I'm the CEO

Providing an executive team with ownership of an organisation can lead to increased innovation, satisfaction and outcomes. All it takes is a willingness to let people learn from their mistakes and work with them to develop their skills.

Summary

There is a changing expectation of what a leaders role is within a large organisation. The old days of the top boss taking out a hammer to change a group of people and do their bidding has done its dash. In the modern world employees, especially generation Y and the “Millenial” newcomers to the workforce expect to be involved in the decision making process for how an organisation operates. This is changing the role of Chief Executive Officer from a decision maker, to instead be more of a decision facilitator. The real challenge for the modern CEO will be how to take an individualised behavioural approach to their immediate team in order to deliver outcomes expected by the rest of the organisation.

Background

OK, firstly I am not quite a CEO but last week started a voluntary role as President of the non-profit Tumut Toastmasters club. Over the past two years I have completed a few Group Facilitation projects to develop a diverse group of community representatives to have a clear shared vision of what they want out of Toastmasters and how they want it to be delivered. Having seen groups lead in a didactic manner I am keen to try out how far toward the inclusive spectrum of leadership I can go now that I am the elected leader of the group.

A quote from Milo Victoria, CEO of a public transit agency in San Bernadino, California sums up the same approach to management as I am taking as a Toastmasters President:

“One of the most important things you learn in Toastmasters is listening skills, which tend to be underrated as a leadership trait. When people know they have been listened to they walk away feeling they are important to the company.”

The same article in the May 2012 issue of Toastmaster magazine refers to the change in leadership undertaken by CEO Steve Ballmer at Microsoft after the relative failure of the Vista operating system to be more inclusive and empowering for its executive.

Participatory leadership

These are the steps I have made, or intend to make, to put my values of participation, learning by doing and dispersed ownership into action:

1) Ask your customers what they want

There are many instances where what a company thinks they provide, and what the customers perceive they are receiving are different. For example hairdressers might think customers come back for a great style, when in reality customers might just enjoy the conversation. In the same way, while Toastmasters is an organisation which believes it is providing public speaking training, when I asked my club members what they wanted from being involved, communication and leadership came a distant fourth and fifth to the members need to have fun, meet people and learn more about each others experiences through sharing stories.

2) Ask them how they want it

Do you know your organisations personality? If it were a person could you describe how they would dress, act, speak and interact with other organisations? After leading the Tumut Toastmasters group through a process of identifying values of communication the underlying culture needs to be one that supports:

• Informal formalities

• Supportive comraderie

• Mutual respect and acceptance

• Non provocative behaviour

• Sensitive corrections

3) Identify what is working and what is not

A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) is a good way to identify how well the group feels that their wants and needs are being met. In line with the participatory approach I met with members on 23 June 2013 and let them list all of the strengths and weaknesses of the club, and prioritise which are the most important. I intentionally kept my influence to a minimum, making it clear that it is a subjective exercise and the results were to be owned by the whole group and strategies to address them lead by the executive.

Having said that, as a Toastmasters Club there is a minimum set of tasks that executive must complete in order to meet the requirements of being an official club. This includes collecting fees, and submitting completed projects for recognition by Toastmasters international. I have deconstructed as many processes and procedures as possible so that the executive have a stronger sense of ownership of as much of the clubs activities as possible.

4) Engage executive

This next step is one that can be tough to follow through. To allow your team to grow you must allow them to apply their strengths and identify for themself their areas of weakness. This should not be tied to any specific remuneration but instead as a measure of how well they are developing a skill set to solve certain problems.

I am attempting to take a cognitive behavioural approach to support participatory leadership to what I think is it’s end point. This is where instead of provide any pre-existing construct to how someone should complete a task, I instead use motivational interviewing techniques to facilitate them identifying how they would approach doing a particular job. My only job is to make small suggestions on how I think their approach could be improved incrementally better than what they have in mind. Then I let them choose if they want to take my advice or not and support them either way.

This approach is part of a philosophy I have seen where it is OK to make mistakes as this is how we learn in life, and ultimately progress. I am a strong advocate of learning by doing and can only see that having a go at leadership in a supportive environment, which is what Tumut Toastmasters have identified as an expected outcome, can people grow.

To this end I have seggregated the opportunities and threats identified by the club into the different executive roles and will take a mentoring approach to assist them to address these needs using the facilitation approach described above. A risk of what could be interpreted as a Laissez-faire approach to leadership is the rise of more controlling personalities who try to dominate and assert influence over decisions made by executive. Preventive measures taken include having a clear position description for each executive role, and action tasks clearly allocated to a specific person.

While as President I am encouraging executive to make their own decisions, applying my advice on how to implement them is optional.

5) Reflect on measured outcomes

While effort is to be commended, it is progress towards a goal which ultimately measures the success of action taken. To foster ownership I intend to have the executive identify their own SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, Time oriented) goals to achieve which relate to their position. Again this flies against the traditional corporate model where the Board, shareholders or Chief Executive set the bar and find people to reach it. Relying on volunteers may be part of the approach but I am interested in how much the average person could rise to much greater challenges if they have a strong sense of direct connection and ownership of an organisations goals and subsequent achievements.

Leading in this manner changes the focus from external outcomes to instead foster intrinsic motivation of an employee who is developing skills. This involves being aware of their competencies, and areas of weakness only framed in terms of what opportunities exist for improvement with self directed guidance on how to learn and develop these areas of perceived weakness.

Reflecting as a group on what has been achieved at the end of the year will support wider ownership of the experiences of the executive. To make this work there needs to be a culture where mistakes are welcome. I am lucky in this regard as the Immediate Past President Trish Matthews is the epitome of patience and has established a club culture which is welcoming, respectful and, most importantly, fun.

Reap the rewards

Through applying the philosophy and strategies above to my executive team I expect to create a culture of ownership, shared success and ultimately a greater understanding of what people want and how well they are receiving it. Toastmasters would have to be one of the most appropriate organisations to experiment with how far leadership can focus on decentralising the strategic and operational aspects of activity.

Is this something you have tried? Any tips on what challenges could arise from this approach and how to overcome them are welcome.