EndNote:

By: Don Dunoon

Publication: Boss (magazine in Australian Financial Review)

Date: July 2002 Page: 66

We need to reconsider the Karpin Report.
A new approach to leadership is required.

It is now seven years since the report of the Industry Task Force on Leadership and Management Skills - the so-called Karpin Report - and a fundamental error made by the task force continues to impact on Australian organisations. The error was in failing to recognise leadership as a form of action different from management. The consequence is to perpetuate a bias towards managing for delivering today's results at the expense of leadership for deep-reaching change.

The task force was established to advise on the leadership and management skills needed by Australian managers. After three years of consultations and armed with 27 research reports, the task force concluded there was not much point in dwelling on leadership and that it was preferable to focus on managerial competencies.

The task force equated leadership with individual "leaders" and correctly recognised that this road into leadership is a dead end. Among other things, to successfully pick and develop future leaders it would be important to know the attributes and behaviours of effective leaders, against which to assess aspirants. Despite myriad research studies, there is still plenty of uncertainty as to what these qualities are.

The task force concluded: "very little can be added to the already crowded debate on leadership: the more pertinent questions centre around the broad areas of competence that managers in the new structures require". But there is another way in, an approach which lessens the emphasis on individuals - and hence the requisite qualities -and focuses more on leadership as a style of working that can be fostered and nurtured throughout an organisation.

In 1990, Harvard professor John Kotter suggested in A Force for Change (Free Press) that leadership is a mode of action towards achieving change, a reference apparently overlooked by the task force. He saw management as another mode of functioning, quite distinct but complementary, with the emphasis on maintaining stability and predictability in operations.

Extending from Kotter, the management mode includes establishing plans, allocating resources, solving operational problems, improving processes and monitoring performance. The focus is on more explicit organisational aspects - tasks, measurement and achieving results - with attention to "people" aspects, and keeping things on track and fine-tuned, all within a set of beliefs or assumptions commonly taken for granted, unstated and untested.

Leadership, in contrast, deals with deep change or transformation - change at a fundamental level, whether that be, for example, in the definition of the business that the organisation or unit is in, in the manner in which groups of workers interact together, or in the way employees interpret their role. Paradoxically, such deep change may be necessary to ensure reliability and quality in ongoing operations, not just to prepare for the future.

Central to leadership processes is enabling others to recognise, challenge and redefine the basic assumptions that govern what happens in the workplace. These assumptions or mindsets tend to operate subconsciously, so that revealing and working with them requires considerable skill and self-awareness.

Leadership and management, as modes of action, reflect differing underlying values. Where management deals with rigorous analysis, leadership involves creativity and insight; where management is geared to outcomes, leadership attends to process (including modelling desired behaviours); where management centres on what is tangible or measurable, leadership deals with what is implicit, such as aspirations and emotions.

Fair enough, but aren't leadership and management best considered as one, under a competency banner, as the task force suggested? The task force, stuck in its leader-centred view of leadership, failed to recognise an inherent tension between leadership and management modes. While leadership is concerned with achieving fundamental change, management is about reining it in. If most organisations have a pre-existing leaning towards management, which I suggest is the case, there is likely to be a one-sidedness towards tinkering with operations and structures, rather than engaging more fundamental issues.

There are plenty of self-styled leadership programs around, but it is important to look at their values and assumptions. I suspect many would show a strong management-mode bias.

Both leadership and management are vital, and most managers will need to do some of each. It is even possible to specify leadership competencies, though the subtleties are likely to evade precise definition. But packaging leadership and management as one - ignoring the essential differences between them - will almost guarantee that management values overwhelm those of leadership.

It's time for a fresh look at the Karpin Report conclusions and a renewed debate about the meaning and place of leadership. The task force may have missed the turnoff to leadership but it's not too late for a change of direction.