High Flyers: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders

Rating:
Summary: A strong argument overstretched.
Review: Many celebrated leaders were high flyers. So was Icarus.

If experience teaches us anything, it's that we learn most effectively from experience. Such is the conclusion of Morgan McCall, whose years of work with leaders and organizations are encapsulated most recently in High Flyers. In McCall's view, leaders achieve success (and therefore promotion) because they have profited by experience, or at least proved themselves equipped to meet the challenges thrown at them. The emphasis here is on experience, not talent: although ability clearly plays a part in the ascent of the high flyer, it's the capacity and even eagerness to learn that distinguishes the eagle from the penguin.

Unfortunately, the shift from star-rise to nose-dive can strike even the highest flyer, and often does. Using extensive research and restrained gusto, McCall recounts cautionary tales of top corporate leaders, seemingly destined for greatness, who alarmingly and disastrously derailed. Initially successful for their track record, brilliance, commitment, charm, and/or ambition, these leaders were all perceived as having the "right stuff". However, as their power and authority increased, so did the importance of what McCall calls "the darker side of strengths", until - all too suddenly - the strengths became weaknesses, the arrogance and blind spots grew, the luck ended, and the house of cards came crashing down.

So what is to be done? McCall makes a persuasive case that if experience is the best teacher, then experience can be planned developmentally. In Chapters 3 and 4, the strongest of the book, he offers a series of figures and descriptions that identify (a) what makes an experience powerful, (b) which experiences can be planned as developmental interventions, and (c) how organizations can link their strategic intent to leadership challenges, and the challenges in turn to specific experiences for executive development. Here again McCall focuses on assignments, such as leading a turnaround, participating on an expansion team, or working for an effective leader several layers up. Training receives short shrift, other than the occasional passing reference to formal programs as substitutes for experiences that are unavailable or nonexistent. For the most part, leaders are made - not born - because their "talent [is] honed by experience over a long period." Give them the experience, create a learning culture, and the talented leaders will rise.

Assuming that you have identified the talent, of course. It's on this point that McCall himself derails, or switches to a slower and less certain track. The author dislikes and distrusts competencies; indeed, in referring to HR's over-hasty attempts to identify leadership talent, he asserts that "thus was ushered in the age of competencies, leadership development programs, and belief in miracles." Yet although he's correct that "end-state" competencies too often verge on the inflexible and vague, McCall ignores the potential of future-focused competencies and level-specific behavioral definitions. Furthermore, having denigrated leadership competency models, McCall falls back on nebulous notions of assessment that stress learning over performance and development over immediate results. But by admitting that (a) these notions differ merely in the competencies' orientation, (b) competency models provide the most consistent assessment criteria, and (c) competency-based assessments provide a progress report for development, McCall by book's end has gradually abandoned his stance in favor of inconclusive recommendations.

Ultimately, High Flyers poses a strong argument for planned, experience-based executive development. Other recommendations remain less clear, in part because McCall's "Prescriptive Matrix" appears in the last ten pages of the main text without room for full elucidation. One could wish that McCall had targeted his audience more precisely; for the relatively knowledgeable HR/OD professional, much of the second half of the book will tease rather than satisfy. But read High Flyers nonetheless, and use it to reexamine and reinvigorate the developmental path of your organization's leadership talent. Even better, give a copy to the reluctant senior executive who thinks leadership development is a waste of time. The research and business case will help you alarm, and even inspire.

Rating:
Summary: A strong argument overstretched.
Review: Many celebrated leaders were high flyers. So was Icarus.

If experience teaches us anything, it's that we learn most effectively from experience. Such is the conclusion of Morgan McCall, whose years of work with leaders and organizations are encapsulated most recently in High Flyers. In McCall's view, leaders achieve success (and therefore promotion) because they have profited by experience, or at least proved themselves equipped to meet the challenges thrown at them. The emphasis here is on experience, not talent: although ability clearly plays a part in the ascent of the high flyer, it's the capacity and even eagerness to learn that distinguishes the eagle from the penguin.

Unfortunately, the shift from star-rise to nose-dive can strike even the highest flyer, and often does. Using extensive research and restrained gusto, McCall recounts cautionary tales of top corporate leaders, seemingly destined for greatness, who alarmingly and disastrously derailed. Initially successful for their track record, brilliance, commitment, charm, and/or ambition, these leaders were all perceived as having the "right stuff". However, as their power and authority increased, so did the importance of what McCall calls "the darker side of strengths", until - all too suddenly - the strengths became weaknesses, the arrogance and blind spots grew, the luck ended, and the house of cards came crashing down.

So what is to be done? McCall makes a persuasive case that if experience is the best teacher, then experience can be planned developmentally. In Chapters 3 and 4, the strongest of the book, he offers a series of figures and descriptions that identify (a) what makes an experience powerful, (b) which experiences can be planned as developmental interventions, and (c) how organizations can link their strategic intent to leadership challenges, and the challenges in turn to specific experiences for executive development. Here again McCall focuses on assignments, such as leading a turnaround, participating on an expansion team, or working for an effective leader several layers up. Training receives short shrift, other than the occasional passing reference to formal programs as substitutes for experiences that are unavailable or nonexistent. For the most part, leaders are made - not born - because their "talent [is] honed by experience over a long period." Give them the experience, create a learning culture, and the talented leaders will rise.

Assuming that you have identified the talent, of course. It's on this point that McCall himself derails, or switches to a slower and less certain track. The author dislikes and distrusts competencies; indeed, in referring to HR's over-hasty attempts to identify leadership talent, he asserts that "thus was ushered in the age of competencies, leadership development programs, and belief in miracles." Yet although he's correct that "end-state" competencies too often verge on the inflexible and vague, McCall ignores the potential of future-focused competencies and level-specific behavioral definitions. Furthermore, having denigrated leadership competency models, McCall falls back on nebulous notions of assessment that stress learning over performance and development over immediate results. But by admitting that (a) these notions differ merely in the competencies' orientation, (b) competency models provide the most consistent assessment criteria, and (c) competency-based assessments provide a progress report for development, McCall by book's end has gradually abandoned his stance in favor of inconclusive recommendations.

Ultimately, High Flyers poses a strong argument for planned, experience-based executive development. Other recommendations remain less clear, in part because McCall's "Prescriptive Matrix" appears in the last ten pages of the main text without room for full elucidation. One could wish that McCall had targeted his audience more precisely; for the relatively knowledgeable HR/OD professional, much of the second half of the book will tease rather than satisfy. But read High Flyers nonetheless, and use it to reexamine and reinvigorate the developmental path of your organization's leadership talent. Even better, give a copy to the reluctant senior executive who thinks leadership development is a waste of time. The research and business case will help you alarm, and even inspire.

Rating:
Summary: A MODEL FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS
Review: MCCALL INTRODUCES A MODEL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS, SUGGESTING THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE WILL LEARN THE NECESSARY LEADERSHIP SKILLS, IF THEY ARE EXPOSED TO THE RIGHT KIND OF EXPERIENCES, AND IF THEY RECEIVE THE RIGHT KIND OF SUPPORT IN THEIR LEARNING EFFORTS. HE POINTS OUT, THAT IT HAS TO BE THE BUSINESS STRATEGY AS DEFINED BY THE TOP-MANAGEMENT THAT DETERMINES WHICH LEADERSHIP SKILLS ARE REQUIRED FOR THE FUTURE OF THE ORGANISATION, AND WHICH KIND OF EXPERIENCE WILL BE KEY FOR THE INTENDED PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT (188).

McCall starts by discussing the nature of leadership skills: are they a set of skills, that one either does have or not, or can they be learned? Based on his previous research he holds, that executive leaders are more made than born. Therefore he asserts that leadership potential can not be identified by looking for a profile of "competencies", but by looking for the ability to acquire the skills that will be needed in the future. Only this approach will insure leadership capability in a world of rapid change (4/5). McCall goes on by contrasting a "selection perspective" and a "developmental perspective". If leadership requirements are seen as a finite set of positive attributes, or "competencies", a leader either has them or not. Experience will be a test to verify whether one has them or not. On the other hand, if leadership requirements are seen as something that can come in multiple possibilities, a leader might obtain them, but also loose them, over time. Experience will be a source of the required attributes.

To build the case for a developmental perspective, McCall analyses "derailment" cases, were things went wrong. Using the example of the president of Kellogg Co., Horst Schroeder, he names five factors of initial success, which are common to people who failed at a later stage of their career: track record, brilliance, commitment, charm and ambition (29). When looking at the causes for the turn from success to failure, he lists four elements: 1) strengths can become a weakness, 2) blind spots or weaknesses that did not matter initially, later do matter, 3) success can lead to arrogance and 4) bad luck. (36).

McCall then sets out to define what would be the "right kind of experience". He outlines sixteen developmental experiences, coming in four groups: 1) assignments, 2) other people, 3) hardships and 4) other events (68). McCall emphasises, that there is no such thing as a generic development path, however, meaning that many different experiences can be useful. Development, therefore, is about a rational use of experience (81).

McCall holds that executive development should be determined by business strategy: the business strategy has to suggest which experiences are the most important for development (108). He points out that there are already processes at work, that have to be identified first. He than uses a case study (99) to describe the path from strategic intend to executive development: strategy, e.g. "sustained growth", was translated into leadership challenges, e.g. "dealing with increased complexity effectively". These leadership challenges were subsequently translated to possible developmental experiences, e.g. "lead an expansion that requires adding something new or different".

As McCall believes that leadership talent should not be identified by using a list of end-state attributes, but by looking for the ability to learn what needs to be learned from experiences, he introduces a growth model for talent (130). First, talented people will have to pay the "price of admission" for getting the organisational attention and investment. This involves being committed to making a difference, seeing things from new angles and having the courage to taking risks. Then, talented people will take advantage of the opportunities generated by the visibility. The next difference that characterise talented people is that they increase the learning opportunity. Finally, they take learning to heart, and change as a result of the experience.

Because of the central role of "the right kind of experience" in the development of the next generation of leaders, the mechanism to move people from one assignment to another is McCall's next focus. Succession planning can be more productive from a developmental perspective, if replacement candidates for key assignments are not identified on the basis of their current readiness for the job, but on the basis of how much they could learn from it. He predicts, that decision makers would only dare to do so, if they are not only held accountable for short-term results, but also for development of talent to meet future strategic needs (149). In organisations, were no formal system for movement exists, tactics for development could include making deals with other managers, influencing individual executives and counselling talented people to play a more active role in their own development (153). Yet another approach would be reengineering or corporate restructuring, presenting opportunity to redesign jobs without necessarily reassigning people (157). In conclusion, McCall underlines that people learn most by doing things they have never done before.

McCall defines three catalysts as the right kind of assistance for the learning efforts of leadership talent: 1) improvement of feedback, 2) provision of incentives and resources, 3) support of the change effort (181).

In his final chapter, McCall summarises the case for strategic executive development: 1) leadership makes a difference for the successful change of organisations, 2) leadership can not always be found or bought outside, 3) derailments are expensive and therefore should be avoided, 4) "survival of the fittest" is not the same as "survival of the best", meaning that leaving leadership development up to chance is foolish, 5) development cost are already sunk for the larger part, so at least the return on the investment should be sought for, 6) creating a learning environment is consistent with employee empowerment, 7) it is good business practice and good for stakeholder relations.

The book is certainly worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A Prescriptive Approach to Executive Development
Review: Morgan McCall is a professor of management and organization at University of Southern California and he was previously one of the guiding forces behind the Center for Creative Leadership. He has written an important book about how executives actually develop.

McCall offers what he calls a "prescriptive model for developing executive talent" that includes five elements: Business Strategy, wherein top management endorses a top-down commitment to a specific approach to executive development, tied to the organization's business goals; Experience, where a melange of existing rotational assignment possibilities, coaching, corporate education and "target experiences" are employed to develop executives; Talent, which includes executive assessment processes and performance management tools to foster accountability; Mechanisms for Movement, encompassing formal succession planning processes, identifying and tracking developmental assignments through a centralized corporate executive development function and ensuring that performance management is developmentally-focused; and finally Catalysts, which include accountability by line managers, human resources and the executives themselves.

This is an ambitious book, with much wisdom and guidance for those who want to obtain a comprehensive view on how executive development has been conducted up to the present time. We might quibble with McCall's relative neglect of the organizational barriers that result in a dearth of effective executive development programs in companies. He also ignores the concept of executive community. But these are minor blemishes, after all is said and done. This is a book to be treasured.

Rating:
Summary: More about executives than leaders...
Review: The author is a professor of management at USC, so his perspectives on leadership are limited to those qualities found in executives and in very large businesses that support the training of executives. The most helpful aspect of his book is that McCall urges large companies to develop systematic training for executive leaders, rather than leaving younger executives in a sink-or-swim situation. He also has a bias against ruthless, cut-throat competition and male testosterone-driven demonstrations of power and wealth that executives can get drawn into or promote.
Nevertheless, the book is limited: it says very little about leadership as a quality found in other people, other settings; implies that leadership is a unique quality of exceptional people that can be taught to those up-and-coming risers primarily; and supporting data is quite limited. He stumbles when he talks about leadership per se by using an example of a child violin prodigy, as if this child-becoming-virtuoso should be our model of leadership development.
It also is overwritten, the way stuff from Harvard Business School Press is overwritten: breathless, breathtaking, fawning over winners, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Decent book, especially if you are new to the field
Review: This is a pretty good book for those new to the leadership literature. Its main point is that leaders are made, not born. I found it a little long for the point it was making, but thats probably because I've read other books in the area.

Rating:
Summary: A Process for Strategy-Driven Leadership Development
Review: You will find a thoughtful, thorough process here for using a company's strategy to delineate what kind of leaders you will need, identify the leadership experiences that can create that type of leader, then to locate those who have the highest potential to develop those capabilities (those who learn rapidly and well), and to monitor progress. This is a very humane book that will help many avoid the painful career derailments that we read about all too often when a top performer suddenly crashes and burns in public.

By comparison, most companies are looking for executives with the right stuff for today, not the future. Then in a Darwinian process of survival of the fittest, those with the best track records win the leadership roles. Professor McCall points out a very serious flaw in this model, in that many people progress without developing any better leadership skills. With more and more success, leadership skill may actually drop as strengths and competencies are more and more likely to turn into weaknesses as they become exaggerated and weaknesses stay weak. He uses a detailed case history of Horst Schroeder, who was fired as president of Kellogg's after only 9 months, to make these points.

On the usually-correct assumption that your company has not yet brought this new model to bear, the author presents an excellent appendix for helping an individual executive to plan and implement one's own development.

"The message of High Flyers is that leadership ability can be learned, that creating a context that supports the development of talent can become a source of competitive advantage, and that the development of leaders is itself a leadership responsibility." I suggest that you consider Jack Welch at General Electric as the embodiment of the truth of this statement.

Now let me share my concerns about this book. Most companies change strategies at least as often as they change CEOs. Many do it even more often. The average life of a strategy has to be about 3-5 years. That's too short a time to be the context for a leadership development program, unless the new strategy requires exactly the same kind of leaders -- which is unlikely to be the case. In such environments, leadership recruiting probably deserves more attention than leadership development. On the other hand, strategy should not change so often. As my co-author and I point out in The Irresistible Growth Enterprise, it is possible to have a constant mission, vision, and strategy in the midst of a rapidly changing business environment if you think through the issues of potential volatility in advance. In that sort of company, this book's approach will prosper, as will the company and its stakeholders. I urge you to combine these perspectives and approaches in that way.

My other concern is that mission, vision, and emotional context are more important than strategy to success. Professor McCall unaccountably ignored those other important "fit" and "development" issues. They should certainly be added back into this general model by anyone who is interested in systematically developing and providing more and better leadership.

After you have finished reading this excellent book, consider the next governmental election you are asked to vote in. How could government leadership be improved by using a similar process to develop the next generation of elected candidates? Certainly, the task of governing is becoming ever greater yet the current process has all of the flaws of "survival of the fittest" that Professor McCall describes here. We can do better. How should we?

How can this process be used in a nonprofit organization that you do volunteer work for?