The future of leadership: A practitioner view

European Management Journal (2010) 28, 260– 268

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/ locate /emj

The future of leadership: A practitioner view

Lynne Chambers a,*, John Drysdale b, John Hughes c

a Talent & People Development, PricewaterhouseCoopers, United Kingdomb Business Momentum, Advisory Board Member of Lancaster University Management School, United Kingdomc Leadership Development Centre of Expertise, PricewaterhouseCoopers, United Kingdom

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KEYWORDSResponsible leadership;Distributed leadership;Leadershipdevelopment;MIT;Banking crisis;Sony Europe;PricewaterhouseCoop-ers;Future of leadership

63-2373/$ - see front mattei:10.1016/j.emj.2010.05.00

* Corresponding author. Tel17 (m).E-mail address: lynne.j.ch

r ª 2015

.: +44 0

ambers@

Summary This article explores the crisis in leadership focusing on the period since thebanking crisis. It is written from a practitioner perspective and includes a review of a sur-vey of 16 global companies and their attitudes and perspectives on leadership develop-ment. The article also explores applications of a framework developed at MIT lookingat leadership in an age of uncertainty. There are in-depth recent case studies on leader-ship development at Sony Europe and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Key assumptions includethe fact that leadership is distributed across an organisation and that leadership evolvesas an organisation�s environment shifts. The article concludes with some views on futureleadership development.ª 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

In 2006/2007, just before the global financial crisis, two ofthe authors, surveyed the Heads of Leadership and Talent in16 global companies (Chambers and Drysdale, 2007). Thesecompanies came from a range of sectors including Banking,Insurance, Technology, and Food. They had diverse nationalownership: Dutch, French, Swiss, US, UK and Japanese.

In the 2007 study we found that less than a quarter ofthese companies were satisfied with the development oftheir leadership talent and that senior stakeholders in lessthan half of these companies had clear expectations of tal-ent development.

0 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

207 213 3393 (w), 0759 035

uk.pwc.com (L. Chambers).

The minority of companies that were satisfied with lead-ership development had a number of factors in common:

• Strategic intent clearly articulated each company�simpact across a broad range of stakeholder interestsi.e. clients/customers, markets, financial performance,culture, corporate and social responsibility.

• Integrated business and people planning processes linkedperformance and people development goals.

• Leaders� remuneration was linked to an assessment of‘‘how’’ they led as well as ‘‘what’’ business results theyachieved.

Three years ago the majority of leadership practitionerswere not satisfied with the impact of leadership and talent

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2010.05.005

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The future of leadership: A practitioner view 261

development. Since then life as a practitioner and as a lea-der has become much more challenging. Press coverage ofbusiness leaders� behaviour clearly shows heightened public,regulatory and shareholder scrutiny. At the same time ourstudy showed that leaders have to balance many competingdemands within their roles. We therefore welcomed theinvitation from the Windsor Leadership Trust to explorefrom a leadership development practitioner�s perspective,how things have changed. In particular, we looked at howrequirements of business leaders have changed, what com-panies are doing to enable leaders to develop the requiredcapabilities and what has been the impact.

We focused our attention on the European businesses offive global companies, two of which were Sony Europe andPwC UK. In all five companies, we interviewed the Headsof Talent and Leadership Development. The other threecompanies included the UK business of a European ownedtelecoms company (Telco), the European business of a glo-bal US owned technology company (Techco) and a global UKowned publishing and media company. These companiesemployed on average 20,000 people in Europe. We featurein more depth, the experiences of the consumer electronicscompany (Sony Europe) and the professional services firm(PwC UK), both of which have made considerable invest-ments in leadership development which they have sustainedthroughout the global economic crisis.

A crisis of leadership

Since our first study, the global political and economic land-scape has shifted considerably. In the autumn of 2008, afterthe collapse of Lehman Brothers and the government res-cues of what had been financial power houses, such asAIG, RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, the financial crisis deep-ened. Since the Enron collapse, public opinion surveys haveshown deepening distrust in our business leaders, which inturn caused a crisis of faith in our institutions and ultimatelyin our government. The speed of the credit crisis was exem-plified in the case of one of the companies in the 2007 sur-vey. In the spring of 2008, the survey company held a topLeadership Summit, exhorting its leaders to pursue opportu-nities for business growth in Asia. The same company sixmonths later was fighting for its very survival and had tobe bailed out by the national government. The speed ofthe downturn took many leaders by surprise. It was difficultfor us all to comprehend how the financial system had begunto unravel and had done so at such a deep-rooted level andin such a short time.

A mood of deep uncertainty prevailed. Many questionswere asked about how and why Banking leaders had not justcaused their own organisations to falter, but also impactedthe whole economy and contributed to its downward spiral.Press articles abounded about reckless leaders who showedapparent disregard for their shareholders and for the gen-eral public, whilst rewarding themselves with substantialbonuses and share options. Sample public commentary is in-cluded in our references to articles and speeches by Bainet al., The Governor of the Bank of England and a specialissue from the Institute of Directors.

Some individual leaders received more criticism thanothers – perhaps because of a perceived lack of remorse

or humility. The public, as well as the regulators, were inno mood for excuses – there was simply too much at stake.The overall impact was an increased public focus on integ-rity, ethics and accountability leading to demands for great-er scrutiny and stronger regulation of financial servicescompanies (those organisations who had dared to challengethe underlying principles).

Although the crisis was averted, many questions remainabout the leadership of those organisations who had broughtthe global economy to the brink of disaster – to what extentdid they contribute to it? To what extent should they havehad greater foresight and be more attuned to the real risksposed within their own businesses? This has led us to look atleadership post the crisis in a new light – and in particularto focus on how organisations can prepare future leadersfor the extreme challenges of leadership in the 21st century– i.e. balancing increasing uncertainty and ambiguity whilsthandling greater regulation.

A framework for our inquiry

All the companies we surveyed in 2007 had a framework ormodel that defined their requirements of leaders. Themajority of these models were bespoke and focused on acombination of behaviours, intellectual capabilities and val-ues. In a third of companies, these models had been in placefor five years and they provided the basis for much of theleadership development activity in these companies.

Much has been written recently about ‘‘Leadership inchallenging times’’ as academics, consultants and compa-nies themselves seek answers to the questions of ‘‘whatmust leaders do now?’’. We found the work of Deborah Anc-ona and her colleagues at MIT particularly helpful in provid-ing a frame of reference to guide our inquiry. (Ancona,2005). They have developed a framework which integratesprior theories of leadership whilst focusing on what leadersactually do. Developed by four MIT Sloan faculty members,Deborah Ancona, Wanda Orlikowski, Peter Senge and TomMalone, it has the following core assumptions:

• Leadership is distributed.• Leadership is personal and developmental.• Leadership is a process to create change.• Leadership develops over time.

We found the model particularly apt as it helps us asleadership development practitioners to build hope – infact the very representation of the model is a compass tohelp our leaders navigate through these turbulent times.

Their framework has four key leadership capabilities:

• Sense making – seeking many types and sources of dataand involving others in the process.

• Relating– developing key relationships within and acrossorganisations.

• Visioning – providing people with a sense of meaningabout their work and answering the question ‘‘why am Idoing this?’’.

• Inventing – creating new ways of working together,including the processes and structures needed to makethe vision a reality.

262 L. Chambers et al.

Ancona et al. make an interesting point about the rolethat polarity or paradox plays in leadership, which they re-fer to as tensions:

‘‘These capabilities can also create tensions that need tobe managed. It is difficult to hold an image of the futureand the present simultaneously. Balancing people andprocesses, action and understanding, individual and col-lective aspirations, can be challenging. Yet it is inherentin the framework that managing these very tensions isthe essence of leadership.’’(Ancona et al., 2007, p. 3.)

Examples of this dynamic emerged in our interviews withleadership development practitioners, e.g., in every com-pany we spoke with, the leaders who were performing bestwere those who were able to manage that tension betweenholding sight of the vision whilst delivering short termresults.

Signature style

The last component in the MIT framework is the individualleader�s ‘‘signature style’’ which they describe as ‘‘ . . . thechange signature that determines how and what the toolis used for’’ (Ancona et al., 2007, p. 3). While the capabil-ities focus on what leaders do, the change signature is aboutwho a leader is. It develops slowly based on experience andskills. It is a key part of this leadership model because it rep-resents who we are as leaders’’.

The change signature is made up of a credo and the char-acteristic way in which the leader creates change. The term‘‘credo’’ refers to a person�s core values and beliefs bothfor themselves and for their organisation (this concept isbuilt on that of Kouzes and Posner, 1993). The second as-pect of the change signature is the way an individual typi-cally embodies the four capabilities and the characteristicway in which that person makes change happen. For exam-ple, what are the skills, abilities, tactics and modes of oper-ating that characterize how you carry out your leadershipactivities? Some people might carry out sense making in avery interpersonal manner, moving from office to officelearning from everyone they meet. For others it might bea purely analytic process that starts and ends on thecomputer.

Business priorities

In this section we look at the overall business context withinwhich leaders are currently operating. The dominant busi-ness priorities that were emerging as a result of the globaleconomic crisis were: cost reduction; customer focus andinnovation.

Cost reduction featured strongly as a priority for thecompanies we spoke with.

– Telco was operating in a saturated market with intenseprice competition and took the opportunity of a toughmarket to focus attention on getting costs under control.

– Techco was faced with a 30–40% reduction in marketsand cost reduction was critical to weather the storm.Operating costs were reduced through consolidation,

standardization and redundancies (20%) and outsourcing.Operations were consolidated in low cost geographies tosupport recovery of profitable growth.

– Media Co was reducing costs and prices to enable them toaccess new markets. Traditionally focused on largedeveloped markets, they were now assessing at whichpoint a new market becomes scalable.

– Sony had seen a major downturn in sales in mature mar-kets and growth in Eastern Europe not deliveringexpected growth due to the credit crunch. Price compe-tition had intensified. Cost reduction was achievedthrough global/regional economies of scales, synergiesand transformation of business processes.

– PwC are focusing on holding their nerve throughout thedownturn – and on helping clients manage in a downturn.There is a clear investment strategy in their chosen mar-kets and a determination to apply lessons learned fromprevious downturns.

Increasing customer focus ranked high in the list ofpriorities.

– In Telco�s markets, customers had become more discern-ing. With market saturation, efforts were redirectedfrom customer acquisition to retention, clarification ofthe customer service proposition, ‘‘value for money’’branding and a restructuring based on customersegments.

– Techco introduced a new global business model and orga-nisation segmented around customer enterprise size.

– Media Co developed new services to directly engage bet-ter with consumers

– Sony was directly engaging with consumers, to under-stand their needs better.

– PwC have renewed emphasis on client relationship skillsalongside technical expertise as a key businessdifferentiator.

Innovation was important in finding ways to work smarterand more efficiently. In the companies we spoke with therewas less emphasis on innovation. In Mediaco�s case theywere cannibalising existing products, creatively destroyingold products to create something new.

PwC were looking at new ways of adding value to auditclients, as the audit process itself becomes more commod-itised and fee rates increasingly under pressure.

Changing requirements of leaders

We now examine the key messages emerging in our inter-views with leadership development practitioners and whatthey revealed about the impact of the recent global eco-nomic crisis on the requirements that companies have oftheir leaders.

We found from Executive interviews that Sony Europeand PwC UK had both launched strategic leadership devel-opment programmes in 2007, which emphasised the devel-opment of an approach to leadership which has sincebecome a business imperative. We saw these programmesas innovative, progressive and in line with the latest think-ing on leadership development. We now believe that thedramatic events of the last two years have brought the


programmes into the mainstream. The levels of complexity,ambiguity and unpredictability since 2007 mean that pro-grammes like these, which help people to deal with theseelements, are likely to become more commonplace.

These conditions require flexibility, collaboration, inno-vation and the courage to embrace uncertainty and ambigu-ity. The view of leadership development practitioners wespoke to is that we do not have time to develop the requiredcapabilities gradually by modifying our approach to leader-ship development. Such extreme challenges require radicalsolutions and the transformation of leadership develop-ment. PwC and Sony Europe took bold steps three yearsago in transforming their approach to leadership develop-ment, which has equipped their leaders well for the chal-lenges they now face and are likely to face in the future.For these reasons we have decided to feature their experi-ences prominently in this article and have included separatesections on each company.

First let us look at how the requirements of leaders in ourother three companies, Telco, Techco and Mediaco havechanged in the light of the downturn. To do this we haveused the elements of the MIT model.

Sense making

‘‘Sense making’’ features strongly in the requirements ofleaders in all companies, particularly understanding andworking with interdependencies. The cost reduction drivershave intensified the importance of sense making. For exam-ple, in Telco they are making decisions by taking more ac-count of the broader cross company impact. They aremore disciplined in balancing costs and revenue – a toughchallenge when they haven�t had to manage costs so muchin the past. In the face of greater complexity of relation-ships to manage inter-company and across the market,focusing on fewer things with the greatest leverage has be-come their mantra.

In Techco, strategic agility has become critical, with theneed to locally interpret the new global strategy, whilst dra-matically reducing costs and sustaining employee engage-ment. This balancing of running the business and managingchange at the same time has emerged as one of the keyleadership capabilities within five of the companies wespoke with. In Mediaco, leaders have become more com-mercial, getting their heads around new business modelsand managing ambiguity, as there is no right answer any-more and they can not reference the old ways of doingthings.

Relating

As leaders come to terms with the reality that there is noknown solution to most of the challenges they are facing;they recognise that they need to work with others. Relatingfeatures prominently in their approach. In Telco, they aredisplaying a more enlightened approach. They are engagingpeople, not just saying no, but rather ‘‘here�s what we needto achieve, what can we stop or do differently?’’. As Techcoslashed costs, there were no longer budgets for large offsites and specialist support staff (who in the past wouldhave provided ‘‘programmes’’ to support change), were

made redundant. Leaders now have to look to their ownpeople for the solutions. In the face of unrelenting commer-cial pressure, it has become essential to maintain a strongfocus on people and peer relationships across the organisa-tion. It is only through collaboration that solutions are foundand that the commitment can be built to successfully exe-cute. In Mediaco, a priority has been placed on maximisingassets by reconfiguring content. Such deep focus on contentspecialism has meant that leaders are increasingly findingthat they are required to lead people whose jobs they donot understand and they are having to build more trustingrelationships.

Inventing

In Telco and Techco, much effort has gone into creating theprocesses and structures needed to translate company widevisions into reality. In Telco, they are being more proactive,putting issues on the table and taking responsibility fordeveloping and executing solutions. At Techco, the empha-sis has been on translating global strategy into local action,by rolling out the global vision, mission and values. Whilst inMedia Co there has been more scope for leaders to shapestrategy, particularly in reconfiguring products and serviceswith reduced costs and prices to enable the company toaccess new markets.

Visioning

At Telco and Techco it has been about ownership, translat-ing the global strategy into a compelling vision and selling itlocally. At Mediaco, a creative company there is less stan-dardisation and more opportunity and requirement for lead-ers to be more strategic, thus creating the big picture.

We will now look at how the requirements of leadershave changed in our two featured companies.

Changing requirements of leaders – PwC

The drivers of change for leaders in PwC include public scru-tiny, the continuing information revolution and the rapidand dynamic business environment. These have presenteda relentless sequence of challenges from climate changeto major shifts in demographics, from regulation to corpo-rate governance. Leaders at PwC need to make sense ofall of this real-time while offering fresh perspectives on adaily basis to their clients and maintaining focus on deliver-ing world class professional services.

The PwC Vision is to create:

‘‘One firm – a powerhouse of a commercial enterprisethat does the right thing for clients, people and commu-nities’’ and in turn supports their driving ambition tobecome the ‘‘iconic professional services firm, alwaysfront of mind whenever professional services arementioned.’’

This vision is supported by transformation plans to drivethe necessary change while keeping the vision clear andalive.

Through strong senior leadership, PwC is focusing on a‘‘holding our nerve’’ message as a Cultural Signature linked

CompetenceThe ability to have and apply knowledge and generate new learning in a situation. It is often dependent on the processing power and overall level of intellect of an individual. Both strategic and analytical thinking processes are important within this dimension.

ConfidenceThis dimension refers to the emotional intelligence of an individual and their ability to develop people within their teams and generate ‘followship’. Self-confidence and self-awareness are key aspects of this dimension. Communication is also a factor in this dimension.

CourageThis dimension refers to the decision making required to take the right path not necessarily the easy path. It also refers to the ability to take personal responsibility to make things happen. There are both moral and motivational elements to this dimension.

People & Organisational Development @ Sony

3C’s3C’s of of Leadership Leadership

Figure 1 3 Cs of leadership.

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Table 1 Towards a different leadership culture.

From To

Control (I tell you whatthe answer is)

Trust (we develop the answertogether)

Interdependence/boundaries

Interdependence/alliances

Structure and resourceorientated

Purpose and people –orientated

Risk avoidance InnovativeTelling LearningHierarchy NetworkBoss StakeholdersProduct focus Customer focusIQ IQ + EQ


to the vision of ‘‘doing the right thing for our clients’’. PwChope and expect to take business relationships to new levelsby demonstrating commitment to clients by staying along-side them during the downturn and helping them find robustbusiness solutions. Another cultural signature is ‘‘tell it howit is’’. These statements mean that all at PwC can ‘‘down-load’’ these messages and create a cultural change signa-ture through following clear principles. This is indicativeof the leadership belief that key principles clearly commu-nicated coupled with trust in individual partners will allowthe organisation to be agile and responsive to the changingrequirements of leadership.

Sony Europe

In 2007, revitalisation of Sony Electronics was the numberone corporate priority: the way in which this was to beachieved was by getting even closer to consumers, under-standing and responding better to their needs; increasingcreativity in engineering; reducing costs through global/re-gional economies of scales, leveraging synergies andstreamlining business processes. Leadership capability wasrecognised as directly impacting the company�s ability toexecute its strategic priorities.

Fujio Nishida, President of Sony Europe, articulated thisvision of leadership in November 2006 at the launch of theSony Europe Leadership Programme:

‘‘We must continue to develop our leadership capabil-ity, build a culture that focuses on growth and encour-age more creativity and risk-taking in our business.’’

The business case for the investment in leadership devel-opment was supported by two major pieces of research.Corporate Leadership Council found in 2003 that organisa-tions with a strong leadership �bench� over a 3 year period

returned nearly 10% more to their shareholders than thosewith a weak leadership �bench�. Bain et al. (2004) found that‘‘companies that systematically and continuously put theright leaders in the right jobs outperform companies thatdo not – by a wide margin’’.

Sony Europe developed its own framework which definedits requirements of leaders (Figure 1). It has three intercon-nected dimensions: Confidence, competence and courageand is known as the ‘‘3 Cs of leadership’’. The frameworkwhich is described below provided the focus for leadershipassessment and development.

The Sony Europe Executive Team recognised that tothrive in a fast changing environment, they needed theirleaders to play a key role in making the cultural shift de-scribed below (Table 1).

In Sony, the Leader�s role is to act as a catalyst – helpingemployees tap into their expertise and creativity – to bring

Figure 2 Sony European leadership model.

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Figure 3 Sony European leadership model.

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different parts of the organisation together to create effi-ciencies and synergies for the benefit of the consumer. Thisshift in culture was seen as crucial to the company�s trans-formation and to regain the magic of Sony.

These expectations were influenced by the results of thecompany�s open survey of all employees and key peopleassessments. The 2007 survey results confirmed thatemployees were proud to work for Sony, felt part of thecompany and found their jobs challenging. Needs forimprovement were identified in the following areas: manag-ers to provide more motivation and guidance; more careerdevelopment opportunities; increasing emphasis on excel-lence, creativity and innovation. Employees considered itwas important for them to have pride, passion and beliefin the organisation but less than a third actually felt thatway.

Sony Europe has since updated their leadership model. Itwas felt that the 3 C�s model had been valuable but no long-er captured the leadership requirements for the businessgoing forward. Specifically, the new model, which is de-scribed above (Figures 2 and 3), is intended to reflect futurebusiness needs, including speed of change, drive to deliver,and external market awareness as key attributes.

As a result of the global economic crisis of 2008/2009,Sony had seen a major downturn in sales in mature mar-kets. Growth in Eastern Europe was not delivering expectedgrowth due to the credit crunch and price competition hadintensified. The strategic priorities identified in 2007 hadbecome even more critical. This impacted the require-ments of leaders in a number of ways. More decisions weremade on a pan-business basis with less accommodation ofindividual business unit preferences. There was a greaterneed for Inventing and Relating by boldly doing things incompletely different ways, e.g., partnering with otherorganisations, new ways of interacting with customersand balancing the longer term vision with what we needto do in the short term. Leaders needed to be open tonew ideas, including others in decision making and showingmore trust.

How companies are developing leadershipcapabilities for the future

In this section we will first of all look at how Telco, Techcoand Mediaco are helping leaders to develop the capability to


meet the challenges they now face. We will then look at ourfeatured companies in more detail.

With the deep cost cutting at Telco and Techco, leader-ship development budgets were drastically cut and no spe-cific programmes were planned to help leaders developthe required capabilities. Local HR and training depart-ments were providing some tactical support and group wideleadership development programmes were under review. Itis likely that new programmes and strategies will emerge onthe back of the learning of this period. In these companies,one year since the start of the crisis, those leaders whowere performing best were displaying the following ‘‘Cul-tural Signatures’’:

• Ownership: Taking more responsibility. Owning the goal.Being more choiceful and engaging people in thosechoices.

• Strong and courageous. Demonstrating personal strength,clear views and pushing them but also being prepared tobe flexible. What makes the difference is the extent towhich leaders have moved away from ego.

In Mediaco, levels of investment in strategic leadershipprogrammes had been maintained. This company had al-ways been very focused and selective in its investmentswhich had high levels of credibility and support. They haddecided to segment their development offerings, targetinginvestment more on key talent, segmenting programmesmore on specific types of leaders and specific leadershipchallenges.

PwC – developing leadership capabilities forthe future

The PwC leadership development strategy follows the find-ings of the Centre for Creative Leadership that 70% of learn-ing takes place on-the-job. The culture at PwC encouragespeople to learn hour by hour through fresh approaches tofamiliar tasks – and being regularly exposed to new chal-lenges and situations. There is a strong belief that leadersnever stop learning, and if they do, they will very likely alsostop being leaders.

PwC started their exploration of Responsible Leadershipwith their Global Ulysses (GU) programme. GU started in2001 and 120 international partners have experienced theprogramme. The GU programme sourced challenging inter-national projects in which partners could experiment withand expand their leadership repertoire. This often resultedin personal transformations and deep learning. This was thestart of the process to create the PwC UK Responsible Lead-ership Programme (RLP), which has now been successfullytrialled for three years, 2007–09, with the same outcomes– many partners experiencing major shifts and break-throughs in their leadership approach.

PwC has long recognised the need to invest in developingleaders able to deal with increasing complexity andambiguity.

The purpose of PWC�s Responsible Leadership Programmeis summed up by the Programme sponsor:

‘‘RLP is a key strand in the PwC Leadership Developmentstrategy, providing an experimental forum for senior

leaders to understand their leadership signature anddevelop personal vision. This is all in service of buildinga cadre of leaders within PwC that are able to relate toan increasingly diverse range of stakeholders and dealwith high complexity, balancing polarity and workingwith paradox as required.’’

The programme is a 6 week development process startingwith a Foundation Workshop preparing the Partners for theirField Experience with the organisations hosting the Part-ners� Field Projects. During weeks 2–5, the Partners developtheir leadership skills in a very different environment duringtheir Field Experience. Each project has two or three Part-ners working with a leader from the host organisation onparticular areas of focus which are designed to be openended, systemically complex and challenging. They are also100% live and real: there is no element of simulation. Hostorganisations have varied from national charities to emer-gency services and issues have had a strong social inclusionfocus ranging from homelessness, domestic violence andprostitution to economic deprivation.

When Partners have completed their field experiencethey return to the office for a couple of weeks beforeattending the final element of the programme: the ReviewWorkshop. The host leaders join PwC Partners for a deepdive to make sense of leadership learning at the individual,group and organisation levels. They prepare to share theirinsights and leadership development with a panel of PwCUK Executive Leaders. All of this planned leadership devel-opment activity has a specific focus on leading throughambiguity.

The impact of PWC UK�s Responsible LeadershipProgramme

PwC have maintained commitment to the Responsible Lead-ership Programme. After the second year they completed aseries of structured interviews with participants and a sam-ple of their clients and colleagues to check the business im-pact of the programme.

Leading Beyond Authority was a key theme of theResponsible Leadership Programme at PwC, and recent re-search found that many partners have taken up discretion-ary roles following their attendance on the programme.

After the second year of the programme, Individualsreported a diverse range of enhanced abilities including:setting the agenda; working with the big picture; suspendingjudgement; entrepreneurial activity; being true to self;inspiring others.

Partners also reported a strong desire to step up and takeon new responsibilities to support the firm�s strategy. At theheart of all of this was a clear sense of leadership based onclear values and a desire to create exceptional results sup-ported by a broadened perspective and the ability to set pri-orities and maintain focus.

RLP Partners are on a rapid journey of sense making andorientation as they enter the Host organisations� worldsand discover new forms of leadership. During their time onRLP, Partners are encouraged to suspend their existingframeworks and remain open to the new situation, takingin many new sources of data. A key outcome of theprogramme has been the chance to explode stereotypes.


Charities have discovered business people with heart andsoul while Partners have spent time with passionate leadersin the third sector with powerful visions and amazing organ-isational skills.

At a personal level, Partners on RLP spend time creat-ing special personal journals to keep track of their sensemaking – and some have also posted blogs to share thismore widely. All RLP Partners spend time creating a Per-sonal Leadership Vision that gives a sense of their keyleadership signature – the essence of what they bring toall situations.

RLP focuses strongly on storytelling as a critical leader-ship skill and participants are encouraged to dig deep intotheir experience to create powerful stories to communicatetheir leadership learning.

PwC UK plan to continue investment in RLP and relatedactivities and recognise that they are still in the early stagesof realising the full potential of these leadershipinterventions.

Sony Europe developing leadershipcapabilities for the future

In 2007, Sony launched it�s Senior Leadership DevelopmentProgramme (SLDP). The programme was targeted at keyDirectors, with potential to progress to Executive positions.

The Sony Europe Executive Team had clear expectationsof the programme participants:

• There should be visible signs they have changed and in sodoing they will change the culture.

• They will have learned the art of inviting participation byothers and being open to opinions that differ from ourown.

• They will be known for teaching others, not telling oth-ers . . . sometimes we think we are teaching when reallywe are �dressing up� telling.

The SLDP Programme was 9 months duration. It had fourcore elements; visionary leadership; emotional intelligenceand coaching for potential i.e. turning potential into bottomline ROI. The programme followed an ‘‘inside/out’’ ap-proach by starting to look ‘‘inside’’ at individual leaders�values and purpose, then focusing on the impact of theirleadership on their people, organisation and customers.The programme is visibly supported by the CEO who attendsthe launch event of each cohort and attends events at theend of the programme when participants make their leader-ship commitments.

Impact

The commitments made by participants following the pro-gramme are focused on Visioning, Sense making, Connectingand Inventing. Here are some examples:

• We will establish a new style of leadership.• We will start to recruit for ‘‘emotional intelligence’’ (notjust technical skills).

• We will build/grow our One Idea initiative (to ensurethat the network and learning continues after theprogramme).

• We will make our people strategy management a corepart of our budget and business planning.

• We will cascade EQ and coaching in the organisation –create an ‘‘ask not tell’’ environment – to create asignificant change in how we interact with ourcustomers.

The comments made by participants are consistent withthe assumptions that Leadership is distributed, personal,about creating change and develops over time:

• ‘‘This has been an experience like no other for me andimpacts positively both my personal and professional life.I am richer in so many ways for this’’.

• Tools and approaches to coaching are hugely valuable.• The strong personal network that is built during the pro-gramme is extremely valuable.

• External Coach helps to reinforce learning.• People have much greater insights into their leadershiprole and own strengths and weaknesses.

• Visible differences in behaviour for some – impacting onculture.

• Personal approach is challenging and stimulating (‘‘emo-tional hard work’’) and has increased peoples� confidencein being a leader.

• ‘‘Bringing your whole self to the leadership role really isthe key to inspiring others’’.

Three years since its launch the programme continues tohave considerable impact. Firstly, alumni from the pro-gramme have been promoted to very significant positionsof responsibility. Secondly, alumni of the programme havecontinued to connect and have demonstrated ownershipleading initiatives to help the ‘‘company get closer to cus-tomers’’. At a time when there has been an overall reduc-tion in the amount spent on training and development,the proportion spent on leadership development has in-creased. In line with its strategic priorities, the companywill have a more consistent approach to leadership develop-ment across Europe with less country specific programmes.Interestingly Sony, like PwC, are planning to include Corpo-rate and Social Responsibility projects in future leadershipdevelopment programmes.

Conclusions

In conclusion, we highlight three major themes which haveemerged in our review and which we believe are significantin terms of developing future leaders.

Given the increasing levels of ambiguity and complexity,it is now essential that leaders can manage the tensionswhich are inevitably present in organisational life. To man-age these polarities between, e.g., creating an inspiring vi-sion and managing costs, between regulatory requirementsand pioneering new ways of serving customers, requires ahigh degree of sense making, of asking the right type ofquestions and most of all, having the humility to acknowl-edge the need to ask questions of others.


It takes a certain type of leader to inspire others with asense of purpose inside and beyond the organisation. This isa critical foundation for building long-term trust andengagement. We believe this requires a level of authenticleadership, which is strongly rooted in the leader�s personal‘‘signature’’. The important feature here, we believe, is atransparent link between the leader�s values and what theysay and do in practice. This in turn will align cultural normsand values within the organisation. The endgame is a situa-tion where employees, shareholders and other key stake-holders begin to relate to the organisation and what itstands for, as well as rallying behind the leader. The modelthen potentially becomes a virtuous circle of success, withconfidence in the leader leading to confidence in the orga-nisation and so on.

The question then remains as to whether one can buildthis level of authenticity in future leaders� change signa-tures or whether it is a personal characteristic, which is un-ique to the individual. We believe that it is possible todevelop authenticity, though it takes a particular type ofintervention to bring out this characteristic. In the case ofPwC, it is about giving leaders the opportunity to make adifference in the third sector, to grapple with challengingsocial issues and to come face to face and relate to peoplewho have none of their privileges. It is this very personalreaction to difficult social issues that is the pivotal pointfor personal insight and growth.

In Sony, the focus of the Senior Leadership Programmeis on the leader�s impact at a number of different levels.This programme again reinforces the link between the indi-vidual leader, the context within which they are operatingand the change signature by which they bridge the gap be-tween their own sense of the world and the organisationalview.

We have seen how both companies have anticipatedthe future needs of their leaders and have been bold inproviding radical solutions, which remain ahead of theirtime. Since then the financial crisis has ensured thatthe content of the programmes is mainstreamed and ofsignificant importance for the new business environment.The leaders themselves have to make sense of and shapetheir own worlds and create an engaging vision for thefuture, which people will want to be part of and helpbuild.

As ever, our role as practitioners is to help leaders to de-velop a sense of their own identity and purpose and to moti-vate them to inspire others through their example.

References

Ancona, D. (2005). Leading in an Age of Uncertainty Vol. VI. MITCentre for eBusiness.

Bain, Bird, Buchanan, Rogers and Blenko (2004) Putting yourleaders where it counts. Handbook of Business Strategy, Bain& Co.

Chambers, L. & Drysdale, J. (2007) The 2007 momentum report ontalent and leadership practices, unpublished.

Corporate Leadership Council. (2003) Leadership survey (CLC),December 2003.

Institute of Directors. (2010) International corporate rescue –special issue: Company law, corporate governance and thebanking crisis. Chase Cambria Company.

Kouzes and Posner (1993) Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it,why people demand it. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

LYNNE CHAMBERS is a Fellow of the Wind-sor Leadership Trust. She is a regular pre-senter and facilitator, specialising inleadership, talent, culture change anddiversity. She has held various senior levelHR positions within leading Financial andProfessional Services companies. Currentlyshe is on assignment as Head of Talent andPeople Development at Pricewaterhouse-Coopers.

JOHN DRYSDALE is the founder of Momen-tum Executive Development. He combinesthe talents of Momentum team members todeliver programmes tailored to clients�needs, focusing on Leading Business Change,Executive Team Development and Leader-ship Coaching. He is a member of the Advi-sory Board of Lancaster UniversityManagement School.

JOHN HUGHES works in the Talent andPeople Development team at Pricewater-houseCoopers. He led the design of the PwCResponsible Leadership Programme andholds a research M.Sc. (Dist) where hefocused on leadership in complexenvironments.

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The future of leadership: A practitioner view