This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 14, 2019 - October 20, 2019

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. — Publilius Syrus, Syrian Roman writer (84 to 43 BC)

I was on an MBA panel recently, addressing the question of “How Successful are Business Schools at Producing Transformational Leaders?” and it struck me as strange that the four panellists were at odds with each other regarding the success of business schools, both at home and overseas, in producing said leaders.

One member was very optimistic, quoting the quality of corporate leaders who have led and are leading our government-linked companies (GLCs). Others were less sanguine, saying work experience at major corporations was a precursor to being a great manager. Me, I was unsure, and that led me to the library.

Malaysia has a dearth of good leaders, both in government and in the private sector. While many are good managers who can steer their constituencies on a steady course, we do not have disruptive, transformational leaders who can guide our nation into making the necessary leap to the next level.

According to my research, producing effective business leaders is not a sure thing — not as unlikely as winning the lottery but to all appearances, not a strong proposition.

A recent study by The Conference Board, a leading international business research association, found that less than one-third of all business supervisors and managers surveyed were perceived to be strong leaders. One in three! That might be a stellar stock-picking average for a fund manager but it is not very good in the workplace.

In a 2013 article entitled “Should Leaders Focus on Results or on People?” Professor Matthew Lieberman of UCLA conducted a survey of 60,000 employees that was designed to determine how two characteristics — result focus and social skills — impact employees’ perception of business leadership abilities.

A result focus, Lieberman says, “combines strong analytical skills with an intense motivation to move forward and solve problems” while social skills “combine attributes like communication and empathy”.

According to the results of his survey, if a leader was considered to be strong in social skills, he was seen as a good leader only 12% of the time. However, if a leader was perceived to be strong in focusing on results, the percentage increased to 14%.

Aha! You might see that as justification for promoting people to management based on the results they create but that is not the end of the story.

“However,” surmises Lieberman, “for leaders who are strong in both result focus and social skills, the likelihood of them being seen as a great leader skyrockets to 72%!”

That, as the number geeks like to say, is statistically significant. You are five times more likely to be considered a great leader if you focus on results and connect well with your employees. How about that?

The real question on my mind is, how many local business managers possess both skills? I found no answer to that in the library that morning. Research on local leadership skill and talent is scant and wanting.

Famed leadership thought leader David Rock once asked thousands of American employees to rate their bosses on goal focus (similar to result focus) and social skills to examine how often a leader scored high in both.

The results were astonishing: Less than 1% of the leaders were rated high on both goal focus and social skills.

The truth is that the vast majority of managers who get promoted to leadership roles get promoted for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with leadership skills. Instead, most often, they are promoted for knowledge, ability or performance in their current job. Little, if any, consideration is given to their ability to communicate, set strategy and direction, create a plan or develop people.

Did you catch that?

Most individuals who progress from individual contributor roles to supervisory — leadership — roles are promoted because of their technical competence or skill at their previous job. People seldom get promoted because of their potential to be great leaders. Instead, promotion decisions are typically based on the candidate’s ability to react to the most pressing emergencies of the day (the tactical), to get things done (the technical) and to manage administrative details (the trivial).

Yes, if seen that way, today’s “leaders” are generally highly skilled firefighters in a business suit.

A recent Gallup poll suggested that when companies select a new manager, they “fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the job” 82% of the time. Seriously? Eight out of 10 times? You would think a company would be at least as good as a coin flip, wouldn’t you? Sadly, however, they are not and upon closer inspection, the following three “systemic” issues explain the problem:

1.    Organisations that seek to fill a management position almost always look first to knowledge, skill or performance as the primary prerequisites for it. Clearly, a level of technical competence is important in a management position but it is just one piece of the puzzle. An individual may be great at getting things done but be an absolutely terrible leader of people. We hire or promote technical competence and we are surprised why our managers are taskmasters at best instead of leaders.

2.    Most companies do not train their people to be leaders. Most simply identify their top performers, move them into new offices, provide updated business cards and prepare them for their new role with two ever-so-popular, not-so-helpful words: “Good luck!” This particular mistake takes on a special significance when you realise that leadership is a set of skills that can be learnt (and therefore trained). The Leadership Quarterly, in a 2017 article, concluded that while there are some innate characteristics needed to become an effective leader, most of what makes someone a great leader is learnt. Researchers estimate the “heritability of leadership role occupancy” at 24%, meaning that an individual’s learning and development accounts for 76% of leadership capability. No matter what you call it, if you do not equip your managers with the skills that make for great leadership, it is highly unlikely that you will get a manager who is perceived to be an effective leader.

3.    Managers are rarely incentivised to be great leaders. Typically, managers are paid to “get results”. On the surface, that would seem to make sense but a problem arises when companies see performance results and talent development as two mutually exclusive ideas. It should be self-evident that great people create those performance results we all crave. And strong performance cannot last if people disengage or fail to develop their potential. The “system” is designed to pay leaders for results rather than paying them to develop the people who create those results. Worse, paying for results encourages decisions that reward short-term behaviour while ignoring long-term consequences.

So, it is fair for me to surmise that we are poor at developing good business leaders because generally, our companies promote the wrong people to leadership positions, they fail to develop a methodology for training and developing their leaders, and they reward the wrong management behaviours.

No wonder most office corner occupants claim that leadership is tough.

Zakie Shariff is managing partner of Kuber Venture Bhd, a specialist investment company. He is also a director of Universiti Malaysia Pahang.

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