Gregory P. Crawford is President of Miami University of Ohio.
A 2017 article in the Harvard Business Review noted that companies spend over $24 billion annually on leadership development. Such training exercises are helpful, but the return on investment needs to be clarified. So much of leadership depends on personal strengths, organizational context and response to ever-changing circumstances that no general program can address directly. Some organizations perform a 360-degree review to boost on-the-job training, collecting feedback about the leader from all levels—direct reports, peers and supervisors.
In addition to such a review, I suggest practicing a complementary 360-degree strategy in the other direction: The leader constantly observes colleagues at all levels, identifies their successful leadership practices and reflects on how to incorporate those appropriately into their approach. For example, a leader might emulate various colleagues’ excellent communication skills, empathy, financial acumen, social skills or data-driven approach.
A person who learns from numerous individuals’ strengths can combine them into a “super-leader” set of skills. No one is good at everything. Still, besides boosting strengths, the ongoing exercise will identify weaknesses, colleagues who can supply support and a sense of direction to build one’s leadership development curriculum. I call this approach “leading by looking around.” It establishes an unbroken learning mode daily, regardless of task, conversation, meeting or other activity.
Here is how to practice leading by looking around with a 360-degree view: Look to the top at supervisors, look laterally to peers and look to the base of the flow chart to direct reports and others for valuable experiential education in leadership.
Look to the top.
Start by looking to your leaders—vice presidents if you’re a director or project manager, president or CEO if you’re a vice president and board if you’re a president. Study how they lead.
Identify specific elements such as engaging in conversations, making decisions, inspiring buy-in and unity, resolving conflicts, encouraging success, correcting mistakes and more. Reflect on where you can improve, such as heavy-handedness and short-circuiting processes. Identify what others are doing right that would be good to emulate and learn more about. Consider asking them to share more about their strategy and approach.
As a bonus, this close attention will likely give you a greater appreciation for the complexity of their job. You’re responsible for a subsection of a multifaceted organization. They’re often responsible for that part and more.
For example, my role as a university president resembles leading a large conglomerate: We have an academic enterprise, food and lodging service, security, real estate development, investment activity, a sports enterprise and a host of faculty, students and staff. I look to my board, including leaders of finance, healthcare, transportation, nonprofits, entrepreneurial ventures and industry, to learn by observation and engagement how they lead in budgeting, government relations, communications, organizational governance, marketing, media and other aspects of my job. I emulate them to boost my abilities and enlist their expertise when I need support.
And when I was a dean—in the middle of the higher-education organizational structure—I looked up to the university president, who commissioned a study on the institution’s role in the slave trade. Her courage shaped my leadership focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and justice.
Look laterally.
Look laterally to your peers—other presidents and CEOs, vice presidents and managers, depending on your role. They face similar leadership demands. Much of their expertise and mindset is likely translatable to yours. Unlike your supervisors, they deal with many of the same day-to-day issues you do.
Plus, observing and engaging peers in your organization can provide a more holistic understanding as you move to more complex roles.
For example, as a dean of science, formerly trained in physics, I was comfortable with the data, analytics, finance, quantitative complexity and modeling aspects of my role, but I needed better broad-thinking skills. My dean colleague in arts and letters was a historian whose remarkable critical thinking skills had a practical dimension beyond my own. He taught me to weigh pros and cons, refine questions, challenge assumptions and stay alert to nuance. There, I gained a connection between analytical and critical thinking that remains a hallmark of my leadership.
Look to the base.
Look to the organizational chart for emerging leaders—a significant, often untapped source of leadership education. They exercise successful leadership in their departments or teams partly because they have close, regular contact with people and solve problems daily. They are often alert to leading-edge ideas, less entrenched in outmoded thinking, bolder and more creative, with refreshing energy. Amid rapid change, they are often more adept at new technology and media tools, even able to provide reverse mentoring.
Additionally, engaging these employees in openness, humility and respect for their skills can strengthen the organization’s sense of shared purpose and camaraderie. It also keeps the leader aware of potential future leaders.
You can constantly learn leadership from others. I try to emulate one vice president’s rare combination of empathy and accountability that eases tension and promotes progress. The dedication to the community of a staff member in our athletics department inspires me to be a better collaborator and community builder. Working with our communications and marketing colleagues on a campaign taught me plenty about creativity, risk-taking and storytelling.
Formal leadership training programs can provide significant benefits and soliciting feedback such as a 360-degree review is crucial for building leadership skills. But you can leverage a third source of learning: To grow as the particular leader best for your organization, your organization itself—all 360 degrees of it—can provide rich insights with immediate application when you learn to lead by looking around.
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