Benjamin Zander is someone who gets big results. More than six million people have viewed his inspiring TED Talk. Matt Gray was so impressed by the clip, he somehow persuaded Ben to come to the UK to speak to his company… but that’s another story!
Matt said, “The whole experience has taught me that we can achieve far more in the lives of those around us if we seek to encourage, or as Ben puts it, give everyone an A.”
Have you ever had a leader like that? Someone who believed in you more than you believed in yourself at the time?
And have you noticed that those leaders who invest in developing other leaders almost always get the results they want?
Could we do more to invest in leaders around us?
Several recent reports including our own Big Kahuna Leadership Survey have highlighted the need for investment in developing leaders to become activists for technology-driven strategic transformation.
But there is a dilemma. On the one hand there are increasing expectations of technology leaders to guide digital transformation strategies. At the same time, it appears that there is increasing dissatisfaction with the performance of technology departments.
It is a dilemma worth addressing because the evidence suggests that those companies that have their technology leaders actively involved in business strategy, outperform their peers by a margin of almost two to one.
Other leaders are not off the hook either. Since every business is now a technology business we also need boards and senior executives to be advocates for technology-led strategic transformation.
So how could we invest in developing the leadership capability of both groups of leaders?
The latest Big Kahuna Leadership Survey will address those questions. This round of research will be conducted by leading market research and strategy consultancy, Andrews Group.
Andrews Group will be seeking responses to two questions:
- how could we build greater leadership capability in technology leaders – our CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, etc? ; and
- how we could we better develop boards and C-level executives to become activists for technology-driven strategic transformation?
Andrews Group will be seeking views from senior leaders on these questions over the coming weeks. If you would like to contribute to the latest Big Kahuna Leadership Survey, please click here to provide your contact details. You may also wish to nominate someone else who has a point of view on the questions.
Andrews Group will be in touch to arrange a twenty-minute phone interview with you or your nominee.
Your investment in developing leaders may help you get the results you want.
Best regards,
Brian