Part V: Principles of the System Title: Systematic Leadership Structure

Part V: Principles of the System

1. A Structured System Creates a Shared Vision

The setting in place of a structured leadership system actuates a creation of a shared vision
and focus and is meant to nurture a people centered strategy. With a common focus and no
disruptions of thought due to unwanted ad hoc transients by managers, a common visioning
capability can be created and become part of everyday life of people in the organization.
Thus it would not become another fad or one off activity by another manager trying or
attempt leadership after some seminar or reading some books. It must be noted that attempts
at introducing leadership or TQM practices without a systematic approach would be even
more disastrous than not doing anything at all. Even at the lowest impact the organization
would be confused and direction lost resulting in chaotic situations and perturbed customers.

With a systematic approach we investigate what is really important for the future, the way
towards realizing these dreams, a capability of driving not only long term aspirations but
also not forgetting to drive short term tactical needs. However most important of all I would
always remind that this systematic approach ensures that we look at a people-centered
strategy that is meaningful, understandable and has a clear path of action to drive the
company towards future survival needs and sharpening of core competency. With a
systematic approach the people would be better guided as one entity and would not be
fearful of unfair or bias as individuals. The HRM management and appraisal foundation that
I have proposed reinforces the system and concentrate on team achievements.

Principle One of a Systematic Leadership Structure

I note from the emphasis of the covering of Performance Appraisal and Management, it is
important to acknowledge and build on the human relationship factor and the essence of
humanness. Understandably the time dimension would bring the necessity to have a
perspective look at both the future and the present. Energizing, empowering and motivating
people through systematic leadership structure has a qualitative important factor of engaging
the excitement and vitality of the future and to use the synergy with this and the matching
energy of a motivated people free from petty encumbrances to propel the plans of the
company forward. This synergistic effect is bound to improve productivity and quality by
some quantum leaps.

The author however notes that even with a systematic plan the future strategies of a company
may need to be changed due to changing business and global scenarios, but the essence
would be creation of groups of people or teams who are energized to build the knowledge
and skills for the future with the direction unhindered because the company practices and
have put in a systematic way of empowering people and managing and measuring
performance with constant feedbacks from the below measured elements of:

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Enablers Results
Leadership People Results
People Customer Results
Policy and Strategy Society Results
Partnership and Resources Key Performance Results
Processes

From a systematic leadership approach, the right and effective visions create the directions
which would simplify the decisions for the teams and by so doing allow teams to work
independently as own business centers but yet within the directions of the company business
strategies. The teams and people then have an achievable yet stretched vision of the future,
which is appealing, energizing, and yet responsive and flexible to the problems that may
ensue because of changing business situations. The system with the feed back loop of
“Innovation and Learning” thus allows the people and teams to have their own insights,
thinking and adaptation of the common vision with a learning culture approach. We recall
the important technique of Tom Peter’s “Simultaneous loose, tight” learning allowing people
and teams freedom of doing the best but yet conforming to the overall company vision and
mission. In the systematic leadership approach, visions can be important for various reasons
and each factor is an element or building block of the system. The good elements of a
company vision:

 Directional and signaling mechanisms for the system

 Is a symbolic importance to provide rallying and identification
 Learning tools or driver for learning in the system
 Help and direction for teams and people to understand the events and future of the
company

It is important to note that the previous model of the author in part four an example of a
systematic approach but is quite limited in scope due to the size of this research paper.
However the systematic leadership structured approach has clearly far more wondrous
impacts. It is necessary to look at the below “People Process Model”

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From a systems approach it is also important not to neglect the short-term cycle. Looking at
my earlier recommended model the short term cycle operates over an annual time frame
which I have termed as the Hoshin Plan, Whereupon the long term cycle in the system takes
in my recommendation about five years to align leadership development of leaders, training
of the people from workers to skilled technicians, from managers to leaders and from normal
workers to business owners and thus the overall realignment of the organization from a
normal Malaysian company to one that has core competence in quality, productivity and
customer satisfaction as the cutting edge.

The systems approach promoted in this paper has people as the ultimate importance, thus
this people process model would have time frames for its development of both people and
the organization as a balance. In the domain of the short-term cycle, the elements of
recruitment, performance management, and training holds priority and in the domain of the
long-term cycle, the elements of leadership, workforce and organizational development
holds priority. However I note that the whole system interacts in both the short-term cycle
and the long-term cycle as a structural leadership model.

It is emphasized again that the timing plan for the long term process must reflect the human
factor because when the superiority in investment in modern machines are done and
competitors have equalized with similar machines, the quality and productivity challenge
comes from which organization has the better team, knowledge and people who would want
to go the extra mile.

The people training and leadership succession plan in the system should go hand in hand and
if we plan now for leaders to take a significant role in 5 years the vision of today in the
leadership system would need to reflect and emphasize this in the present moment. The
current leaders who would wish to embark on this systematic plan would need to
communicate the vision and objectives with the correct methodology now.

Principle Two of a Systematic Leadership Structure

It is essential that the system is simple even though some company with huge resources can
have large amounts of analytical data. In my experiential moments I always have a fear that
the complexity of a sophisticated system confuses the managers, supervisors and workers
more, although in the higher-level meeting of the boardroom they look much better. Some
companies were so enthusiastic to collect so much data for analysis before embarking on the
vision statement and launching a system that when the vision statement was ready after one
year the data and the business environment has shifted so much that the plans were no more
in alignment and reflective of the situation. I advice that the in the early part of the system
approach, the essence would be to embark on a more transparent vision realizing process that
encourage people to debate and brainstorm unaffected by complex procedures, rules and
mass assimilation of data that some may not be able to fathom. The fear would be that faced
with huge amassing of data the management and leaders maybe focusing attention to do
analysis then action thus shifting attention away from more important task a t hand. The
advice is that the visioning process should rather be carried out with simplicity, elegance,
speed as well as commitment and excitement.

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Principle Three of a Systematic Leadership Structure

Many would think my principle three would be the simplest element of the model but I have
to forewarn that it may be simple in literature but by far one of the most important and
difficult to attain. The element in this principle takes on the factor of qualitative human
approach. The process itself has only the main function of creating the strategic dialogue
across the organization from the lowest ranks to the gardener and to the boardroom. It
stretches and encompasses human assets laterally, as well as horizontally with one critical
factor of getting people to debate the future of the organization invigoratingly, excitingly and
ready to take action. The “fires” of the strategic dialogue must be “fanned and fed” on the
depth and richness of the commitment from the heart of the people. It is only by attaining a
substantial level of this excitement that the future vision will belong to the people.

Principle Four of a Systematic Leadership Structure

Readers of this paper whether management practitioners or academicians will agree with me
that it is human nature to be enthusiastic and identify over a hundred action points deemed to
be critical in an organization if we are asked. While it will be good to be enthusiastic the
recognition of a focus in what we do is crucial in the systematic approach. Many failings of
leadership consultants have been to take on everything deemed not right in the organization
but in the end nothing seems to be done. In identifying the critical success factors we have to
do the difficult part of choosing the most five themes in order to create a message that would
be compelling, simple, clear and most important of all be focused like a “laser” to be able to
cut through layers of communication, bureaucracy, interpretation and the negative force of
non-believers intact. Too many points documented would serve to confuse, therefore a
concentration of at most five important points would have the penetration of continuity,
constancy and consistency to communicate and drive the system for the future.

2. The Structured System has Three Key Elements for the Foundation

From the earlier illustration of the model, it demonstrates the three elements as a continuous
loop of interconnecting activity. The link between the short and long term vision and
performance of the business and the continuity with each cycle creating an upbeat synergy is
the important life force in the model. I would like to describe briefly the three important
elements of this system.

Vision of the business (Element One)

The birth of this shared view of the future and common understanding is one of the most
difficult periods for leaders. I likened this to the priming of the water pump extracting water
from a deep well where getting the first flow is difficult but after the first gush, continuous
effort is contagious. It is here in the initial stage of this model that leaders have to ensure
good direction and overboard enthusiasm. In this elementary stage of this model we have to
ensure and create a focal point for activity, which needs to be inspirational and enthusiastic.
Once we have a common focus and understanding and a vision of what the company can
achieve we have secured the drivers for element two. The understanding is truncated and
cascaded into what we call the long-term vision and short-term goals. It is noted that it shall

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be the energy, understanding and inspiration of this visions and goals that drives the whole
system to be effective.

GAP Analysis (Element Two)

In order to focus the direction for the system, it is recommended that he GAP analysis should
be done. The GAP analysis has two driving levers to the systematic leadership structure
methodology. That is it creates a religious desire for the future state of the organization, it
spells out clearly the understanding of the gap between the present capabilities of the
organization against what should be the “best in class”. The GAP analysis thus systemize the
pathway of action and communicates to the people the shared understanding of the variance
of the gap, the desire to close or better the gap and harnesses and collects potential energy
for the transformational path ahead. I would like again to remind at this juncture that this
paper has major contribution and concentration on people and human resources
transformation with an operational aim of driving and improving productivity and quality
through a very systematic approach. No doubt on a higher level this approach also creates
the nurturing grounds for strategic improvements to overall organization capabilities through
the transformation of human resources and the culture of “all are leaders and business
owners” in the organization.

In order for an understanding of the system it would be necessary to refer to the earlier
model of “People Process”. Although described as an orbital and continuously improvement
loop it is best to start from the scanning of capability, which is seen in both short-term cycle
and long term cycle. It is designed that this scanning of the capability creates the impetus
and energy for articulation and agreement of the short term and long term business goals.
The input from this to the GAP analysis thus has as its output the derivatives which as a
simple formula: Business Goals upon Performance equals GAP. The two cycles are modeled
separately in this academic study for easy explanation but as a system they are meant to
work concurrently. Leaders using this methodology have to realize that it is normal to cope
with short term adjustments to procedures and policies at one time and at the same time also
needing the system are being safeguarded by preparation and implementation of strategies
that are long term and would only bear fruit in some years ahead.

In order to understand the working of the GAP analysis, we take a look at the short term
cycle first which in most Malaysian companies it is true that many have quite good short
term strategies. The short-term cycle should operate on an annual time frame and should
focus on short term people strategic “have-nots”, business goals, and current capability. The
short term GAP analysis derivatives are meant to be improved such that the levers get
reinforced to improve capacity to answer to short term rapid changes to the performance and
environment of the business.

The overall synergistic effect could be understood from looking at both cycles together,
which with a mirrored image of each other and working in tandem they complement each
other although the rotation cycle maybe different. It is important however as leaders that
both cycles must be maintained and driven because it is quite normal for one cycle to gather
great momentum at the expense of the other. This is quite in normalcy to happen on the
short-term cycle because since the building foundation of an organization is people, it is
characteristic of people to favor and have motivation for results that can be seen quickly.
Thus the long-term strategic cycle may be neglected and suffer at the expense of great

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momentum in the short-term cycle. The resultant maybe a great showing of good results in
the short term but the organization may finally not survive for the long term because of the
neglect of driving levers to close gaps for the long term. The importance of this system is to
ensure balancing both the long and short-term drivers to avoid spiraling downwards into an
iterative, reactive and continuous paradigm without ability for long-term foundation
building. It is important to remember in this system or even any system a balance is needed
because dominance of either cycle breaks the harmony and balance. The philosophy is to
ensure a vibrant and strong short-term cycle and a compelling and exciting long-term cycle
in the people strategy.

People Strategy (Element Three)

When the above alignment of thoughts are done, it is imperative the follow up of actions to
focus on the levers which are the most contributing to the realization of the long term
strategy and short term goals.

3. The Short Term Cycle of the Structured Leadership System

The short-term cycle is designed to be in rapid alignment of the people element and thus to
the needs and aspirations of the business environment which is noted as rapidly changing.
This is because for most companies the there is a short term cycle which begins with the
yearly business planning cycle, the finalization of annual budgets and goals, the
communication to the people on these goals the performance monitoring and the need to
setting of performance related remunerations. It must be emphasized that although the long
term cycle is touted by many consultants to be important without the driving force of the
goals of the short term cycle, without the ability to monitor the current capability and
understand immediate gaps of current needs and benchmarked targets, urgent profound
issues the leaders may leave the system’s foundation to crumble and further fail to see the
bigger picture and critical levers emerging from the short term cycle that affects long term
aspirations. As an example, a failure to realize potential of some key players in the short
term, results in losing them to the competition or even failing to train and prepare them for
the long term.

The short term people strategy of this paper comes from a common understanding and
commitment of the people about the goals of the business and that with team effort the
company would have the capability to deliver because company capabilities and resources
including the skills and motivation of each individual would be in focus. In my earlier
example and recommendation on G Company Malaysia I used the Hoshin planning to drive
the short term cycle of the business as well as to align the thoughts of the people towards
systematic leverage because we must know that in the short term most companies would
have limited resources and potential to concentrate on closing gaps as well as “fire fight”
daily problems. Therefore the systematic levers must be chosen carefully as in earlier
example to align and make annual adjustments in the business goals.

As in the earlier part two where the foundation of a good HRM Performance and
Measurement system is needed and recommended in this paper and example as seen in the
fictitious company G Company Malaysia, I note five possible process levers that will align

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effective the company’s direction to meet short term business goals. It is noted they are all
people related.

 Selection and recruitment of people

 Setting performance objectives
 Performance measurement and its metrics
 Recognition, reward and team benefits
 Continuous and focused training

Selection and recruitment of people plays a very important role in ensuring the success of
a systematic leadership structure. However it is noted that systematic selection, recruitment
and retention of a team committed to the company cannot be achieved in the short term.
However the move of the leaders to start and drive the process in the short term with a long-
term focus is crucial in order that we have a strong foundation for the system in talent, and
committed people. However in the modern world it is still possible to refocus the recruitment
and selection criteria and process to heighten skill level, capabilities and behaviors in line
with the business goals within the short-term cycle. This has an impact of a strong message
that the competency level and profiles is expected to be higher and the bar raised in line with
short term aspirations of the company. Many companies would look to outside as a fast
paced method of getting good people. This maybe a good way for the system because it
gives a “jump” effect but it is important to note that buying talent from outside may expedite
filling short term skills and competency gaps but if the new people are not quickly inducted
in to the culture and aspirations of the company leadership system they would only remain as
a mercenary contract where the skilled individuals are working because of the financial
attractions. The psychological relationship of the new people is distanced because they feel,
as outsiders to the company if something is not done quickly.

A careful commitment to develop people in the short-term cycle would lead to a proper base
or foundation for the longer-term cycle. It is therefore important that the characteristics of
selection and recruitment of external talent and re-assignment of internal people take on the
correct alignment to the people strategy and the right direction of a structured leadership
system as below:

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Selection and re- The selection process takes place in a manner, which is and is
assignment is fair perceived to be fair by candidates.

Business goals It is important that the leaders sent to do recruiting communicates

communicated and properly portray the business goals in the selection process.

Temporal Alignment The recruiting, re-assignment and placement should reflect the
candidates ability and competency to be aligned with future business
goals and the long term cycle

Vertical alignment The recruiting, re-assignment and placement should reflect the
candidates ability and competency to be aligned with current
business goals and the long term cycle

Selection methods The selection methods must be properly designed to fit into the
system and are capable to accurately identify the needed competency
and skills profile and the candidates seen to be culturally fit in
thinking to support team and change systems.

Setting performance objectives is another key lever that can focus energy towards
delivering on the business goals and expectations by agreeing to the performance objectives
as a team. However again we need to ensure that the overall look at a systems methodology
is necessary for the objectives set to be effective and accepted as fair and reflecting the
“battle-cry” of the leaders. The below are examples of a methodological and systems
approach.

Fair and accurate The objective setting takes place in a manner that is perceived,
judged and true to be fair and accurate

Strong vertical The performance objectives truly reflect what is needed to achieve
alignment the business goals

Strong shared There is a strong shared agreement between the people / teams and
agreement between the management / leaders about the nature and extent of the business
the teams and goals and what is needed to achieve these goals.
management /
leaders

Performance measurements or metrics are a twin brother of performance objectives and

the y need to go hand in hand and be an exact alignment of one another. Noted that it is
fundamental performance must be aligned towards the direction of the business goals and as
said earlier the foundation of a systematic leadership structure is very people oriented, the
performance metrics must be measurable an created to highlight the business goals. When
dealing with people it is essential to note that exactly on the opposite continuum of

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machines, people have a short memory and the spirit rousing speech of the leader today is
forgotten tomorrow. So creating a clear understanding of performance requirements are
crucial and critical to communicate the “state of the system”, the gap that existed and to
lever company wide continuous learning. In the system proposed it is noted that the vertical
alignment created by the performance metrics and measurement shall drive the monitoring
and steering of strategy and also to change human behavioral patterns towards one of team
as well as organizational oriented. The characteristically known examples of performance
metrics, which reflect, people strategy and systems approach are shown as below. I note that
these metrics have also been used in the earlier example as in G Company.

Fair and open In a systems approach the feedback about performance should be
feedback team base, open and only reflect issues and gaps and not personal
setbacks

Systematic The performance measurement and its metrics should reflect what
measurement in has to be achieved, how it is achieved and current state of
form of outcomes achievement.
versus team behavior

Open and The company wide review and feedback about performance are given
transparent review in an open manner and systematically cascaded downwards in
system company performance, team performance and individual
performance. In this manner the people does see a relationship in
how their efforts are driving company performance

Exact reflection of Lastly it is important to ensure the metrics and measurement is

business goals related and reflects exactly the business goals, because there maybe a
situation of good performance measured but the wrong ones and
therefore no contribution to the business objectives are done.
Noted many Malaysian companies have this syndrome of very busy
place but the efficiencies are in the wrong place and therefore there is
no effectiveness.

By far reward and recognition has been the most written about human resources
management, however this simplistic view of some people need to be changed because
reward and recognition in my opinion cannot be isolated out of the system and talked about
on its own. Reward and recognition in my opinion need to be strongly and ultimately related
to the company’s short-term goals and long term visions. In many Malaysian companies
from secondary data collected the trend of reward and recognition is that the link between
benefits and job-related performance and business goals has never been clear. While some
companies practice team and individual performance measurement the relationship between
rewards and business strategies were distorted and managers often do appraisals as
something that needs to be done at the end of the year. However it must be said that in my
research on productivity and quality improvement and the drivers of performance
measurement needed to improve these criteria it is true that the use of this high potential
lever is not realized because of excruciating circumstances in some highly competitive
environments where the overriding focus is on costs and thus taking out the advantage of
performance related benefits.

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Nonetheless, academically, the principle is still that what gets measured cues and reinforce
the message about what is valued and of utter importance in the company. People behavior
will be realigned to support the business contacts even in the most excruciating
circumstances if the reward processes either in monetary terms or recognition reflects and
reinforces the business goals. Therefore in my systematic approach reward and recognition
of people in a set in the performance management foundation supports the system as one of
the greatest sources of leverage available to increase team performance leading to
organizational performance with the critical success factors of improving productivity and
quality. In a summary table I highlight the characteristics of reward in tandem to the business
strategy.

Fairness The reward process need to be fair and accurate and without bias

In line with needs The rewards whether monetary or recognition need to reflect and be
in line with company and people needs

Alignment with Rewards whether monetary or recognition are aligned with the
business goals implementation of the business goals and reflect periodic goal review
achievement and reward payout period

Horizontal alignment The rewards need to be designed and published to create a sense of
shared euphoria through their alignment and achievement of the
stages or milestones of the business goals

Training in the short term cycle provides the synergy and opportunity to demonstrate the
company’s seriousness towards what have been said and it has been proven especially in
Japanese TQM systems that it is relatively easy to make small but continuously, incremental
fine tuning while working towards the aspirations of the annual business goals. This energy
and impetus created ensure the feedback loops and levers of the cycle are optimize and also
ensures the reaction time of the organization is shortened to change accordingly to the
competitive and global environment. The Japanese companies termed this “Kaizen” or
continuous improvement philosophy. It is well known that if training is systemized and
conforms to what the company lacks in knowledge and core competence then training can be
a very strong lever to improve on and focus the direction towards the needed objectives.
Training within even a very short timescale can bring quantum leaps in improving the skills
and competency of the teams through focused and objectives driven programs. However as
one of the key elements to ascertain that the foundation to support a systematic structure of
leadership the training needs must be identified properly through clear and shared
understanding of the skills necessary to deliver to the business goals and objectives,
identification of providers of high quality training, and the diagnosis of team and individual
people needs.

As creating the alignment between the people process and the system is crucial, leaders need
to spend real efforts to distinguish what training is needed for the short term cycle and the
constant reviewing due to changing business environments. Without this efforts and capacity
to align, realign and align again, the process may not be capable of developing the core skills
required by the teams and people to equip them to work towards company objectives and

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also towards the longer term cycle because failure to show short term results always have a
demoralizing effect on the long term. Success in training and short-term results is important
to create a shared sense of meaning about what is important to the teams. In order to put into
perspective the key factors relating to training I have summarize them as in below table:

Leaders and Leaders and management need to be passionately involved and be

management need to full hearted in driving and participating in the training. Some good
be involved leaders also provide training to the people to show their focus and
religious embrace of what is being said.

Correct training Skill needs or teams and individuals are properly profiled and
programs understood for the design of the training modules

Quality of training It is important that training is done with monitored effectiveness and
not for the hours put in. The training and development must be
monitored to be effective in delivering the business goals of the
company

Recognition of Training time away from the job must be duly recognized and the
training time normal Malaysian syndrome of the operational supervisor would be
adverse and retaliating against people or teams away for training. In
other words training time must be scheduled as in a proper system

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4. The Long Term Cycle of the Structured Leadership System

As have been said earlier in the paper, the long-term cycle would be a mirrored image of the
short-term cycle. In some companies very much importance has been paid to short-term
cycles but neglecting the long-term cycle to detrimental effects. While the short-term cycle
has emphasis of meeting the needs to changes to the business goals, the longer-term cycle
should see the preparation or driving of changes more significant to place the company in the
echelons of “best in class” in order to survive for the future. As the paper emphasizes on
building a good people foundation to support the systematic leadership structure we need to
look at the three most important people processes to support the delivery of building a
system for the longer-term cycle.

Leadership The building up of the levers for the capacity to transform managers
Transformation into leaders with the passion and loyalty towards a long term vision
as ingrained in the system

Leaders, people and The need to create organizational and systematic structures that are
people leaders people oriented and are manned by people and teams with the right
transformation mindset and systematic roles and responsibilities are in tune with the
longer term goals

The short term cycle The short-term cycle is not neglected over the long-term cycle and
and the long term vice versa. In fact the synergy must come from both cycles running at
cycle is concurrently maximum impetus and complementing each other.
as effective

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I note however that basic realignment of skills, structural and systems change, and;
leadership development does not bring immediate results. This maybe one of the factors of
which many leaders have failed to transform the organization and have resulted in a chaotic
situation. There must be a systematic approach in which in the longer time frame it reflects
the competencies and skills honed through proper management and leadership skills and
effort. The longer-term cycle should be a systematic approach in focusing development of
trust and inspiration, building and forging relationships more than being colleagues, and
sharing through team working and networking.

I would like to talk about the transformation of the organization first although all three
elements are as important. The reason is that it would be easier to visualize the complete
system as the soul of the whole organization. Several factors whole key to the structural and
systematic view of the organization and therefore each must be worked for improvements.
They include the emphasis on using team, task and project approaches, systematic definition
of roles and responsibilities, and the basic structure of planning and visioning further ahead.
This is because the key success factor lies in the ability to understand, articulate and put in
place improvement plans and strategies for the future. As in the example of G Company
Malaysia where it was shown a systematic approach to Organizational Change,
organizational transformation is very much dependent on team and good project leadership
skills and change acceptance and capability of the people and managers. In a summary a
company, which is geared towards organizational transformation in a systematic way, will
have the following key characteristics:

Leadership and Managers and leaders have adopted that change will be the only way
Managerial mindset towards surviving for the future and thus managerial skills are
adjusted to the new organizational design necessities

Capacity and The capacity and tenacity to stick to the vision as change is
tenaciousness unavoidable and have the determination to weather through to
implement and push the identified organizational design into reality

Clear direction and The leaders are very clear of what should be the organizational
articulation design and have the passion to articulate to meet the needs of the
business strategy

By far the most common subject when we talk about leadership, organizational change and
productivity is the phrase; transforming the workforce. Transforming the work force may
it be noted that it cannot be taken as an isolated subject but having gone so far into the paper
the reader must have realized that one of my key points is to put into practice a systematic
approach to improve and transform the skill of the workforce such that they will be meeting
the needs of the organization in the future. The key word is to improve for the future thus
taking a jump ahead of the competition, taking a proactive approach rather then a reactive
approach of trying to catch up with the competition. However I realize that the process
would take many years of leadership commitment, resources and focus and most of all at the
outset the approach must be done in systematic manner. For example the Gaps identified to
be able to have the workforce better then a visualize scenario five years down the road must
be documented and then action plans set across every year with cascading action points to
every month. A serious and systematic monitoring to see progress and to put in steering
efforts is the name of the game. My model of CAPD or “check, act, plan, do, as expounded

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in part four of this paper is a good methodology of systematic action monitoring. However
we must not forget that the business environment changes rapidly thus, it would be necessary
to have the leadership skills to adapt, adopt and innovate what skill sets are necessary for the
workforce of the future. Having note that, one critical success factor would be the leaders
ability to articulate a focused yet proactive view of how the key skills of the industry re
likely to change. The leaders in accordance to this trend would need to change the driving
levers for improving the identified skills in accordance to the business environment change
but yet this change must be reflective of a systematic approach to avoid confusion.

One vital reason why I have insisted on a systematic approach is that while the organization
has a very good motive and plan for the long term development and retention of people with
key skills it would be difficult to say exactly which set of policies and processes would
support the commitment because the changing scenario driven by globalization obsoletes
very quickly a bureaucratic policy. Thus leaders setting in place a systematic leadership
structure and the supporting element of policies to drive people development and retention
would need to know they are always operating on a volatile platform and contingency
thinking and receptive to changes would be the order of the day. Therefore while leaders can
change the development and training courses and subjects, the system of scheduling training,
monitoring and training needs analysis would need to be stable and intact to avoid fear and
confusion in the organization. We remember Dr. Deming’s teachings of “drive out fear” and
“constancy in management” is two important tenets of a systematic approach to leadership.

The other challenge that leaders would face in the global environment is that lifelong
employment, which is policy supporting workforce retention, is no more possible because of
the need for flexibility. However this trend may run counter to retaining the motivation and
commitment of key people. Therefore the magic is to create development opportunities and
career paths that are capable of providing hope and roadmaps to the future. Below are the
characteristics of workforce transformation, which are crucial as the levers for a systematic
approach towards people transformation.

Communication and The teams and people are absolutely clear about their current skills
clarity profile and are aware of what needs to be developed for the future
and the alignment against the organizations future needs

Constant monitoring Clarity and constant monitoring on changes of the industrial

environmental and how the skills profile is expected to change

Leaders’ articulation Crucial, critical new skills, competencies and capabilities for the
future are passionately articulated

Leaders’ experiential Leaders’ knowledge and background of experiential learning

experiences support ability to identify and develop training programs crucial to
the re-skill of the workforce for the future

Passion and Lastly even with all the above one critical success factor would be
commitment of the leaders’ passionate commitment towards the unwavering believe
leaders that improving people skills to be better than the competition is very
important in the systematic model to leadership success leading to
unchallenged productivity and quality

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Thus the contribution of leaders towards workforce transformation is seen to be crucial.

However in my model it will be noted that as the global challenge sets in and organizations
want their people to be closer to the customer, the initial lead by leaders to drive workforce
transformation must be taken over by what I term the wheel of transformation momentum.
This idea is that by driving people awareness, empowerment, motivation, ownership we set
in place a good spiral up effect that feeds on itself as people get to be sucked in and be
inspired by the results of as systematic approach towards learning and customer focus roles.
It is noted in almost every leadership literature that competitive advantage finally comes
form the people and teams of the organization after the leaders have set in place the driving
force of creating an “all leaders organization.” As in most Japanese organization with very
strong leadership systems that are even more culture and religious like, the empowerment
emphasis is always on the people and teams that are directly involved in production of the
product.

Having said so much so far, one would think transformation of people would be the difficult
part. However, transforming leaders would even be a more daunting task as in some
organizations the deep rooted mindset and paradigms of managers abound and some try to
protect them-selves from inevitable change by putting around them a “fortress of ignorance”.
This is especially so in the Malaysian environment as historically most managers were
identified in their mid twenties to thirties and most often after some job assignments with the
“right circumstances” became appointed as managers. They may have some management
skills and academic qualifications but this did little to improve their leadership acumen and
in some worst conditions created an inward looking individual trying very hard to protect his
“little kingdom.” As such I would like to highlight some important and crucial characteristics
and tools of leadership development as below table.

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Coaching and As in transformation of people coaching and development is key and

development processes could be by putting potential leaders in more cross-
functional jobs, leading teams in projects, trust development,
motivation techniques, and mentorship under an overseas stint.

Systematic There need to be in the systematic leadership structure a periodic or

recruitment of yearly recruitment of young potential leadership talent after quiet
potential leadership observation and appraisal for a period of time and these potential
talent vanguard of the leadership structure sent for training or overseas jobs
to further expose them in the culture and vision pf the company

Experiential learning The organization has a way of documenting experiential learning

such as through efforts towards the Malcolm Baldridge Award, the
EFQM system of assessment and shared leadership experiences
through talks by the older leaders

Communication Strong articulation of leadership competencies through

communication and sharing of what is important for the future

Vision of the future There need to exist and be embraced by new leaders the vision of the
future because they would be the ones to carry the organization to
“world class.”

Team spirit Leaders must really be team players, who can create networks, and
support people creativity and innovation

Thus the new leadership style is one of the ability to aligning the business goals to have
speed, eliminate bureaucracy, and drive innovation with passion. Behaviors of leaders need
to trend towards the passion to coach and support their people instead of to manage and
bound their teams and people with rigidity. The leaders must be able to use the loose / tight
method touted by Tom Peters but still be able to maintain sense of direction through having a
systematic leadership approach of check, act plan, do and also ability to have their thoughts
and action aligned with the elements of “Leadership, people, processes, as enablers and key
performance results as drivers for innovation and learning.

5. Completing the system

The key now that we have the shared vision, principles, elements, the short term cycle
drivers and the long term cycle drivers is to assemble them together to have a systemic
capability. These systems thinking based on the key factors would be the organizational
change drivers that are needed and would support a shared understanding of what the
organization could be. The systems thinking is important because in the real business world
the complexity of continuously realigning the processes and the key structures is more than
the debate in this paper and due to the ever changing competitive environment thus affecting
the business goals. The complexities are that with the shifting of business strategies the goals
need to be changed and thus complicates matters by an effect of where a realignment of one
element has an immediate effect on many other elements due to the complex net of

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interdependencies. While the shifting or realignment of the strategies are compulsory for the
assurance that the company vision and goals are on the right track, this may have a
disproportionate impact on the shared vision which have been accepted. Therefore what is
important is that the strategies and goals maybe realigned but the systemic approach ensures
there is no confusion in the people perceptions due to constant vertical, horizontal and
temporal alignment. This is one key point of what I stress as the beauty of a systematic
leadership approach.

As an example the new business goal of a company that has gone global may need the
realignment of the leadership system to reward people for being more focused on the global
customers, however those people cannot be rewarded yet until reliable and fairly measurable
key performance measurements are in place before they can be done. If the system is
designed well with and modeled after a TQM outlook or the EFQM methodology, than
customer satisfaction would already is one of the key elements built in. The system would
only then be slightly reoriented for the weight age of resources spent or a slight job profile
change. In essence a systemic approach, which is difficult to built at the outset, gives the
company adaptation capabilities to deal with constant shifting of the business environment.

The system thus should be build thus:

At the centre of vision or creation of meaning would be the three key elements of:
 The key elements which capture and portray the business goals of the organization
 The process leavers which are the tools that can affect and reinforce the elements
 The feedback loops and actions which can effect the dynamics of the system

With the above and through the feedback loops and the system itself we are able to decipher
the constant information or messages of the processes and isolate the potential contradicting
elements while reinforcing the good elements by acting on the levers. The systemic approach
also ensures that we understand the meaning which is currently in operations, where the
negative effects or positive effects are coming from, how processes are improved and
synergized together and also of importance where and what are the primary and secondary
feed back loops.

6. Part V Summary

A systemic leadership approach sets into motion the actions and offers to the people a road
map towards the vision which maybe provocative, memorable and rich. Without a systematic
approach the people will not have the tools and the guiding principles to achieve what they
want to although they may have a genuine interest to do so. The development of the maps of
the system thus plays a very critical role by giving the opportunity to the people to share
their views on the key elements of the system and to understand without hearsay information
the causal results brought on by the interrelationships of the elements and the effort put in.
The systematic approach also encourages the team and people to move away from narrow
sequential and static thinking to a broader systemic thinking and to have a concern of efforts
put in to lever team results than looking for individual gains. The systems approach also
hopes for clarity in demonstration of the impact of positive or negative results based on the
efforts put in or failure to act.

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