Enterprise leadership: no room for lone wolves

Leaders are so focused on boosting their workplace performance they are failing to contribute to bottom line growth.

Leaders are so focused on boosting their own workplace performance they are failing to contribute to the bottom-line growth of the business. According to CEB’s Creating Enterprise Leaders report, businesses don’t have the leaders they need to remain competitive.

While 82 per cent of leaders are achieving their performance objectives, significant revenue growth opportunities are being missed by leaders failing to work together. “Lone wolf” leaders talk little to their peers, collaborate less and often think only of their unit, not the wider company.

Not only are they blinkered to what’s going on around them but their narrowed outlook effectively halves their impact on the business compared with those who take a more collaborative approach to leadership. No wonder, then, that less than a third of executives believe their leaders are equipped to meet the demands of the future work environment.

So what has changed? Our ­research shows leaders have more direct reports across wider ­geographies and more stakeholders to consult in making decisions. In this new environment, the most successful leaders are those who have shifted mindsets, activities and behaviours from driving their own results to the organisation’s results. They do this by contributing to and leveraging the performance of other teams.

We call such leaders enterprise leaders. They bring people together to create greater value for the organisation; they drive productive collaboration at the top among their leader peers; and they work across internal silos to use the skills and outcomes of other teams across the enterprise.

Three behaviours distinguish enterprise leaders.

• They take from — and give to — their peers. They are 50 per cent more effective at using and providing contributions to and from the broader enterprise.

• They push — and pull — team contributions. They are 20 per cent likelier to work within their teams to find solutions, extract key learnings, and share them with the ­organisation.

• They facilitate — and don’t direct — team performance. They are 30 per cent likelier to proactively connect their teams with those who can enhance and benefit from the team performance.

For many, a focus on collaboration may seem a distraction from core work, but data shows staff perform better in response to this leadership style.

Teams managed by enterprise leaders are 23 per cent likelier to be innovative and 15 per cent likelier to generate solutions to new or anticipated problems than those managed by lone wolves. Customers benefit as well. Enterprise leaders create more adaptable and engaged teams, and generate 20 per cent higher customer ­satisfaction, by greater collaboration and understanding of the organisation’s goals and objectives.

The pay-off is clear: a bench of enterprise leaders, leading collaboratively, can lift annual business unit revenue growth rates up to 12 per cent and create a spillover effect of 5 per cent revenue growth in other parts of the company.

Aaron McEwan is the human resources advisory leader at best practice insights and technology company CEB.