Leadership Brand

June 2011

Dear clients,

The word LeMaSa stands for Leader Manager Southern Africa. LeMaSa’s vision is that we are recognised as the ultimate authority in developing dynamic leaders in the business arena and broader community in the SADC countries, through using scientifically researched, “Proudly South African” products.

Our mission is that we unlock potential in organisations, both nationally and in SADC countries, by identifying potential and then facilitating growth. This is done by using Assessment and Development Centres, Training and Development interventions, as well as Organisational Development interventions. The express goal of LeMaSa is to add value to our client’s bottom line.

All aspects relating to leadership-management are therefore important to us and we are very interested in laying a proper foundation for leader-manager development by establishing an organisation’s Leadership Brand. This in turn influences the organisation’s leadership strategy. This month we provide some background on the services that we deliver in helping you to determine and implement your Leadership Brand.

We hope that the winter is not too harsh and that you have

time to be creative while relaxing with some hot chocolate

in front of a fire (or heater!)

Regards

Sandra Schlebusch

Leadership Brand
Leadership Brand

Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood (2007) coined the term “Leadership Brand” and expand on it in their book with the same name. They defined Leadership Brand as the identity of the leaders throughout an organisation that bridges cus tomer e xpectations and employee and organisational behaviour. Leadership Brand leads to a reputation for developing exceptional managers with a distinct set of talents that are uniquely geared to fulfill customers’ and investors’ expectations.

A Leadership Brand is also embedded in the organisation’s culture, through its policies and its requirements for employees.&nb sp; For example, the tagline of Lexus is “the pursuit of perfection.” Internally, the Lexus division translates that promise into the expectation that managers will excel at managing quality processes, including lean manufacturing and Six Sigma (Ulrich and Smallwood, 2007).

Building a strong Leadership Brand requires that organisations follow five principles:

· First, they have to do the basics of leadership—like setting strategy and grooming talent — well;

· Second, they must ensure that managers internalise external constituents’ high expectations of the orga nisation ;

· Third, they need to evaluate their leaders according to those external perspectives;

· Fourth, they must invest in broad-based leadership development that hel ps manag ers hone the skills needed to meet customer and investor expectations;

· And finally, they should track their success at building a Leadership Brand over the long term (Ulrich and Smallwood, 2007).

LeMaSa a ssists o rganisations in developing their Leadership Brand through the following:
· Creating a business case for building the Leadership Brand;
· Creating a Leadership Brand Statement;
· Building awareness of the Leadership Brand;
· Assessing leaders against the Leadership Brand; and
· Designing and implementing development initiatives to entrench the Leadership Brand behaviour.

Source:
Ulrich, D & Smallwood, N. 2007. Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value. Boston. Harvard Business School.

Power Hour Leadership Conversations
This concept was introduced by Lisa Haneberg (2008) and she has achieved a lot of success in developing leaders, using this approach. The Power Hour approach to leadership development entails that the organisation schedules a series of 60 minute learning conversations over a specific period. The format of all these sessions is the same and is depicted below: Power Hour Format Creation of excite-ment for the learning event Distribu-tion of pre-work Leader prepares for the event Event always facilitated by the same person with a different guest speaker every time. Agenda of event: · Introduction (5 min) · Brief discussion of pre-work (5 minutes) · Presentation of the conceptual model or topic by Guest speaker (30 min) · Exercise/application/Case study (10 min) · Final discussion and assignment of homework Leader completes application work and discuss during review of Individual Development Plan Management is a social act and similarly is management training. It occurs in conversation and through relationships. Power Hour Leadership Conversations will help organisations to maximize their leadership-management development efforts and impact on organisation success. The Power Hours take less time, but still keep the focus on development. For a craft to be built the development conversations must continue throughout the year. Power Hours go narrow and deep on a topic, versus wide and shallow. Power Hours offer a way to ensure a lively and productive dialogue about the concepts of the Leadership Brand and also provides the leaders with specific tools and techniques. Power Hours is a concept that respects the precious nature of time and allow busy leaders to engage in dialogue that makes a difference and improves the level of connection they have with various stakeholders. LeMaSa provides the following services to help organisations to implement Power Hour Leadership Conversations: Steps Description Methodology Deliverables Needs Analysis To ensure that the design of the programme addresses the needs of stakeholders/buy-in, this phase entails getting input from leaders with regards to: · Topics they feel would be most useful · Times and days that suit them best · How often · Concerns · Other Meeting with important stakeholders Telephone survey A document summarising the findings from this phase Programme Design During this phase all the information about the Leadership Brand and the needs analysis phase are combined and the format of the programme, dates, topics, etc. formalised Document review Design Reviews with relevant stakeholders A programme design and brochure that is based on stakeholder input and the leadership brand. A signed-off programme Pilot During this phase a Power Hour Leadership Conversation (PHLC) session is demonstrated to a selected group. Their feedback is used to refine the concept Facilitate a power hour session A signed-off programme Market the Programme During this phase awareness is created to ensure maximum enrollment Letters from Executive and other senior staff members to leaders Brochures, etc A detailed marketing and communication plan Coordinate and Facilitate the Programme It is important that the programme format be consistent and therefore the facilitator should ideally be the same Design of each individual Power Hour’s pre-work, handouts, homework and follow-ups A detailed design for each power hour with supporting documentation and processes Management of session logistics (Invitations, registers, diploma’s, etc.)
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