The leadership is not the same as management. Managers focus on what they know how to do and how to do it, thinking about expected results in the short term, minimizing possible risks, as Carly Fiorina, CEO and president of Hewlett-Packard Company, considered during the masterclass that was held through WOBI.
“They work within their established roles and responsibilities linked to their position and depend on the procedures and controls in place,” he said.
He explained that management is necessary, but it is not enough to solve problems and take advantage of the talent that exists in an organization: What is needed in these cases is leadership.
Leaders focus on what they need to learn, work to establish different long-term results to create new opportunities by organizing their teams for the future.
“The role of the leader goes beyond established limitations to achieve the proposed goals.”
Steps to follow
For Fiorina, the first and foremost thing a leader needs to do is understand and make their teams understand the current state of the organization to establish a case for change.
“Based on that description, you can establish a aspirational vision of the future state we want to reach. The more comprehensive the description of where we are and where we want to go, the better we can take advantage of the opportunities that arise to drive positive change.”
He considered that a leader must create a shared understanding of the current state and communicate it repetitively to prevent the organization from stagnation in the comfort zone, motivating their teams to seek change.
He said that it is essential to detect that if change is not led in organizations in a systematic and holistic manner, they will not be able to adapt to the problems and opportunities that arise in the market and internally and will end up disappearing.
The Leadership Framework is a tool to develop successful changes created by Fiorina in which four facets converge: Goals and strategies, processes and structures, metrics and culture of the organization.
Fiorina emphasized that goals are states of intention and aspiration, the future state we want to achieve, while strategies refer to how we spend our time and money to achieve goals.
“On the other hand, the structure of an organization refers to the organization chart: who does what, what role does he play and who has to present results to him.”
Likewise, processes are the systems that each role establishes to carry out those functions.
The third part of the framework is the metrics and results. The metrics are established to measure the implemented strategies and demonstrate if we achieve our objectives through the results.
“If we want to drive behavior aligned with the desired future state and established strategic plans, we have to determine the right metrics.”
He said that the culture it is essential to sustain the organization in achieving the future state and can be approached with the same discipline as the rest of the parts. It is what tells people what to do when they have doubts.
“Scandals in organizations occur because people interpret that metric are the most important, but it is the culture, the codes of conduct and the aspirations that must always be present”, concluded Fiorina.