June' 20
The Effective Executive
Focus
The major aspects that leaders are accountable to are their people, assets and infrastructure (data and information), operations (production, supply chains and distribution channels) and business (clients and client renewals). Leading in a virtual environment and managing these business essentials are unequivocally a tough task. Leaders must be ready to confront the increasingly novel and complex business challenges.
It clearly requires a tough breed of leader with the choicest skills, qualities, traits and characteristics. Decision-making is one of the most sophisticated capabilities expected to be exercised in the best interests of the organizations. The leader is expected to work with all the levers of his/her intelligence (data, information, insights, knowledge, hunch, intuition, common sense and creativity) that potentially contribute to wise decision-making.
While pandemics result in desruption, the leader should be diligent to explore the positive dimension amid the crisis and take advantage of the situation. Leaders should observe the intensity and the direction of the wave, and predict the future trends, course and potential opportunities. It requires a leader with a clear 20/20 vision into the future along with predictive capabilities. The leaders must retain the sight on the big picture and avoid any decision that could lead to unintended adversities.
The crisis the world is passing through is more of a human crisis, though it has its business and economic implications. The employees and other human resources in an organization are severely affected and are in need of caring and empathetic leadership at the top. Hence, the human elements of leadership like empathy, compassion and camaraderie matter most amidst the crisis.
This issue of Effective Executive focuses on leadership in the event of a crisis. The content in the issue emphasizes on various critical aspects of leadership that gain prominence in times of duress.
The first paper, "'Leadership Toxicity': Our Own Corporate 'Covid-Tox' Pandemic", by Michael Walton, captures various factors that contribute to organizational toxicity and its adverse impact on the organizational culture. It evaluates the role of leadership in minimizing the leadership and organizational toxicity.
The second paper, "Leading Organizational Innovation" by Colin Coulson-Thomas, addresses immediate, long-term and game changing challenges that leaders face. The paper explores many questions and matters with respect to leading innovation towards flexible, inclusive, resilient and supportive organizations, promising a sustainable future.
The third paper, "Intuition and Decision-Making: Business and Sports Leaders", by George J Koshy, Kurt A April and Babar Dharani, sets out to identify the key factors that influence intuition-based decision-making. It proposes a theoretical model for intuition-based decision-making and compares intuition-based decision-making skills in leaders from both business and the sports industry.
Consulting Editor
'Leadership Toxicity': Our Own Corporate 'Covid-Tox' Pandemic
Workplace toxicity is prevalent in many organizations. The paper suggests that 'Leadership Toxicity' can be likened to a coronavirus-like virus-'Covid-Tox'-and that this will be present within many, if not all, business organizations. At their heart organizations are cauldrons of conflicting emotions and tensions as people go about advancing their own ambitions and objectives. As such we should expect, plan for and guard against the harmful effects of such behavior especially from those in positions of executive power and responsibility. Three key factors are outlined which, when combined, seem likely to result in a 'toxic mix' and thus should be examined and monitored with considerable care and attention in order to reduce the likelihood of Covid-Tox overwhelming an organization.
Leading Organizational Innovation
Immediate, long-term and potentially game-changing challenges, related public and other stakeholder concerns, and government interventions require and/or demand rapid changes of behavior and transition to different models of organization, operation, business and governance. Innovation is required in the nature, characteristics, purposes, priorities and strategies of organizations and their processes, activities and relationships with stakeholders. Directors and boards have both immediate and long-term issues to address. The paper explores many questions and matters they need to consider when leading innovation if it is to result in more flexible, inclusive, resilient, responsive, responsible and supportive organizations and create a simpler, healthier and more fulfilling and sustainable future.
Intuition and Decision-Making: Business and Sports Leaders
The paper studies the role of intuition in the decision-making of business leaders and sports leaders with three objectives: (i) to identify the key factors that influenced intuition-based decision-making; (ii) to propose a theoretical model for intuition-based decision-making; and (iii) to compare intuition-based decision-making skills in leaders from both business and the sports industry. The study comprised reviewing the extant literature on decision-making theories and a theoretical model was proposed, possible factors that could influence intuition-based decision-making were identified, and 12 business leaders and 12 sports leaders were interviewed to further investigate, relate and compare possible factors that could have had effects on intuition-based decision-making. Fourteen constructs/themed factors were identified: cognitive, consequence, customs, emotions, environment, experiences, extrasensory, individual, information, learning, people, supernatural, training and traits. The findings of this research indicated that the factors that influenced intuition-based decision-making in both business leaders and sports leaders were similar.