The Journey of Leadership

When the pressure is on, many of the world’s top CEOs turn to McKinsey & Company to reinvent themselves and their organizations. This book is the first-ever explanation of McKinsey’s step-by-step approach to transforming leaders both professionally and personally, including revealing lessons from its legendary CEO leadership program, The Bower Forum, which has counseled more than five hundred global CEOs over the past decade. It is a journey that helps leaders hone the psychological, emotional, and, ultimately, human attributes that result in success in today’s most demanding top job. Packed with insightful and never-before-heard reflections from leaders, including Ed Bastian (CEO of Delta Air Lines), Makoto Uchida (CEO of Nissan Motor Corporation), Mark Fields (former CEO of Ford Motor Company), Reeta Roy (CEO of Mastercard Foundation), and Stéphane Bancel (CEO of Moderna), you will learn how to: <The Journey of Leadership< is an invaluable resource for anyone running or hoping to run an organization in today’s ever-more-complex world.

Autorentext

Dana Maor is the global co-head for the McKinsey People & Organizational Performance Practice and is a member of its Knowledge Council. As a senior partner, she works with leaders globally to transform their organizations and themselves and serves as co-dean of multiple McKinsey leadership programs.

Hans-Werner Kaas is the co-dean of the CEO leadership program The Bower Forum, a former member of its Global Client Council, and a senior partner emeritus at McKinsey. He joined McKinsey’s Frankfurt office in 1991, moved to the Cleveland office in 1997, and cofounded the Detroit office in 1998. He works with and counsels CEOs and leaders across multiple industry sectors globally.

Kurt Strovink leads McKinsey’s CEO special initiative globally. He works at the intersection of strategy, personal leadership, mission building, and enterprise transformation. A senior partner in the New York office, he has expertise in CEO transitions and the role of the CEO as a catalyst. Strovink is a member of McKinsey’s board of directors and has led its global insurance work and its New York office as a managing partner.

Ramesh Srinivasan is the co-dean of the CEO leadership program, The Bower Forum, and a senior partner at McKinsey, which he joined in 1994. He began his career at McKinsey in Mumbai and moved to New York in 2005. Beyond his client work serving health-care and social-sector institutions, Srinivasan leads McKinsey’s social responsibility efforts in North America.

Leseprobe
1

Humility

You're Not the Smartest Person in the Room

At a Bower Forum meeting held in Frankfurt, Germany, the CEO of an Asian tech giant explained how he had an extremely complicated relationship with his board. The chairman had been the previous CEO for twenty years and had helped build the company into a powerhouse. The trouble was that the chairman was still heavily involved in running the company, making it very difficult for the CEO to do his job. The CEO knew he needed to make major changes in the company, but he was struggling to get any agreement from the chairman, who ruled with an iron fist. While the CEO felt shackled, he also was conflicted because the chairman was his mentor and he wanted to stay loyal and figure out a way to work collaboratively with him.

One of the other CEOs in the room said, "You can't do this on your own. First off, to work more collaboratively with your chairman you have to understand him better and figure out who are his influencers on the board and who are his friends. You need to talk to these people and get useful input on what the chairman is thinking and then figure out how to influence him." The first CEO explained to the group that an Indonesian investment fund, which controlled some 30 percent of the company, had a strong relationship with the chairman and influenced his views. The CEO, however, didn't have any sort of relationship with them. The other CEOs at the forum told him he needed to fly to Indonesia and start reporting quarterly results in person to the fund managers. That way he could get to know them and ask for their help in persuading the chairman to work with him to make the changes he needed.

Then another CEO chimed in: "Once you understand what your chairman is thinking, you should have a frank conversation with him where you lay out the facts and arguments for your strategic plan. But don't hit him all at once. Have a series of discussions laying out your agenda in bite-sized chunks and tell him, 'Here's what I'm thinking about at this point in time.' Then tell him you'd like to come back in another week and talk more, and then keep doing that until he's won over."

Over the next several months, the CEO reached within himself, realizing that he indeed couldn't go it alone. He sought out investors, friends of the chairman, and others, asking their advice on what the chairman was thinking and the best ways to approach him. Eventually the two rivals began to see eye-to-eye on the company's strategy and worked together to move the business forward.

The CEO of this Asian tech giant is a great example of a leader who benefited from the first element of the Bower Forum process. He took an unbiased look at himself and realized that he was stalled at his job and didn't have all the answers. He realized he needed to become a better listener and reach out to those who could help him perform better. He then built an outside network of advisers to help him figure out how to work with his chairman to form a mandate for change. He had been trying to go it alone, but after feedback from other CEOs he came to realize that he is not expected to go it alone. He wasn't always the smartest one in the room.

As this CEO proved, personal change is possible. After much self-assessment, he became more open and humble, seeking input from his management team, outsiders, and the board, who had a broader sense of the business context or knew the thinking of the company's chairman. He learned how to embark on a never-ending learning journey, one where he had the courage to reach out and listen to the advice of others.

One of the key reasons CEOs come to the forum is to address their isolation and their loneliness. No one likes to feel lonely, but when you get the top job, that's just what happens. Sometimes no one talks to you because you act like you're the smartest one in the room, and no one wants to say the wrong thing or bring bad news to the boss. As a New Yorker cartoon that showed a CEO addressing his team put it, "I am more than willing to acknowledge my mistakes if someone is stupid enough to point them out to me."

When they are feeling uncertain and lack confidence, many CEOs tend to go "one up"-convincing themselves that they are more important in order to feel safer in their role. (Later in the book we will explore how the best leaders go "one down" and behave in ways that supercharge teamwork.) Going one up is a move into grandiosity that leads them to think that they are better and smarter than everyone else. The leaders who fall into this trap aren't usually conceited people, but they might believe the job requires that they make decisions on their own-something that in reality isn't required. As former Warren Buffett sidekick and legendary investor Charlie Munger once put it, "Smart, hard-working people aren't exempted from professional disasters from overconfidence. Often, they just go aground in the more difficult voyages they choose, relying on their self-appraisals that they have superior talents and methods."

Sometimes going one up is a personal attribute of the CEO-they intrinsically operate that way to overcome their own insecurities. Other times, it is the team that expects the CEO to be decisive and have all the answers. …