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GROWTH LEADERSHIP: NEW LEADERS FOR A NEW AGE

In his book, Growth Leadership, Michael Rodgers defines an emerging form of leadership that draws on the talents, experience, and creativity of mid-level managers to promote organic growth within mature organizations. These growth leaders often operate outside the boundaries of a formal leadership role, yet achieve surprising results. And they share certain characteristics and patterns:

• They reach across company boundaries and assemble resources in imaginative ways.
• They put their entrepreneurial skills to work in complex corporate environments.
• They place people in positions that optimize their strengths, and they are quick to remove them when required.
• At times, they skirt bureaucratic interference, but they avoid conflict with the organization—they save their fight for the marketplace.
• They motivate and inspire their people—while simultaneously conducting themselves in a tough-minded (but fair) fashion.
• And they combine two seemingly opposing forces: 1) holding people ruthlessly accountable for results while 2) engaging their passion to build something great together.

A recent study identified some key shared qualities among these leaders:

• All possessed rich and wide experience.
• All possessed great belief in their abilities.
• All thrived on accepting and meeting challenges.
• All possessed a belief in their ability to effect change.
• All seemed capable of changing the rules.
• All possessed the ability to manage risk.
• All preferred people to data.

The influence of these emerging growth leaders seems to reflect fundamental changes in the modern business organization. Much of the talk today is about teams, empowerment, and creativity. Charles Handy points out that the key words are options, not plans; the possible rather than the perfect; involvement instead of obedience. In Handy’s words:

The new organizations are dispersed. Workers are employed in many different offices and locations, wear different hats, and do not necessarily owe all their loyalty to one organization. This has always been true in the political community; now it is also true of the work organization. No longer does everyone have to be in the same place at the same time to get the work done. . . . More and more, the organization is a ‘box of contracts’ rather than a lifetime home for all its people. . . . The leadership of these groups is not of the old-fashioned ‘follow me’ type. You could call it a distributed leadership. . . . The leadership in the middle of the organization is a distributed function, often going by other names.

Growth leaders are responding to the new organizational realities. They are also assembling and applying various “intelligences” that allow them to function creatively in an increasingly complex and challenging business environment. These social, emotional, moral, and cultural, intelligences have proven their worth over the years, and growth leaders may be making special use of them.

Social intelligence

Yale University researcher Robert Sternberg has developed a triarchic view of intelligence—a construct that includes analytical, creative, and practical abilities. Sternberg ties practical intelligence to everyday problem solving, and he explicitly includes social intelligence. Professor Sternberg and colleagues have defined some behaviors that reflect social competence:

• Accepts others for what they are
• Admits mistakes
• Displays interest in the world at large
• Keeps appointments—on time
• Possesses a social conscience
• Thinks before speaking and acting
• Displays curiosity
• Avoids snap judgments
• Assesses the relevance of information to problems
• Stays sensitive to other people’s needs and desires
• Deals frankly and honestly with self and others
• Displays interest in the immediate environment

Another study, by Kosmitzki and John, showed these central social intelligence dimensions:

• Understands people’s thoughts, feelings, and intentions
• Possesses skill in dealing with people
• Understands rules and norms of human relations
• Possesses skill in taking other people’s perspectives
• Adapts well in social situations
• Remains warm and caring
• Stays open to new experiences, ideas, and values

In his recent book, Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman notes that outstanding leadership requires a combination of self-mastery and social intelligence. Self-mastery refers to the ways in which we handle ourselves—and it involves qualities of self-awareness and self-control. In Goleman’s words:

The leadership competencies that build on self-mastery include a good measure of self-confidence, the drive to improve performance, the ability to stay calm under pressure and to maintain a positive outlook. All these abilities can be seen at full force, for instance, in workers who are outstanding individual performers. The operative word here is individual—and that’s the rub. When it comes to leaders, effectiveness in relationships makes or breaks. Solo stars are often promoted to leadership positions and then flounder for lack of people skills.

Social intelligence, then, is closely related to emotional intelligence—a concept that many corporations have integrated into their employee and leadership development programs.

Emotional intelligence

In recent years, the concept of emotional intelligence has gained broad acceptance—fueled by the scholarly work of Peter Salovey and John Mayer and propelled by Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence. Companies around the world have instituted programs that seek to enhance this quality—among all employees—and it is now generally seen as a core leadership competence.

Mayer and Salovey (the first researchers) have defined emotional intelligence (EI) as “. . . a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and action.” They further define it as “. . . the ability to process emotional information, particularly as it involves the perception, assimilation, understanding, and management of emotion.”

In a 1997 publication, scholars Mayer and Salovey identified four branches of EI:

• Emotional perception
• Emotional facilitation of thought
• Emotional understanding
• Emotional management.

They went on to lay out a chart that reflects their findings—and that provides a good summary of the EI traits. The four branches in the chart go from more basic psychological processes to higher and more psychologically integrated processes. These traits are all elements of emotional intelligence, a high predictor of success—higher, say many researchers, than predictors such as GPA, IQ, and standardized test scores.

Daniel Goleman puts it this way: “Emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them.” Goleman and other researchers have concluded that people who effectively manage their own emotions—and who deal effectively with others (in all settings)—find more contentment and satisfaction. They stay more motivated, cooperative, and productive; and they feel (and see) the impact of their emotional intelligence across the life span.

Emotional intelligence programs have been around for a while, and their bottom line benefits have been closely studied and well-documented. Self-aware, emotionally intelligent leaders create a more positive work climate and relate more effectively to all organizational members. Emotional intelligence, a powerful self-governing tool, is closely linked to moral intelligence, another self-governing tool and a powerful leadership competence.

Moral intelligence

Moral intelligence (MQ) has been defined by Jean Piaget as “respect for one’s self, and others, as beings with inherent value.” Piaget believed that practical morality lies much deeper than one’s articulated beliefs and that morality (or mutual respect) is mainly intuitive—not based on analytical, principled reasoning.

Robert Coles, a Harvard social psychiatrist and author of The Moral Intelligence of Children, has defined MQ as “. . . moral behavior tested by life, lived out in the course of our everyday experience.”

Authors Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel define MQ this way:

Moral intelligence is the mental capacity to determine how universal human principles should be applied to our values, goals and actions." In the simplest terms, moral intelligence is the ability to differentiate right from wrong as defined by universal principles. Universal principles are those beliefs about human conduct that are common to all cultures around the world. Thus, we believe they apply to all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religious belief, or location on the globe.

MQ definitions vary, but one reality persists: committed, meaningful, sustained moral action fascinates us and frequently astounds us—and we continue to explore its nature and uses. But this much we know: the development of sociomoral “maturity” is no simple matter. Even the experts disagree about its nature. The identification-internalization experts emphasize emotion; the social learning experts emphasize behavior; and the cognitive-developmental experts emphasize cognition.

Some researchers are now telling us that these differing emphases have created an artificial trichotomy that has ignored the interplay between and among behavior, thought, and emotion. Moral emotions, they say, cannot occur without some cognitive content; thought always contains some emotional tone (be it cold or hot); and voluntary behavior always possesses an intentional basis. Thus, say these researchers (Walker, Pitts, Hennig, and Matsuba), moral psychology requires a more comprehensive and holistic approach.

In addition, morally responsible behavior is influenced by many factors—both internal and external to the individual. The scholarly literature surrounding these factors is vast, and social scientists and others continue to debate the definition. But they have identified a few broad moral dimensions:

• Morality includes the ability to distinguish between good and bad—and the motivation to choose good.
• Morality includes a sense of obligation toward standards shared by a social collective.
• Morality includes a concern for the welfare of others—a concern that possesses both a cognitive and an affective component that carries implications for judgment and conduct, and that involves obligations beyond an individual’s unmitigated selfish desires.
• Morality includes the responsibility for acting on one’s concern for others—expressed through acts of caring, benevolence, kindness, and mercy.
• Morality includes a concern for the rights of others—a concern that includes a sense of justice and a commitment to the fair resolution of conflicts.
• Morality includes a commitment to honesty in interpersonal dealings.

Moral identity has been defined as a “self-conception organized around a set of moral traits.” Researchers who’ve studied moral exemplars say that they possess a “moral center”—a moral core that lies at the center of their selves. These exemplars exhibit a “unity between self and morality,” and they possess a destiny that is largely defined by moral goals.

It’s difficult to quantify the business advantages of morally intelligent leadership, but we see clearly the business costs of moral ignorance. More than seventy percent of American consumers have, at some point, punished companies for unethical behavior—either by avoiding their products or directly criticizing the company.

Morally intelligent leaders inspire and motivate their people. They help establish a company’s moral authority--a solid base on which to build effective formal authority systems and a creative corporate climate. A sound moral intelligence, resting on a strong moral identity, provides the motivation for sustained, committed moral action. This moral intelligence helps us define the parameters of moral conduct—and helps us identify our “horizons of significance.” And for some people (not all), it is linked to cultural intelligence, an ability to deal effectively with cultural diversity.

Cultural intelligence

Cultural intelligence (CQ), broadly defined, consists of the ability to deal effectively with cultural diversity. Culturally intelligent individuals understand that the world is really a set of worlds within worlds—each with a distinctive set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations (in short, a distinctive culture). Cultural intelligence picks up where emotional intelligence leaves off. It allows individuals to distinguish between behaviors produced by a specific culture and those peculiar to a specific individual—or those found in all humans. The two intelligences, however, share a common critical element. In psychologist Daniel Goleman’s words, it is “a propensity to suspend judgment—to think before acting.”

Researchers P. Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski have developed six CQ profiles that distinguish levels of cultural intelligence:

• Provincials work well with people of similar background—but run into trouble when venturing farther afield.
• Analysts use elaborate learning strategies to methodically decipher a foreign culture’s rules and expectations. Analysts quickly understand that they are in foreign territory but then ascertain, usually in stages, the nature of the patterns at work—and how they should interact with them.
• Naturals rely on intuition and first impressions, rather than on a systematic learning style. When faced with ambiguous multicultural circumstances, Naturals sometimes falter.
• Ambassadors may know little about the culture they’ve entered, but they quickly convince others that they belong. Ambassadors observe how others have succeeded, and they exude confidence.
• Mimics possess a high degree of control over their actions and behaviors. They put hosts and guests at ease, facilitate communication, and build trust.
• Chameleons possess all the CQ sources—head, body, heart—and (unlike most newcomers to organizational or national cultures) generate few ripples.

Why do some individuals function effectively in new cultures and among “strangers”—and others falter? High (at least adequate) social, emotional, and moral quotients do not by themselves guarantee success. Anecdotal and empirical evidence shows that individuals with high cultural intelligence—either innate or cultivated—will more effectively assess their circumstances and choose the right actions.

Conclusion

Growth leaders possess solid business skills, and their success depends on various factors—a good product or service, a favorable business climate, a supportive organization. Leaders imbued with the social, emotional, moral, and cultural intelligences may also possess the potential for moving leadership effectiveness to the next level. These “quiet leaders”—staying always sensitive to followers’ needs—are capable of inspiring high performance and trust. They are guided by a common set of principles—a set of intelligences (social, emotional, moral, and cultural) that daily support their leadership activities.

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