Newsletter: 2005 April Issue

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Newsletter

April 2005

Spotlight: Follow These Leaders
As part of their research on leadership development, Queen's IRC faculty member Françoise Morissette and fellow consultant Amal Henein have interviewed 200 leaders from across Canada: executives, entrepreneurs, politicians, civil servants, fundraisers, activists, artists, journalists, athletes, coaches. While their book, “Maple Leaf Style”, is slated for publication in 2006, they gave us an early view of some findings to date. ...more

This Issue: Save on program fees: The $300 early registration discount for Strategy for HR Leaders is April 19. ...more The brilliance of Babel: Lucinda Bray on how the European Commission thrives on linguistic chaos. ...more We have our winners: Read on to find out who won a free pass to an IRC program. ...more The mark of the magnificent leader: Some are born to it, most have it thrust on them. ...more

Upcoming Programs All - Toronto- Regina - Halifax Sept. 21 - 26, Kingston Industrial Relations Register Sept. 22 - 25, Kingston Building Smart Teams Register Sept. 23 - 26, Toronto Change Management Register Sept. 30 - Oct. 03, Regina Dispute Resolution Register Oct. 07, Toronto Performance Management Essentials and Strategy Register Oct. 07 - 08, Toronto Compensation Clinics (Performance+Group Benefits Programs) Register Oct. 08, Toronto Employee Group Benefits Register Oct. 15 - 17, Toronto Business Strategy Register Oct. 19 - 24, Kingston Negotiation Skills Register Oct. 21 - 24, Regina Building Smart Teams Register

You Think You Have Language Issues at Work?

Queen's IRC faculty member Lucinda Bray is a management development consultant based in Dublin, Ireland. In the following piece, she muses on the brilliant cultural chaos of the European Commission workforce.

The Head of the Department is Italian, who also speaks fluent French and passable English. Her deputy is from Finland, and has excellent English and useable Russian. They have just hired a new project manager from Lithuania, whose second language is Russian and who is currently learning English. The rest of the department is a mixture of European nationalities and languages: Greek, English, Dutch, Portuguese, French, Austrian, and Czech.

Welcome to the European Commission.

The European Commission is the public service of the European Union which, since May 2004, now includes 25 countries and operates in 20 official languages. Within the Commission itself, there are three working languages – French, English, and German, which means that everybody has to be able to speak at least one of these. To add to the complication, most of the staffers come from previous careers in their member states and bring different organisational cultures with them.

The Italian Head of Department wonders if her Finnish deputy is a bit slow because he says very little and shows no reaction to her comments. The Finn admires his boss (of course he won't tell her!) but finds her a little emotionally overwhelming. They are both wondering how the Lithuanian project manager will turn out – she's only 30, so won't have been moulded by the Communist work ethic, but still…. And the Lithuanian is starting to get frustrated by all the bureaucracy and red tape.

I have been leading management development seminars within the Commission for the past 10 years, and am fascinated by the place. At first glance, it looks chaotic. By any normal organisational standard, it shouldn't work. The whole thing should have collapsed years ago. Traditional bitter enemies working side by side? Twenty official languages? No majority language or working culture? Crazy!

In fact it works very well, by capitalising on those enormous cultural differences. Canadians are used to multinational workforces, but there is always a dominant organisation culture to which the various nationalities are expected to adapt. This does not exist in the Commission. Although the organisation structure is modelled on the French civil service (very hierarchical and vertical), the day-to-day working culture varies from department to department, depending on the nationality of the senior manager. And because of the Commission's mobility policy, managers must change positions every four years, so the working style in any department shifts constantly.

This multicultural vegetable soup appears to be one of the Commission's major attractions for new recruits, who look forward to the challenge of working with such a wide cross-section of people. Surprisingly, the Commission provides almost no diversity training apart from an initial induction programme. Yet the atmosphere in the offices is one of respect, tolerance, and good-humoured willingness to accept others' differences. Racism is almost unheard of.

So… the Italian department head learns that the Finn only speaks when he has something constructive to say, and that he can sum up entire discussions in a single sentence. The Finn learns not to be distracted by his boss's exuberant body language. The Lithuanian starts to streamline the department's procedures. And the work gets done.

Prized Subscriber

When we launched the Take Our (Free!) Seat contest in the fall we knew the ballots would fly through cyberspace. A chance to win free tuition to a Queen's IRC program is mighty alluring. Well, the ballots are in and the winner is. . . John Fleck from the Town of Ajax, Ontario. John is now perusing the IRC 2005 Program Planner to pick his winning program. Congratulations, John.

And congratulations are also in order for Anne Berry who won a copy of Building Smart Teams: A Roadmap to High Performance from the contest in our previous e-newsletter issue.

Spotlight: Follow These Leaders
In Conversation with Françoise Morissette and Amal Henein

As part of their research on leadership development, Queen's IRC faculty member Françoise Morissette and fellow consultant Amal Henein have interviewed 200 leaders from across Canada: executives, entrepreneurs , politicians, civil servants, fundraisers, activists, artists, journalists, athletes, coaches. While their book, “Maple Leaf Style”, is slated for publication in 2006, they gave us an early view of some findings to date.

Your research focuses on what leaders do as opposed to who leaders are: you judge the outcome rather than a set of character traits.

AH: Getting results is of prime importance: that is the ultimate measure of leadership. If leaders don't accomplish what they set out to do, people will not follow them for long. You can have leadership charisma galore, but if you don't have followers you're not a leader. Sometimes leaders get caught up in chasing a vision and when they look around, they need binoculars to see their followers because they have lost touch.

What are some of your findings?

FM: One of the most interesting finding is that only one-third of interviewees feel they were “born to lead” and have an innate interest or ability in leadership. By contrast, two-thirds claim that leadership was” thrust upon them”. Typically, they say, “I never wanted or set out to be a leader. I had to take on a leadership role because nobody else would do it,” or “I deeply believed in a cause,” or “I really wanted to help.”

This breakdown has profound implications on how we view leadership and its development. It certainly flies in the face of the old adage that “leaders are born, not made.” Instead of focusing on how to identify “born” leaders -- which is easy enough to do – the question becomes: how do we create conditions so that more people will take on leadership roles? If the majority of people do not initially see themselves as leaders, then development is key: “Nurture” primes over “Nature”.

AH: Moreover, even the innate leaders stress the importance of development, which enables them to grow in skill and confidence and enhances their ability to adapt to a variety of situations. Both the “accidental” and the “born” leaders agree that leadership development is essentially an organic process. Although a certain amount of planning and goal setting exists, being alert to opportunities and seizing them is paramount because stretching out of one's comfort zone promotes growth like nothing else.

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