Execution and leadership

The concept of individual leadership promoted by the modern leadership movement has long focused on specific functions or personal characteristics. For example, we are taught that leaders must generally possess specific traits, ranging from intelligence to passion. Alternatively, we are informed, they must have others that make them singularly capable of performing certain putative leadership functions, such as effecting change.

After years of gorging on this sort of narcissism (which, sadly, continues), organizations, managers, and directors alike began to object that none of this means anything if there is no execution. So, proponents of the preeminence of individual leadership simply identified that, as well, as a specific leadership function that only specially cultivated leaders can perform.

Is that true? Is execution a leadership function? Recall that we are not using the term “leadership” in a generic manner to refer to whoever is in charge, but in the exclusive and rarified sense employed by the modern leadership movement to establish it as a special calling distinct from and superior to management.

So, with that in mind, what does execution - that is, an overriding organizational focus on accomplishing the aims of strategy - do for or to an organization?

One obvious thing it does is infuse the group with an omnipresent discipline. If the priority is always to execute the plan, and if that organizational instinct is genuine and not just fluff printed in the annual shareholder report or posted on the bulletin board, then people will think of the plan as they carry out their activities. They will select tasks that support the plan, they will refer to the plan to resolve the uncertainties that inevitably appear, and they will evaluate progress and results based on actual success in advancing the plan.

This sort of disciplined prioritizing also has many additional effects. A key one is the tendency to avoid distracting and irrelevant undertakings. Another is to act as a basis for establishing and effecting organizational policy in every area from operations to personnel practices. Again, if the concentration on execution is effectively inherent in the organizational culture, then such policies generally are more readily accepted, translated into action, and supported by staff at all levels.

Does this describe a function that is distinctly that of leadership? Or is it straightforward management? It, clearly, is the widely accepted definition of the latter.

But this matter of infusing an organization with the impulse to execute - is that some sort of additionally profound element of the exercise that only leaders can perform? Does it take a special personality or gift to communicate and maintain this mindset?

No. It requires only the establishment of that as policy, and sustained and disciplined communication of and adherence to it. (And, truth be told, it is typically not staff that is subject to confusion on this topic, but a firm’s “leadership.”)

So, where does it come from? As in so many of the other real or putative leadership functions discussed in our current context, however else you may wish to characterize the executives who generate a consistent focus on execution, to the extent they are doing that, they are acting as managers.

Tomorrow, we will look at the peculiar sub-activity of “leading change.” Please do continue your visits and offer your observations.

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Today’s tip: Speaking of an overreliance on the belief that individual leaders are the key to organizational success, please see this item about the records of new CEOs, by Joann S. Lublin of the WSJ.

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