Richard Dool - Leaderocity TM: Leading at the Speed of Now

Leaderocity

Leaderocity

Leading at the Speed of Now

Richard Dool, DMgt.

Co-authors

Leaderocity: Leading at the Speed of Now
2021 by Richard Dool

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a published review.

First published in 2021 by
Business Expert Press, LLC
222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017
www.businessexpertpress.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-95334-936-1 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-95334-937-8 (e-book)

Business Expert Press Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior Collection

Collection ISSN: 1946-5637 (print)
Collection ISSN: 1946-5645 (electronic)

Cover image licensed by Ingram Image, StockPhotoSecrets.com
Chapter Icons by: Ngwa Numfor
Cover and interior design by S4Carlisle Publishing Services Private Ltd., Chennai, India

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Printed in the United States of America.

Technology, globalization, and the accelerating pace of change have yielded chaotic markets, fierce competition, and unpredictable staff requirements.

Bruce Tulgan

Dedication

We hope this book adds to the body of leadership literature in a manner that enables todays leaders or aspiring leaders to use our thoughts on the competencies needed to lead effectively in this century to enhance their brand and practices.

Leaders need to be lifelong learners to stay current or to even get ahead. Leadership has been studied for over a hundred years in the United States and remains a dynamic, ever-shifting field. Our book is intended to offer a set of competencies that leaders can reflect on and potentially deploy. There is no magic formula, leadership is often both contextual and situational. The best leaders deploy their competencies in a tailored manner leveraging their strengths and complementing their lesser skills.

We offer our set of 10 competencies to be considered based on our research, experiences, and more than 30 interviews with current leaders.

It is not meant to be prescriptive, more for consideration by each leader to assess and reflect on their own leadership values, brand, and practices and to decide if what we offer in this book can add to them. We hope both current and aspiring leaders consider our selected competencies and put them into action in a manner that is tailored, personal, and authentic.

To this end we include in each chapter our definition and rationale for each competency as well as what others are saying about it academics and professionals. We also include trends and situations that demand each competency, as well as suggestions on how to assess, develop, and enhance each competency.

Abstract

This book explores the intersections between leadership and velocity (the speed of now) to identify key leadership competencies needed for the 21st Century. We offer a set of ten competencies that may serve as a foundation of effective leadership that emerged from our experiences, interviews with 30 leaders and research. These competencies may be especially timely in the midst of the global COVID-19 crisis and the need for effective leadership at all levels. We can see both the critical need for these competencies as well as the stark contrasts in practice those leaders who are rising to the moment and others whose lacking is disappointingly notable. We hope this book may enable leaders to establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices.

Keywords

Leadership, management, vision, purpose, exemplar, talent manager, change agent, producer, coach, mentor, diversity, multicultural, connector, advocate, ambassador, inclusion, exemplar, producer, talent manager, leadership competencies

Contents

This book had its genesis in my time as an executive with General Electric, the company that has long been acclaimed for its leadership development. Venerable behemoths like GE, IBM, P&G, and McKinsey have historically been viewed as CEO factories; indeed, 20.5 percent of all CEOs appointed at the S&P 1500 firms from 1992 to 2010 came from 36 CEO factories such as these, with GE being the largest (Botelho and Kos, 2020). GEs famed Crotonville Learning Center in NY has been developing GE leaders since the 1950s. Twelve thousand employees are trained each year in an array of leadership development programs. CEO magazine named GE one of the Best Companies for Leadership in 2016.

GE recognized that some of its leadership development content and activities were dated and needed a significant refresh to meet the global demands that GE was facing. A GE executive noted: A key Crotonville focus, says GEs Leimonitis, is around what 21st-century leadership looks like, at a time of such disruption and when multiple generations are entering the workforce (Nicholls, 2017).

GE conducted a multiyear study to update and refresh the leadership competencies needed to be effective in this century. GEs chief learning officer, Raghu Krishnamoorthy, spoke of the outcomes that resulted in the New GE Beliefs and included values: Customers determine our success, stay lean to go fast, learn and adapt to win, empower and inspire each other, and deliver results in an uncertain world. They reflect a renewed emphasis on acceleration, agility, and customer focus. GE wanted to move its culture from Command and Control to one of Inspire and Connecta cultural change from within (versus top-down) (Stevenson, 2014).

I was lucky enough to be at GE during this transition and I also attended two senior executive- level leadership development programs at Crotonville. From these courses and my time helping embed the new GE beliefs in my own global teams, I became intrigued on what competencies are needed to effectively lead in the twenty-first century. I developed the concept of LeaderocityTM and the notion of leading at the speed of now. I came to realize that the intersection of leadership and velocity could provide insight into the challenges facing leaders. I have spent the past few years thinking, researching, and asking what is needed.

This book is the initial result. My co-authors and I offer our set of 10 leadership competencies that we feel are pivotal for todays leaders. We are not taking the position that this is THE set or even an exhaustive inventory. We do, however, offer them as a foundation that global leaders can use to establish their leadership brand and enhance their leadership practices.

It is also especially timely in the midst of the global COVID-19 crisis and the need for effective leadership at all levels. We can see both the critical need for these competencies and the stark contrasts in practicethose leaders who are rising to the moment and others whose lacking is disappointingly notable.