Role of Leadership in Effectiveness and How to Get Effective Leaders in Place

Posted by Carl Harshman on

Our basic premise is that the three core elements of effectiveness in an organization are strategy, culture, and leadership. Here is how we connect them symbolically.

In this framework, Strategy defines how the organization plans to pursue its mission and vision.

Culture describes the context, values, and behavior expectations of the people in the organization. Culture will drive the strategy.

Leadership is the key to both. Leadership is responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of strategy. In addition, according to Edgar Schein:

"The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening."

As a result, if the organization does not have the right leadership, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill its mission and vision or accomplish its goals.

Getting Effective Leadership in Place

Organizations that have effective leadership typically do four things well:

  1. They have clear definitions of what constitutes effective leadership along with the competencies and characteristics that are associated with that effectiveness.
  2. They have state-of-the-art systems and processes to "get the right people in the right seat on the leadership bus".
  3. Once in place, organizational leaders do the right things in the right way [right action]
  4. The organization has effective feedback and development processes and programs in place to provide the engine for continuous growth and improvement of leadership.

If your organization has effective leadership, then you are likely doing most or all of the above fairly well.

If your organization has spotty or inconsistent leadership, then there may be deficiencies or gaps in one or more of the areas listed above.

Here's something we picked up off the internet that speaks to one aspect of getting effective leaders in place.

In the meantime, all of us are trying to learn more about what constitutes effective leadership in the constantly changing world we inhabit and how to identify and grow effective individuals and teams to lead in that world.