Will DEOs Replace CEOs? (It Might Be A Good Thing!)

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Leadership for Success

Competencies: leadership, entrepreneurial leadership, managing others

Who benefits: those in leadership positions, entrepreneurs (and wannabes)

Consultant Usage: crucial book for consultants at the organizational level, leadership trainers

What’s it about? I get ribbed a lot for my (lack of) taste in music. At one time I liked what is generically called “Country Music”. About 10 years ago I went to a concert featuring country legend George Jones. I still remember my reaction as I watched him on stage. I thought “That man is dead, he just doesn’t know it.” (I suppose the same could be said today of Keith Richards.)

I would make the same argument today for traditional business leadership. Those theories and practices that I taught over my career have gone the way of the hula hoop. Yes, there are some still around – both hula hoops and traditional leadership – but they are both dated and about equally useful.

Let me give you a startling fact: There are about 6 million new start-ups in the United States each year! What do almost all of them have in common? Answer: a new style of leadership. What do new start-ups (think about it – they haven’t been around THAT long, it just seems like it) like Google, Amazon, Cisco, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube all have in common? Answer: a new style of leadership.

Want to read all about it? Then I highly recommend Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design.

Before discussing the changing role of leadership, let’s begin with “why”. “Why” is always a great place to start. Twenty, twenty-five years ago I was preaching about the coming era of “rapid change”. Those two words don’t begin to describe the pace of change. Even “constant change” somehow doesn’t do justice to the world we live in.

Who knew the power customers now have? Who knew how fickle those customers are? Who knew how many options we would have for everything we want and/or need? If you try to write a business plan today, it is out of date before you can get it printed. You wake up each morning and find another new competitor nipping away at your customer base. Vacations are now defined as coffee breaks.

The leaders of today and the future need to possess “characteristics, behaviors and mindsets that allow them to excel in unpredictable, fast-moving and value-charged conditions”. That is by design. And that is what this book is about: The design of the effective leader for this new era.

Here is a partial list of the Now Executive: A risk taker who views failure as paradoxically a success and an opportunity; Right Brain oriented with honed intuitive and emphatic skills and is highly socially intelligent; spends significant amounts of times crafting culture; cares, nurtures, and mentors employees – command and control died a deserved death; demonstrates unrestrained passion for work – so much so that work and play are intermingled; understands that iteration and evolution supplants long term strategies.

The new executives need to be a storytellers, big picture thinkers, givers of meaning to life through their products. They need to engage customers as individuals. They need to provide more than lip service to employee empowerment – they need to live their values.

The list goes on and on. I haven’t said much about this book. If I start, I won’t know where or when to stop. I am going to leave you with one very crazy sentence. Either you get it or you don’t. If you get it, you will enjoy and learn from this book:

This book is about the process of designing the needed leadership for the new era.

The new era that many of us don’t even know we live in.

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.