The Practical Side of Leadership—Draft Feb, 2015
Learning Goal – Participants will collect, analyze and develop tools and strategies to address the
specific regulatory leadership challenges faced in their organizations.
Global Talent Management and Retention – Richard Morales (tent)
Learning Objective – Participants will explore the practical challenges of leadership in a regulatory
organization and identify strategies they can use to improve management and retention culture.
Activities:
- List the general challenges associated with the “modern” workforce (i.e., mobility, better
informed, no expectation of “job for life”, etc.)
- List the current challenges and characteristics of a regulatory organization’s workforce (i.e. more
diverse professional, geographical and educational backgrounds; remote workers; enhanced
technology)
- Identify characteristics of a strong learning environment for employees and create a plan for
fostering a sense of engagement
- Discuss the challenges of investing in talent management and identify techniques to combat
perceived “favoritism”
- Analyze existing training, onboarding and career-pathing programs within their organization and
discuss ways to improve those processes
- Develop a plan for communicating the “why” to all levels of staff members within a regulatory
organization
- Consider the viewpoint that retention as a function of loyalty. Discuss means of developing
loyal employees. How is loyalty encouraged, recognized and rewarded?
- Recognize the importance of cultural competence in building a strong team
Generational Differences in Regulatory Organizations – Bruce Matthews
Learning Objective – Participants will recognize the four generational demographics present in staff of
regulatory organizations and analyze the effectiveness of different leadership competencies with
varied demographics.
Activities:
Reflect on the existing generations and demographics present in one’s own organization
Identify the different ways “success” is measured by different generations and what
leadership styles work best for different demographics
Identify strategies for making regulatory work appealing to younger generations and
recognize ways to support their leadership of more seasoned professionals
Analyze how one’s personal leadership style can adapt to fit the needs of staff members at
different stages in their careers
Estimated length of session: Approx. 90 minutes
Why is this an issue?
- Behaviours and perspectives are a function of, among other things, one’s experiences during
formative years; these experiences vary greatly from one generation to the next; need to
recognize that a “one size fits all” approach to dealing with people is not going to be the most
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effective approach; leaders can’t assume that the people they work with have had the same
formative experiences as them – especially when there are significant age differences;
Different generations have very different perspectives on the world and how things work (and
how things should work); differing priorities and values
Identification of Generations / Demographic Groupings
- Traditionalists
o Born before the end of WWII
o Defining events / traits: Great Depression, the New Deal, WWII, Korean War,
patriotism, loyalty, fiscally conservative, command & control structures, respect for
authority, radio, movies, paternalistic,
- Baby Boomers
o Born between the end of WWII to the early 1960’s
o Defining events / traits: Vietnam, space race, “Me” generation, conspicuous
consumption, Woodstock, civil rights, women’s liberation, economic prosperity, oil
crisis, optimistic, move to the suburbs, television,
- Generation X
o Born between the early 1960’s to the early 1980’s
o Defining events / traits: women in the workplace, advent of personal access to
technology; Sesame Street, MTV, advent of high divorce rates, entrepreneurial, worklife balance, skeptical,
- Millennials
o Born since the early 1980’s
o Defining events / traits: 9/11, Columbine (guns in schools), celebrity scandals, fall of the
Iron Curtain, tolerant of diversity (gender, race, etc.), users of technology, social, less
structured – more collaborative, entitlement, shorter attention span, need for
immediate / frequent feedback,
What makes the groups different in terms of leadership and how it is perceived?
- Traditionalists
o Look for / expect a chain of command, want to understand lines of authority and
reporting, reluctant to question authority or instructions, willing to work hard and selfsacrifice,
- Baby Boomers
o Self-confident and optimistic, believe that anything is possible but with a distinct
perspective on how it can be achieved, more willing to question authority and articulate
their own view on what is being done and how it can be done better, responsive to
perks and prestige,
- Generation X
o Better at dealing with change, not intimidated by authority, more collaborative and
independent, more candid in communications, resistant to rules, workplace as a
community,
- Millennials
o Collaborative and participative, eschew hierarchy and chain of command, teamoriented, want to be valued, don’t want to be seen as a subordinate, appreciate the “big
picture” but not always detail oriented, change is the norm, interested in the “next
thing”,
Strategies for engaging younger generations
- The Problem: We have executive leaders who are generally from the Baby Boomer generation,
leading managers and senior staff who are from Generation X, in an era that is increasingly
being influenced by the workforce of millennials
- Developing an adaptive leadership style
o Be aware of the generational background / influences of the people you are leading
o Don’t try to “be” one of them, but understand / appreciate the leadership style issues
that they expect / prefer
o Nothing wrong with leading different people in different ways – adapt your leadership
approach to leverage the generational differences
o Focus on the outcome you are trying to achieve and select the leadership approach that
will most efficiently and effectively get you there given the generational makeup of the
people you are leading
o Leaders need to inspire – success in inspiring others is largely a function of the receiver,
not the leader
Self-analysis Exercise
- Identify which generational group you belong to
- Identify the generational group(s) of those who are your direct reports
- Identify the generational group(s) of those for whom you have a leadership role
- Consider the leadership challenges / problems / conflicts you have faced over the past few years
and assess them from the perspective of generational differences
- How might you approach things differently given the generational differences
- Individual exercise and then discuss as a group
Institutionalizing Feedback Systems – Mike Skorupka
Learning Objective – Participants will identify the obstacles to collecting relevant, honest, objective
feedback from staff members and develop solutions to improve the continual evaluation and quality
improvement process of a regulatory organization.
Activities:
List different organizational characteristics which make it difficult to solicit objective,
usable feedback
Recognize the different groups and stakeholders which should be solicited for feedback in
order to ensure a holistic view of organizational and leadership success
Identify one’s own goals or concerns in the evaluation process and recognize avenues for
removing these biases to focus on the integrity of the process
Create an action plan for taking steps to foster a culture where honest, objective feedback
is encouraged
Discuss issues of feedback frequency, categories, granularity of ratings, etc.
Analyze a results-based approach to evaluation of organizational goals and performance,
tied to strategies for implementing suggested change
Key Elements of Executive Leadership
 Leadership vs. Management
 Development an Appropriate Organizational Culture
 Deliver Needed Results (increase consumer protection, improve operational efficiency, reduce
costs, etc.)
Importance of Feedback to the Executive
Feedback is needed to know:
 What your stakeholders (customers) expect
 Whether you are delivering what is expected
 How you can best modify your processes and approaches to better deliver what is expected
Feedback Loop
Set
Expectations
Adjust
Approach
Assess
Progress
Setting Expectations
Step 1: Identify your stakeholders (including but not limited to customers of services)
Consider:
 Who pays directly for your services or otherwise funds your organization?
 Who do you otherwise regulate?
 Who are the beneficiaries of the services you provide?
Step 2: Determine what your stakeholders expect from your organization
Useful approaches:
 Stakeholder feedback gathering sessions and surveys
 Discussions with staff about stakeholders input
 Review of service delivery data (to what extent and how are services being utilized)
Step 3: Establish goals that meets needs identified by stakeholders (customers)
Remember:
 Goals must align with a clearly articulated vision for the organization.
 Goals must be set for all levels of the organization, each supporting the other and SMART.
 Goals should be understood by employees, and publicly facing where appropriate.
Assessing Progress
Set
Expectations
Adjust
Approach
Assess
Progress
Assess results of action taken by:
 Continued communications with stakeholders, surveys, staff input, etc.
 Compare delivery outcomes with targets—use independent evaluator here when possible
 This is an appropriate time to recognize and reward the team for progress made to date
Real Life Examples
Here, the presenter may incorporate examples of feedback loops utilized in his/her agency; this would
provide opportunity for application of concepts to real life to improve session participant understanding,
and leveraging the presenter’s specific experience and expertise
Reference Materials
The preceding concepts are not taken from any specific text, but are consistent with discussions in the
texts below. The presenter may way to consider including specifics from these or similar texts.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great and the Social Sectors. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., 2005. Print.
McChesney, Chris and Covey, Sean. The 4 Disciplines of Execution. First Free Press (Simon and Schuster,
Inc.), 2012. Print.
Miller, Ken. We Don’t Make Widgets: Overcoming the Three Myths That Keep Government from
Radically Improving. Governing Books Publishing, 2006. Print.
Effective Succession Planning – Bruce Matthews
Learning Objective – Participants will rate their existing processes and procedures and identify
methods for improving the organizational approach to succession planning.
Activities:
Recognize the organizational risk of not planning for successions and transitions (planning
for the “what ifs”)
Analyze current succession planning processes and identify areas for improvement
Identify the core institutional knowledge that should be memorialized independent of any
individual person or staff member
-
Define the characteristics of an effective, holistic succession planning process (to include
environmental scans, desired deliverables, systematic effectiveness, strategic evaluation
of organizational needs, executive succession-planning etc.)
Estimated length of session: Approx. 60 minutes
Risk of Not Planning – interactive discussion
- Impact on the time required to fill a vacancy
o Consider causes of vacancy: those with lead time (announced retirement or departure /
end of fixed term) vs without (firing / disability / death)
o Starting to plan after the vacancy occurs or when the vacancy is announced will
significantly impact the time required and will result in the position being left vacant for
longer than desired
o Impact of vacant positions or positions with “acting” leadership
o Absence of a plan may result in rushed process and decision making
- Impact on the transition
o Quality of “fit” of the new individual
o Long vacancies result in organizations adapting to the vacancy – can be challenging to
re-adapt to the new individual
- Other impacts
o Departure of senior leadership can impact staff – absence of a plan may lead to rumours
/ speculation / dysfunction
Existing plans / approaches and discussion of rationale / effectiveness – interactive discussion
- Which roles require succession planning?
- What triggers the plan?
- Who executes the plan?
- Elements of succession plans
o Interim leadership
o Search committee
o Search process
- Group discussion of plan development / plan execution experiences
o What worked and what didn’t?
Identify Core Institutional Knowledge – interactive discussion
- What are the things that the organization can’t afford to have walk out the door when a leader
leaves / retires?
- Establishing organizational structures and organizational cultures to maximize the retention of
core corporate knowledge
o Establishing knowledge constructs and repositories beyond wet-ware (i.e., people)
What Makes for an Effective Succession Planning Process? – interactive discussion
- How is it developed and by whom
- Research
- Strategic issues – succession as an opportunity
- Need to review and revise
Leading Through Dysfunction – Mike Skorupka
Learning Objective – Participants will consider examples of dysfunction in a regulatory organization
and formulate responses to use if, and when, extraordinary circumstances arise in their own
leadership experience.
Activities:
Discuss the current issues, challenges, situations and transitions that lead to dysfunction
in regulatory organizations
Discuss leadership styles to minimize the risk of dysfunction
Recognize one’s own reactions to extraordinary circumstances and articulate the specific
responses which may be appropriate in different situations
Overview
 Emphasize Accountability
 Stabilize
 Identify the Areas and Causes of Dysfunction
 Address the Dysfunction
 Re-Organization Strategies
 Assessing the Turn-Around
Accountability
Ensure all organizational leaders accept responsibility for current activities.
 Addressing “dysfunction” is not about assigning blame or fault
 Stakeholder expectations and the regulatory environment are always changing—management
and team structures will eventually fall out of alignment with the environment over time
 Everyone owns the activities within their areas of responsibility, including the responsibility for
changing those activities
Stabilize
 Leadership strength (including consistent, swift and well-reasoned decision-making) is
particularly important amidst dysfunction
 Be visible and available
 Demonstrate understanding of current issues
 Highlight short term and long term strategies
 Keep your stars onboard
Identify the Dysfunction
 Meet with managers and staff to understand all issues of concern
 Utilize feedback gathering structure to ensure full disclosure, concerns are not personal,
complaints are matched with recommendations, adequate time for discussion, and systematic
collection of feedback
 Take the time needed to fully understand the problems
Address the Dysfunction
 Prioritize problems identified; consider two factor prioritization tool (e.g. frequency of problem
and impact on organization considered)
 Meet with Leaders and develop action plan
 Report to full team consistently on progress made in action plan
Addressing the Dysfunction—When Re-Organization is Necessary
1. Determine Objectives:
 What do you want to do differently or better?
 What is currently not working?
2. Develop New Potential Structures
 Include creative thinkers and develop multiple alternatives
 Evaluate alternatives considering objectives and interpersonal realities
3. Circulate New Structure
 Meet to discuss intentions and gather feedback
4. Revise and Repeat
5. Roll-Out
6. Train and Re-Evaluate
Assess the Turn-Around
 Evaluate decisions made and be willing to adjust or change where appropriate
 Incorporate assessment of progress into annual planning activities
 Recognize and Reward those who contributed to the turnaround
Conclusion:
What’s keeping you up at night?