B2B - Strategy Tools - Part 14

Building a Leadership Brand

In Part 6: "Strategic Focus" I stated that: "The strategy must be clear as crystal and clearly describe how the company creates a unique position in relation to its customers and against its competitors. The organisation must fit like a glove with the strategy and a winning team of employees with the right competencies must be set. Operations must show positive figures and the key figures must point forward to show future potential of the business."

In the first 12 parts of this Business-to-Business blog I have described and given suggestions as to how you can formulate a strategy that is "clear as crystal". In my latest post I started to discuss how to implement the strategy.

Actually I believe that a successful strategy implementation already begins during strategy formulation. External consultants can be bright analytics, skilled coaches and sharp "Devil's Advocates" but top management leadership and commitment throughout the formulation and implementation process is essential. And not only that - also middle management and other key employees should at least participate and be involved in the formulation process.

Having management and key employees involved in the formulation process and committed to the strategy facilitates building an organisation that is aligned with or "fits like a glove with the strategy".

Alignment

For a discussion about various ways to align your organisation to your chosen Strategic Focus please look to part 17: "Aligning Organization with Strategy and Culture".

As regards setting " a winning team of employees with the right competencies" I recently read some interesting articles, abstracts and reviews relating to a recent book by Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood: " Leadership Brand - developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value" (Børsen, Harward Business Review and Robert Morris of Dallas, Texas)

Ulrich & Smallwood say that top management leaders should work to build a Leadership Brand. Leadership Brand is a reputation for developing exceptional managers with a distinct set of talents that are uniquely geared to fulfil customer and investor expectations. A company with a Leadership Brand inspires faith that employees and managers will consistently make good on the firm's promises.

Building a strong Leadership Brand requires that companies follow 5 principles:

1. They have to do the basics of leadership - like setting strategy and grooming talent - well.
2. They must ensure that managers internalize external constituents' high expectations of the firm.
3. They need to evaluate their leaders according to those external perspectives.
4. They must invest in broad-based leadership development that help managers hone the skills needed to meet customer and investor expectations.
5. they should track their success at building Leadership Brand over the long term.

In the preface to their book, Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood make this affirmation:" We believe that leaders matter, but leadership matters more. We have all experienced a gifted leader who engaged all of us - our hearts, minds and feet. Dynamic leaders enlist us in a cause, and we willingly follow their counsel. But leadership exists when an organisation produces more than one or two individual leaders. Leadership matters more because it is tied not to a person but to the process of building leaders.

Leadership Brand is the identity of the firm in the mind of the customers, made real to employees because of customer centric leadership behaviors. In other words, Leadership Brand occurs when leader' knowledge, skills, and values focus employee behavior on the factors that target the issues that customers care about."

The challenge for any organisation (whatever its size or nature) is to formulate a program ensuring that everyone in that organization embraces the values, gains the knowledge, and strengthens the skills need to drive performance and build lasting value.

PETER SØRENSEN