Leadership Excellence: The anatomy of an exclusive
- Theo H Veldsman L
eadership pertains to an act(s) of influencing exercised by individual(s) engaging a set of people (“stakeholders”)
regarding a joint course of action intended to bring about a collective outcome aimed at a desired effect within a specific context. Leadership Excellence thus pertains to the quality of the collective outcome aimed at a desired effect in a certain context.
Leadership, and by implication of Leadership Excellence, does make a difference. A study done at 91 South African companies found credible and competent leadership to be the main predictor of organisational success (Veldsman & Roodt, 2002). In a more recent, wide-ranging study across more than 80 USA industries, it was shown empirically that leadership does affect the performance of
their organisations. The median and mean differences were respectively 12.2% and 15% (Wasserman, Anand & Nohria, 2010). This leadership difference, however, is significantly affected by the type of industry, the resources at the disposal of the leader, and the degree of autonomy given to the leader. The highest and lowest differences attributed to effective leadership were 41.0% and 2.4% respectively. It is proposed that Leadership Excellence as an outcome is two-dimensional in make-up. Leadership Excellence = Ethical Leadership x Leadership Performance. Leadership Ethical Excellence refers to whether what leadership does, is right or wrong. Put differently, are leaders good corporate citizens? Leadership Performance Excellence refers to whether the actions of leadership are unlocking wealth and creating wealth – is their performance delivering what they set out to do? King II refers to the triple bottom line: financial performance; environmental impact; and corporate social responsibility, which in a sense cover the two dimensions of Leadership Excellence. Figure 1 (below) shows
Figure 1 Leadership Excellence =
Ethical Leadership x Leadership Performance 82 Management Today | March 2012
the respective permutations of Outstanding/Poor Performance and Right/ Wrong Ethics with regards to Leadership Excellence. As can be seen from Figure 1, four permutations of Leadership Excellence are possible: Outstanding, Ethical Performance; Outstanding, Unethical Performance; Poor, Ethical Performance; or alas, Poor, Unethical Performance.
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