Modern Systemic Leadership E-Book

Cyrus Achouri

• Herausgeber: Wiley-VCH
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 309

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

This book supports a turn in the leadership paradigm: from environment to system, from manager to employee. It offers an introduction to essential managerial instruments for the improvement of Performance, like Staff Dialogue, Upward Feedback, Executive Coaching, or Business Ethics. Different leadership styles and techniques are explained as well as international and intercultural dimensions of Human Resources Management. Furthermore an innovative approach is developed to utilize System Theory and its interdisciplinary results in evolutionism, biology, physics, philosophy, cognition science and therapy for the design of Systemic Leadership. By this approach, readers will achieve a higher level of comprehension of how leadership actions may affect - or why they do not affect - the behavior of individuals or groups in enterprises and organizations. The book is intended - as a source of new ideas and creative proposals for Executives and Personnel Managers who, in their enterprises, want to put into practice an Extended Catalogue of Management Tools, and - for Students to accompany lectures in Business Administration with focus on Personnel Management. "In today's complex business environment, we urgently need a systemic approach to management and leadership. Cyrus Achouri's book is an important contribution to this new field. I am sure that readers seeking a deeper understanding of leadership will find it helpful and inspiring." Fritjof Capra, author of "The Web of Life" and "The Hidden Connections"

Leseprobe

Modern Systemic Leadership

A Holistic Approach for Managers, Coachs, and HR Professionals

by Cyrus Achouri

www.publicis-books.de

Complete ePub edition of Cyrus Achouri, „Modern Systemic Leadership“, ISBN 978-3-89578-362-3 (Print edition)

ISBN 978-3-89578-700-3

Publisher: Publicis Publishing © Publicis Erlangen, Zweigniederlassung der PWW GmbH

The author:

Cyrus Achouri was born in Paris / France. After working for several enterprises (PDI, BMW, Siemens), he now is professor for human resources management at the University of Nuertingen, Germany. His research areas are system theory, leadership and business ethics.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Cyrus AchouriUniversity of NuertingenChair in Human Resources ManagementNeckarsteige 6–1072622 Nuertingen/[email protected]

Preface

System Theory has meanwhile established itself within many scientific disciplines and has shown productive results. However, a systematic-scientific adaptation for the management theory, especially for personnel management, has not taken place up to now – at least, I do not know of any. I therefore would like to make a contribution to encourage the discussion on how we can take advantage of some systemic axioms in the field of personnel management.

In order to understand what contribution Systemic Leadership in management can offer, we will begin by presenting general principles of personnel management and development. After an introduction to essential management tools like feedback, coaching, performance management and human resources controlling (Chapters 2 and 3), fundamental management methods will follow, including ethical aspects (Chapters 4 and 5). In Chapter 6, we will deal with international personnel management aspects in a globalized world as well as some essential paradigms of intercultural leadership. In Chapter 7, we present different systemic models as part of disciplines like biology, evolution theory, physics, cognitive sciences, philosophy, pedagogics, sociology and management. Finally, in Chapter 8, I attempt to bring in all these ideas in one theory of Systemic Leadership.

The contents of this book resulted from the lectures held in the summer term 2008 and the winter term 2008/2009 at the University of Nuertingen. I am grateful for the numerous suggestions by my students whom I want to thank cordially. Also do I want to thank Dr. Gerhard Seitfudem, Business Director at Publicis for making this book happen and a very big Thank You to Renate Achouri for the translation.

This book is intended equally for Students to accompany the lectures in Business Administration with focus on Personnel Management, and for interested Executives and Personnel Managers who, in their enterprises, want to put into practice an extended catalogue of management tools.

My wish to all of you is that reading may bring you fun and benefit.

Nuertingen, January 2010Cyrus Achouri

Contents

Chapter 1  Introduction

Chapter 2  Performance Management Systems

2.1  Feedback

2.1.1  The meaning of “feedback”

2.1.2  Communication Analysis

2.2  Staff Dialogue

2.3  Upward Feedback

2.3.1  Moderated Workshop

2.4  360° Feedback

2.5  Human Resources Controlling

2.5.1  Balanced Score Card

2.5.2  Performance Indicators for Human Resources Management

Chapter 3  Coaching as Instrument of Executive Development

3.1  Quality Criteria and Process Stages

3.2  Consulting Approaches

Chapter 4  Leadership and Ethics

4.1  Individual Values

4.1.1  Religion, Ethics and Moral Standards

4.2  Company Values

4.3  Society Values: Demography, Part-Time Work and Empowerment

Chapter 5  Theories of Leadership

5.1  Employee Motivation

5.2  Idea of Man

5.2.1  Taylor

5.2.2  Maslow

5.2.3  McGregor

5.2.4  Schein

5.3  Leadership styles

5.3.1  Weber

5.3.2  House

5.3.3  Lewin

5.3.4  Tannenbaum & Schmidt

5.3.5  Gagné & Fleischmann

5.3.6  Blake & Mouton

5.3.7  Hersey & Blanchard

5.4  Management Techniques

5.4.1  Management by Delegation

5.4.2  Management by Exception

5.4.3  Management by Objectives

Chapter 6  Intercultural Leadership – HR Management in a Globalized World Economy

6.1  Organizational Cultures

6.2  Culture Strategies, Decision Finding and Internationalization

6.3  Cultural Dimensions and Expressions

6.3.1  Hofstede (*1928)

6.3.2  Robert Levine (*1945)

6.3.3  Edward Hall (*1914)

6.3.4  Fons Trompenaars (*1952)

6.4  Culture-specific Career Models

6.5  The GLOBE Study

6.5.1  Nine Cultural Dimensions

6.5.2  Leadership Dimensions

Chapter 7  Disciplines of System Theory

7.1  System Theory as Interdisciplinary Approach

7.1.1  System Theory and Biology

7.1.2  System Theory and Physics

7.1.3  System Theory and Cognitive Science

7.1.4  System Theory and Philosophy

7.1.5  System Theory, Pedagogy and Counselling

7.1.6  System Theory and Sociology

7.1.7  System Theory and Management

7.2  Summary

Chapter 8  Systemic Leadership

8.1  Six Theses

8.2  Consequences for Leadership

8.2.1  From Environment to System, from Manager to Employee

8.2.2  Company Objectives and Employee Objectives

8.2.3  Competition

8.2.4  Performance

8.2.5  Man as an Artist

Bibliography

“But anguish crept upon me, Whenas I pondered in my little cell: Ah me! how have I come into this evil road. Into the power of Craving have I strayed! Brief is the span of life yet left to me; Old age, disease, hang imminent to crush. Now ere this body perish and dissolve, Swift let me be; no time have I for sloth. And contemplating, as they really are, The Aggregates of Life that come and go, I rose and stood with mind emancipate!”

Psalms of the Early Buddhists

Chapter 1Introduction

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Any company nowadays knows that performance and motivation of their employees are being influenced mostly by its quality of leadership (more than 70 %1). Excellent leadership today by no means is only an ideal but a condition sine qua non of successful entrepreneurship. There are several reasons for that.

One of them is that because of a lack of qualified manpower there is not only a need to win over the best talents but also to retain them. This achievement is expected from the direct executive personnel. In many cases where companies take the record of resignation interviews, one can observe a direct correlation between bad leadership and unwelcome fluctuation of employees.

Also, changing demands by employees concerning the degree of independence in their work, the combination of career and profession in different working and time models, the so-called work-life balance, are important points especially for highly qualified employees and all the more so for the considerable female part among them. Any excuse by executives as to increased coordination cost for part-time workers or lacking efficiency is not accepted any more as a reason to refuse flexible working models. A great number of studies prove that part-time employees deal even more efficiently with their working hours. They are simply forced to do so.

While technical possibilities of rationalization can be perfected more and more asymptotically, we are rather at the beginning when it comes to the activation of the resource “employee motivation”. Employee motivation, however, is essential for willingness to perform as well as for efficiency and it is therefore imperative to specifically use this first domino and to understand that excellent leadership is the central leverage for the success of an enterprise.

Figure 1 “Leadership Domino”

In this book you will not find an introduction into the entire subject of Human Resources Management. However, we will present main subjects of particular importance for Human Resources Management and subsequently deduce “Systemic Leadership” as systemic approach to HR-Management. The method will not be historical, but systematic.

In Chapter 2 we will start by looking into performance management systems for performance evaluation. We present basic techniques like feedback and communication analysis, both of which should be basic knowledge of any executive. We will then talk about the staff dialogue and the upward feedback which are complementary to each other. Finally, relevant HR-performance indicators will be discussed allowing to define performance objectives and to measure their achievement, especially by using the balanced score card as controlling instrument.

Chapter 3 offers an introduction to executive coaching. Despite their relevance for management performance, no consistently formulated quality standards for the training and use of coaches are yet available. We will define quality criteria for the selection of coaches as well as criteria for successful controlling and evaluation. This Chapter will close with an introduction of selected consulting approaches that are applied in executive coaching.

Chapter 4 attempts to answer the question which value system may be able to support executives when operating in delicate personnel situations, and Chapter 5 presents some theories of leadership. Following an introduction to employee motivation, images of man as basic paradigms are presented that have always been an underlying part of the style and understanding of leadership. We will then introduce selected management styles and finally present the so-called management techniques, i. e. the craft skills to put them into practice.

Chapter 6 deals with HR- management on a globalized level and presents strategies of internationalization as well as different models to describe intercultural aspects. This closes the introduction to principal leadership theorems.

Chapter 7 offers an excursion to different scientific disciplines which allow to present system theory in its principal statements. We examine the statements of evolutionary biology, physics, chaos research, cognitive sciences or philosophy, pedagogics and management theory in order to find out the common aspects.

These common aspects we will use as a basis in Chapter 8 in order to apply the systemic statements and results to personnel management and set up a draft of Systemic Leadership.

1

IES Report 355, From People to Profits, 1999

Chapter 2Performance Management Systems

“My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.”

Jack Welch (*19.11.1935), former CEO of General Electric (1981–2001)

Performance management means the process of performance measurement, performance steering and performance control of individual employees, teams and executives. The objective of this process is a continued improvement of individual performance ending up in an improved performance of the whole enterprise. Extending its attention from accountancy with its main interest on the past, performance management also focuses on non-financial performance indicators. This comprehensive planning and steering process is additionally brought into line with future challenges.

In order to meet this comprehensive objective, many companies use the balanced score card in order to measure financial results, process efficiency as well as employee and customer satisfaction. Below, we will present important performance management instruments, the staff dialogue und its complementary tool, the upward feedback.

The basis of all these instruments, however, is communication. Structured and successful communication is a management tool by itself already, and any applied methods of performance management depend on the quality of communication involved. When talking of communication used for reporting back information on behaviour and performance, the term “feedback” has gained acceptance following the scientific concept of back coupling.

Before looking into the methods themselves, we should therefore pay attention to the basics of successful communication. Especially feedback does play an important role here as it is a communication instrument that reports back information on behaviour and performance.