What part of leadership might you lack?

When it comes to leadership, we can at least collect 100 master definitions. However, many definitions do not make corporate leadership no longer a problem. "How can we accurately locate the leadership shortcomings?" "What aspects of leadership need to be improved?" "How should I improve?" Such problems often originate from enterprise managers. And with the change of business environment and business model, the demand for such an answer is more and more urgent. As a management magazine with a history of 20 years, The World Manager has witnessed many hazards caused by the lack of leadership in its zero-distance contact with enterprises. So we feel obligated to discuss the true meaning of leadership with readers and find the key link of leadership. Interactive topic: Have you ever thought about understanding leadership from these dimensions? After interviewing dozens of typical enterprise executives and leadership experts, we developed a structured multi-perspective questionnaire on the demand for leadership skills. For each skill, we give a score of 5- 1 according to the demand, where 5 is "very needed, must have" and 1 is "very unnecessary". This questionnaire was sent to the senior leaders in charge of leadership development in large, medium and small enterprises in our community in June 20 13. After more than a month, we got 265 valid replies. The leadership structure chart and skill demand list are the main results of this series of efforts. The leadership structure chart (below) was drawn up according to the survey results after consulting many experts and entrepreneurs. This is a hierarchical leadership structure diagram different from any previous model. The reason why I dare to take the lead in throwing out this structural diagram in the industry is to arouse discussion and debate and raise the concept of leadership to an operational level. Fifty-seven skill requirements are also our first attempt to deconstruct leadership. The ranking of skill requirements is listed according to the statistical results of 5 points in the questionnaire response, among which only 1 1 large enterprises have higher skill requirements than small and medium-sized enterprises. Why is this happening? In the subsequent data analysis of this paper, we introduced expert interpretation. For this result, experts and entrepreneurs who have seen it before have given their own opinions and evaluations. Limited to space, we only extract the following parts. More comments have been posted on our website, and you are welcome to participate in the opinion collision. Expert comment: Qian Wei, Managing Director of Accenture Greater China Management Consulting, divides leadership into external and internal dimensions. The method of dividing dimensions is simple, but it captures the key points, especially in the China environment. Because the external business environment faced by enterprises in China is very complicated, the senior leaders in China have to deal with all kinds of complicated relationships most of the time to obtain resources and win the legitimacy for enterprises. In this respect, they will be different from business leaders in more mature markets, so some western management theories are not completely applicable to them. In addition, the framework increases leadership behavior in a rapidly changing environment, which is very important in the current business environment. Jiang, general manager of towers watson Consulting Group in North China and head of human capital business in China: When we help enterprises to improve their leadership, we often do subtraction, focusing on seven or eight aspects of leadership to ensure that capabilities and content cannot overlap. And you listed all kinds of leadership from the perspective of research, trying to cover a wider range without supplementing it. In this way, there will inevitably be some overlapping abilities, such as the ability to motivate, the ability to manage and create teams. Tang Minchao, General Manager of Guangzhou International Bio-Island Investment and Development Co., Ltd.: This framework has mixed management contents when describing leadership. However, the data here still conveys a lot of noteworthy information. Zhang Xinmin, Vice President and Professor of university of international business and economics: Actually, leadership and implementation are both management. There is no need to deliberately distinguish between leadership and management ability. Xu Zhu, President of Audi Bath Car Wash Equipment Company: I basically agree with this framework. However, it is a bit difficult for SME owners to calm down and think about these things because they are busy with their livelihood. If only the structure were simpler. Leadership standing above the organization: Leadership standing above the organization is mainly aimed at business leaders. This survey found that different types of enterprises agree that the ability to set long-term goals is the primary ability that leaders must have, which shows that enterprises are no longer just concerned about the present and quick success, but pursue long-term development. Many business leaders interviewed believe that only by first determining the general direction of development can we formulate corresponding strategies and lead enterprises to keep moving forward. In the process of moving forward, it is essential to ensure that everyone has the ability to move forward in harmony, work together and adapt to the situation. However, Jiang believes that incentive ability should be the cornerstone of leaders' strategic thinking ability and leadership change ability. * * * sexual leadership: * * sexual leadership is aimed at managers at all levels, which inevitably involves the management category, but here more emphasis is placed on the understanding of ability or behavior itself. The survey data shows that different types of enterprises have once again reached a * * * understanding here. Although execution ranks first in demand, the demand for management team ability is second only to execution, and the difference between them is no more than 4%. In the survey of large enterprises, the difference is only 1%. According to an executive of a pharmaceutical company, the reason why these two leadership skills should be put in the same position is because "execution is guaranteed by teamwork." If the team can't be twisted into a rope, execution will be impossible. " And team management is a very challenging thing, because employees' personal awareness is getting stronger and stronger. Ability to set long-term goals: Zhang Zhixue, deputy dean of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University and a professor of leadership, believes that leaders of large enterprises must have a sense of mission. However, in this survey, it is precisely large enterprises that rank this demand in the third place. Conversely, small and medium-sized enterprises think that this is the first skill requirement for them to set long-term goals. Tang Minchao believes that this data reflects the disadvantages of organizational expansion. The bigger the enterprise, the more likely it is to have bureaucratic mechanism, which leads to the decline of people's cultural identity. We are all in the same boat, relying on the strength of the organization. Few people are willing or able to exert their subjective initiative. However, small and medium-sized enterprises are different, and the pressure of survival is relatively high. More often, they need to rely on capable individuals to seize market opportunities. Therefore, emphasizing and highlighting personal ability, personal sense of mission also arises spontaneously. But this set of data also sends a positive signal, that is, no matter what kind of enterprises, they all think that innovative thinking is the primary ability to formulate the development direction, which reflects the activation of innovative consciousness of enterprise leaders. Motivation: How to lead Qi Xin to achieve the goal together? Different types of enterprises hold different views on the skill demand of this incentive ability. Leaders of large enterprises put influence and attraction first; Small and medium-sized enterprises believe that an honest, confident and open-minded leader can achieve motivation; In private enterprise groups, an effective incentive mechanism is regarded as the primary ability to stimulate people to follow their wishes. This choice of small and medium-sized enterprises or private enterprises, in Tang Minchao's view, shows that their understanding of the concept of leadership is biased, because these two abilities belong to the quality level and management category. Jiang also pointed out that in shaping the image of corporate leaders, they also put integrity and self-confidence in lower quality requirements. However, Zhang Zhixue believes that this result is inevitable from the perspective of enterprise type and system. In large enterprises, leaders are faced with competent generals-executives of various departments. If these generals want to follow them willingly, the influence and attraction of the leaders are necessary; In small and medium-sized enterprises, because leaders have to do everything themselves, their every move can be seen by subordinates and employees. Therefore, only by setting an example for employees can the viscosity of employees be enhanced. Resilience: Among the skills to realize resilience, although the demand order is different, the ability to make decisions quickly and the ability to integrate resources quickly have been given considerable attention. However, this set of data also reveals a hidden worry. All enterprises put the ability to listen to customer needs and analyze and summarize data behind. In fact, the source of decision-making is customer demand, and gradually transparent information is letting customers dominate the market. Therefore, paying close attention to customers' needs is the basis of maintaining resilience. Without data analysis, it is difficult to turn customers' needs into decision-making basis. The results of this survey show that many enterprises still follow the traditional decision-making process from the inside out. However, we have also captured some positive signals from the rankings of large enterprises. They put the ability to track new things and be good at learning in the first place. An executive of COFCO explained, "We really feel that the business thinking of enterprises is facing changes, so we are closely tracking the changes and trying to adapt to them." Influence or attraction: does influence or attraction come from charm or personal behavior? The answer to the survey data is the latter, that is, the ability to take responsibility-the ability to reflect the personal behavior of leaders is undisputed in the first place by all enterprises, while the ability to inspire people with vision is behind. What is more telling is that speaking skills, which are regarded as necessary by many executives of multinational companies, are also ranked last by different enterprises here. When talking about this result, a private enterprise boss said: "In fact, to be a business, you still have to be a man first. As for speech skills, they can only serve as icing on the cake. No matter how good it is, it is better to be convincing. " Execution: To ensure execution, the ability to decompose and implement strategies is recognized as the first ability that all enterprises must have. However, when the strategy is decomposed and then moved down, different enterprises have different consciousness. Among them, the biggest difference is the ability to judge and manage the focus of work. Large enterprises have the lowest demand for this ability, and small and medium-sized enterprises or private enterprises rank it second and third respectively. In fact, large enterprises need to deal with more work than small and medium-sized enterprises. Why did they make such a choice? One possible explanation is that there are many process frameworks in large enterprises, and managers are more process-driven. Therefore, the subjective consciousness of judging and managing work priorities has lost its application space. Ability of management team: In this ability category, there is a very disappointing data-the failure of tolerance and innovation is ranked at the bottom of demand by all enterprises. In fact, those companies that pursue innovation, such as 3M, have a very strong culture of tolerance for failure. The chairman of 3M often encourages employees: "At 3M, you have the freedom to stick to the end, which means you have the freedom not to be afraid of mistakes and failures." He often warns managers, "Only by tolerating mistakes can we innovate." Intel, which also has innovative genes, also regards "encouraging adventure" as one of the six basic principles of corporate culture. At Intel, employees and managers may even be fired if they don't make "reasonable mistakes" within one year of being hired. Ability to create teams: Large and medium-sized enterprises have once again given the same skill demand ranking in terms of the ability to create teams. However, this set of data also reveals a signal that leaders have not paid enough attention to building interpersonal networks. Qian Wei, managing director of Accenture Greater China Management Consulting, reminded that "the ability to build a network is very critical. Recently, a new research project we did mentioned that in the next decade, the improvement of national and enterprise productivity will not come from a single enterprise to a large extent, but from the network formed between enterprises, including peers and upstream and downstream. More and more enterprises want to become open enterprises, so connectivity is very important! " Junior manager: This is a similar set of requirements. Communication ability is regarded as the primary ability of junior managers by all enterprises, while the ability to set goals is ranked as the last requirement. This arrangement fully shows the peripheral role of junior managers in leadership. They are the inheritors and transmitters of the spread of senior leaders to the whole enterprise terminal, and their main responsibility lies in implementation. Leadership is mainly reflected in a firm sense of implementation. Middle managers: Survey data show that communication ability is not only the primary leadership of junior managers, but also the most needed leadership of middle managers. The communication of middle managers not only means communicating with superiors to fully understand their indicators and instructions, but also means passing these accurately understood information to subordinates in time. At this point, all enterprises have the same needs. The difference between them lies in the skill demand of training junior managers and effectively motivating subordinates. Large enterprises think that effective motivation of subordinates should be given priority, while the other two types of enterprises think that it is more urgent to train junior managers. To some extent, this difference reflects the urgency of different types of enterprises' demand for grass-roots talents, and the grass-roots talent resources of large enterprises are relatively rich. Vice-president-level executives: This level of executives' demand for leadership has been very different from that of middle-level and below managers, and their strategic thinking awareness and ability to implement the company's strategy have ranked first and second. This difference shows that the strategic formulation of large enterprises is no longer a matter for the big boss alone, but needs to gather the collective wisdom of his strong men. But in small and medium-sized enterprises and private enterprises, the boss's brain is still the birthplace of strategy, and the general's duty is still to implement it. Because the power of private enterprises is mostly concentrated in the hands of big bosses, the risk of decision-making strategy must also depend on him alone. Those large enterprises that gather collective wisdom to form a strategy generally have a relatively sound corporate governance mechanism. Their management is no longer dependent on the CEO alone, but on a core team. Seeing that we have broken down different levels of leadership into different skill indicators, Qian Wei, managing director of Accenture Greater China Management Consulting, suggested that "these indicators can be unified into the same dimension. The dimensions of excellent leadership should be unified at all levels, but different levels will have different emphasis on each dimension. For example, junior managers pay more attention to execution and are oriented by peer-to-peer work, while senior managers pay more attention to setting long-term goals and inspiring others. "