when defining the effectiveness of a managerial development program. After analyzing the best programs created by organizations and business schools for leadership development, the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations –an independent body formed by experts from the academic world, the business world and the administration like Richard Boyatzis, Lyle Spencer or Daniel Goleman– concludes that managerial leadership is a process and as such it requires time and the need to consider competencies as the object of improvement. Furthermore, they construct a decalogue on what has to be done in order to achieve success in this field: (1) focusing on the competencies who have proved to be critical for success in the position; (2) evaluating a person’s competencies through an external, objective vision like 360º assessment; (3) identifying the personal weaknesses that will act as the foundations of the development process, apart from the improvement opportunities; (4) taking into account that we adults only learn when we have a motivation to do so (achieving our personal aims); (5) ensuring that development is self-guided; (6) focusing on realistic development objectives; (7) defining a clear action plan; (8) assuming that improving competencies takes time (it is impossible to achieve sustainable changes before 6 months have elapsed); (9) providing external support which can reinforce or encourage the sustained practice of new behaviors; and (10) measuring changes in competencies and performance using valid methods.

As we said above, it is not so important to have a ‘best practice’ which leads to the successful development of leadership as to implement whichever it is, but in a consistent way. Moreover, the search for the key operational principles which enable us to perform managerial development strategies which suit the requirements of the new economy environment may start from the demonstrated high-performance practices which have been functioning until the present day, but it cannot stop there, it must go beyond. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce new formats within the learning methodologies which permit the accelerated acquisition of competencies that make it possible to go from strategy to action as quickly as possible. Acceleration of expertise can be achieved when training is designed on the basis of human psychological learning processes (Colvin, 2008). These learning accelerators revolve around the guidelines that we are going to describe below.

OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (1)

Urgency in the workplace has had a dramatic impact on the velocity of business change. Companies in every industry, not just high-tech, need to accomplish more in less time. The response time available to fend off competitors is approaching zero. The best way for managers to add value is to reduce the time it takes employees to learn and apply the skills and information needed to compete in the new mercurial marketplace. Leadership development must be accelerated. The idea is to create and display ‘expertise’ more efficiently so that we can achieve the aims required by the increasingly demanding organizations. The traditional learning methods are no longer appropriate. The new economy leaders need to learn in different ways, deciding what to learn, when and how.

The method used to develop leadership within this display process becomes especially relevant. Training programs are commonly designed using multiple training techniques and multiple outcome measures (Conger & Benjamin, 1999). Among them, on-the-job training (93%) and external seminars (90%) have usually led the rankings of most frequently utilized methods (Saari, Johnson, Mclaughlin & Zimmerle, 1998). A wide variety of formal training programs are occurring in organizations: formal training continues to be the primary type of managerial leadership development intervention, while job assignment remains a close second (Collins, 2001). In recent times, development through job experiences, such as on-the-job-training, job-performance evaluations and feedback programs, participation in special projects or task forces, coaching or mentoring, job rotation, succession planning, and career planning have emerged as a powerful source of learning for managers (McCauley & Brutus, 1998). Other activities like action learning and 360-degree feedback are increasingly key elements of leadership development initiatives.

Despite this variety of methods and their evident influence on leadership programs, it was not easy to quantify the effectiveness corresponding to each one of them. It even seems that the choice of a type of method is not the most important thing. Day & Halpin (2001) found that the best organizations combined these techniques in some way or other, so that the most effective system actually seemed to be a function of the interdependence of several practices.

EL ENCAJE DEL TALENTO

La gestión del talento en las organizaciones en un proceso complejo en el que se debe tener en cuenta:

1. Que hacer con las personas en mi organización: atraer, mantener o desarrollar.
2. A qué colectivo pertenecen esas personas: base, mandos o directivos y
3. Cual es el nivel de análisis de los procesos de gestión que debo realizar: individual, grupal u organizacional.

La combinación de estas dimensiones nos proporciona un modelo que nos hace ver la complejidad y al mismo tiempo la necesidad de ajustar los programas a las necesidades organizacionales y a las de nuestros clientes: las personas.

Las diferentes combinaciones de estas dimensiones, pueden originar resultados que fluyan en donde todos los colores coincidan en sus caras respectivas o pueden originar soluciones incompletas que al menos en apariencia representan el caos. Conseguir el encaje de todas ellas, se convierte en un reto similar a terminar el cubo de Rubik en un tiempo cada vez menor.

La motivación en el trabajo (3)

Las personas más felices y más exitosas, son aquellas que siguen sus sueños y aplican sus cualidades en una organización, de forma que sus  sueños y cualidades puedan desarrollarse.

Para conseguir un estado de rendimiento óptimo (flow)  hay una serie de recomendaciones:

1. Aprender a cooperar y trabajar en equipo. Los trabajadores más exitosos y completos son aquellos que recuerdan que no están solos en su trabajo ni en su vida. Toda la gente tiene sueños, objetivos y deseos en su carrera y su vida. Las personas que saben trabajar con otros, les preguntan a los demás como piensan y como se sienten. Ayudan a los demás a progresar y se ayudan así a ellos mismos.

 2. Aprender a comunicarse con los compañeros. Hay que saber hacerse entender (tanto personalmente como por escrito). Hay que aprender a escuchar. La habilidad para comunicarse, es seguramente el mejor pronóstico de éxito en cualquier campo.

 3. No hay que dejar de crecer continuamente en el trabajo. Hay que seguir aprendiendo de forma permanente. La gente exitosa, no está satisfecha de sí misma, está interesada en ampliar su experiencia y progresar en nuevas áreas y siempre trar de expandir su esfera de competencia y responsabilidad, porque tiene una curiosidad sincera y un deseo de explorar más allá de su terreno habitual. Toman clases, asisten a seminarios, leen mucho, hacen preguntas y no dudan en probar nuevas habilidades.

 4. Disfrutar del trabajo dentro y fuera de él.  La gente de éxito dice: “el trabajo me gusta, es divertido”. Las personas se pueden realizar y estar orgullosas con su trabajo. Sin embargo, el trabajo, no es solo algo que nos gratifica profesionalmente sino que nos entretiene. Por ello, no hay que estar obsesionado por el trabajo, no hay que ser un adicto al trabajo, porque hay que atender y disfrutar con los demás aspectos de la vida. Hay que recargar las baterias para llegar al trabajo renovado, hay que disfrutar tambien con la familia, con los amigos y con uno mismo y

 5. Buscar nuevas maneras de hacer las cosas. Cualquier tipo de trabajo, plantea desafios. Todos podemos expresar nuestra creatividad en el puesto de trabajo. Nuestro trabajo, se desarrolla con nosotros mismos, lleva algo de nosotros, de nuestras ideas y modo de hacer las cosas. Podemos dejar nuestra huella en él.

Las personas que disfrutan de su trabajo, sienten que son utiles y responsables de producir cambios en la empresa y en la sociedad.

La motivación en el trabajo, de nuevo (2).

Un segundo aspecto, a considerar, viene definido por las características de las situaciones que nos atraen. A. C. Daniels (1993) al comparar el trabajo con el deporte, establece porqué un deporte como el juego de bolos (o el futbol), puede ser tan gratificante para las personas:

Están definidas las responsabilidades específicas de cada uno de los jugadores.

Se práctica el Trabajo en Equipo: los miembros del equipo se ayudan entre sí.

Se proporcionan resultados medibles (el marcador de la partida está presente en cada momento).

Existen metas retadoras pero alcanzables. Aunque la meta sea ganar el partido, existen metas intermedias, como meter un gol.

Hay una retroalimentación inmediata. Se puede ver cual es el desempeño de cada jugador en cada momento, su posición y qué dirección debe seguir para mejorar.

Los jugadores reciben refuerzos positivos por parte de los compañeros, de los aficionados y de los entrenadores. Se aplaude, se felicita y se celebran de muchas maneras. ¿Es este el aspecto más ausente den le trabajo?.

Se enfatiza sobre el comportamiento. No solo se refuerza el resultado, sino el comportamiento que conduce al resultado (una buena jugada...).

En el trabajo, pasamos más de la tercera parte de nuestra vida. Si no estamos satisfechos con lo que hacemos, estamos deteriorando nuestra calidad de vida, nos sentimos irritados, resentidos y frustrados. El sentimiento de dar algo de uno mismo sin recibir algo equivalente a cambio, consume nuestra energía, socava nuestras motivaciones y nos empequeñece.

En cambio, un trabajo con el que disfrutamos, compromete nuestras pasiones además de nuestras habilidades personales. Quien es feliz en el trabajo y disfruta de él, tiene más probabilidades de ser feliz fuera del trabajo y de amar la vida en su totalidad.

Pero, ¿Es posible disfrutar con nuestro trabajo?.

La motivación en el trabajo, de nuevo (1).

¿Cómo es posible, que las personas, podamos pasar horas enteras dedicadas a actividades  como tomar copas, hablar con los amigos, practicar deportes o simplemente no hacer nada y en cambio sintamos un rechazo tal al trabajo, que preferiríamos que los lunes no existieran?. En apariencia, puede ser difícil de entender, que actividades como las del primer tipo, que nos desgastan, y agotan y por las que no recibimos ninguna cantidad de dinero por realizarlas, sena deseadas por nosotros frente a las actividades del segundo tipo, que si nos proporcionan dinero. ¿Es tan malo realizar nuestro trabajo, que nos tienen que pagar por realizarlo?. ¿Qué es lo que diferencia a ambos tipos de actividad de modo que odiemos hacer una de ellas y deseemos hacer la otra?. ¿Se puede hacer algo para que las personas desean estar trabajando?.

Los gerentes se plantean muy a menudo como conseguir que las personas se implique más en el trabajo sin tener que pagar más dinero y sin proporcionar ascensos. Los empleados por su parte, cuando son preguntados suelen indicar como deseos y metas profesionales ganar más dinero o promocionarse. Existen entonce un choque de intereses entre lo que piensan los gerentes y lo que piensan los trabajadores. 

¿Qué se puede hacer desde recursos humanos para solucionar este problema?.

Este tipo de cuestiones, nos conduce a plantearnos un tema clásico en el campo de la Psicología de las Organizaciones: La motivación. ¿Por qué trabaja la gente?. Sin revisar los diferentes enfoques que han intentado explicar qué es lo que mueve a las personas, en este artículo, vamos a presentar en forma de modelo un resumen de las principales variables que determinan nuestra actuación en el puesto de trabajo.

Un primer aspecto que nos puede conducir a la solución, es aceptar como principio, que el dinero no es lo que mueve al ser humano. Si fuera así, pasaríamos más tiempo trabajando para conseguir más dinero, en lugar de estar con los amigos jugando una partida de domino por ejemplo.

Continuará.........