Sharing the mantle

Co-leadership is absolutely essential in today’s interconnected and increasingly complex business world. Leaders are valuable commodities—but it’s important to remember that they cannot innovate unless they are able to share power and translate leadership into productive, timely responses to the current market. In a departure from traditional practice, the new business model involves leading democratically, alongside subordinates, and taking their insights into account.

The golden boy’s foolproof strategy had gone terribly wrong, and he did not know why. His errors? First, the digital world had changed, he hadn’t. Second, he failed to fully understand the differences between retail financial services and the consumer goods industry, and had made several false assumptions (such as misreading consumers’ online buying behaviour in the consumer goods sector) while implementing his strategy. Perhaps his biggest mistake was when his subordinates and colleagues tried to warn him—he ignored their advice.

The executive’s downfall reminds me of the tale of legendary computer pioneer Kenneth Olsen, which I came across while reading Jagdish Sheth’s The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies. In 1957, Olsen, then 31, founded Digital Equipment Corp. and revolutionized the computer industry by introducing the minicomputer. In five years, sales hit $6.5 million (around ₹ 33.4 crore now), climbing to $1 billion by 1977. In 1982, Digital was included as one of 16 exemplar companies in the global best-seller In Search of Excellence by authors Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, and in 1986, Fortune magazine called Olsen the most successful entrepreneur in the history of American business.

Digital’s success was largely based on Olsen’s individual genius. However, as the industry became more complex, and even as the minicomputer was in the process of becoming a dinosaur, he refused to diversify into personal computers. By 1992, the company was deeply in the red. Olsen’s fatal flaw, in my opinion? Failing to enlist the help of those around him. In fact, as the book notes, those colleagues brave enough to offer help and advice proactively were ignored and/or fired.By late 1992, Olsen left the helm of Digital after running it for more than 35 years. Ultimately, in 1998, Compaq, and then Hewlett-Packard in 2002, acquired Digital, thereby marking the death of the once great company.

Going solo is a common flaw in many a great leadership success story. The greatest shortcoming of many businesses is that their success is limited to their leader’s individual brilliance. If the leader is visionary and works really hard, the organization succeeds beautifully. In good times, everyone applauds the leader’s visionary leadership; no one ever finds out anything might be wrong. Only when things go terribly wrong do people begin to question leadership.

The best leaders, however, realize early that success requires co-opting the creativity and energy of those who report directly to them.

The first step is to develop the humility and confidence to treat them as your co-leaders, and truly be willingly to share your authority with them. Stop giving instructions and invite them to co-lead the organization; including your team enables your administration. It’s a subtle but important difference in the way power works—you’re still in charge, though you seldom use position power to get things done. Next, the leader must proactively lead by example and invite constructive criticism and feedback, even on his own pet ideas. Again, only those that have both—supreme confidence in their abilities and extreme humility to know they cannot do it all alone—are able to stomach such feedback and criticism without feeling insecure. Finally, he must proactively create a culture of collaboration wherein every member of the team thinks and acts like an owner, and goes out of the way to make his/her peers successful.

Years ago, while working for a large multinational corporation in Asia, I personally witnessed a classic example of the difference between “instructing subordinates” and “leading with co-leaders”. The Asia-Pacific region was divided into two subregions, each headed by a senior vice-president (VP). Both senior VPs received the same directive from headquarters—reduce operating expenses by 25% in six months.

One of them immediately called for his chief financial officer (CFO) and wrote out a detailed memo to all country heads under his command, detailing what not to spend on, and what to seek his approval for before spending. The memo was direct and imperative, clearly outlining the dos and don’ts of expense control, and a biweekly report on the status of the cost control drive was expected—off a standard reporting template provided by the CFO, of course.

The other senior VP had a different approach. He arranged a conference call with all his country heads, and told them he had a great opportunity to discuss with them. “I know we are not having a great year, but we have an idea that can actually make our numbers look pretty decent by the end of the year even if revenue does not accelerate,” he said. Once he had everyone’s keen attention, he continued, “If we can save 25% of our operating expense budget between now and the end of the year, we will still be okay. I don’t want to prescribe what we should or should not spend on, because each of you faces very different market conditions. Instead, I ask that each of you brainstorm with your teams and come up with your own plan to save costs. Share it with your colleagues so they can also implement it, if it makes sense in their context. That’s it.”

While this may be a simplistic example, the importance of co-leadership is clear: I don’t need to tell you which one of the two teams was a group of co-leaders, and which one was just a team of direct reports. I also don’t need to tell you which team achieved more than 25% cost savings, and with pride.

If absolute power corrupts absolutely, co-leadership enables, absolutely.

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Partners or followers?

Who do you lead, co-leaders or subordinates? To find out, consider the following questions:

Did you hire others to execute part of a set plan—or have you invited your direct reports to shape your vision together?

• Did you give your direct reports their goals—or did you have a solid two-way conversation before finalizing them?

• Does every member individually run to you for solutions and advice—or does your team routinely get together to solve problems?

• Does your team constantly check with you for “the boss’ approval” on everything—or do your people have the empowerment to make some decisions on your behalf for the organization?

• Are your team members as good as their last mistake—or have you created a culture of forgiving mistakes?

If you answered yes to the first part of most questions, then you are not the kind of leader who encourages co-leadership.

Rajeev Peshawaria is CEO of the Iclif Leadership and Governance Centre based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and former chief learning officer of Coca-Cola and Morgan Stanley. He is also the author of Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders (Free Press).

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