Building Owners

Identifying your leadership gaps

Editor's note: This is a sponsored article. All text and images were provided by the sponsor company. U.S. businesses spend more than $170 billion annually on leadership-based curriculum, according to the American Society of Training and Development. Is all that training producing better leaders or just more people who hold positions of leadership?
Sept. 4, 2013
2 min read

Editor's note: This is a sponsored article. All text and images were provided by the sponsor company.

 

U.S. businesses spend more than $170 billion annually on leadership-based curriculum, according to the American Society of Training and Development. Is all that training producing better leaders or just more people who hold positions of leadership?

That’s the question posed by Mike Myatt, a leadership adviser to Fortune 500 CEOs and Boards, in a recent Forbes online article.  

Despite having vast leadership resources available, Myatt argues that most organizations don’t know where to begin in creating effective leaders.   

“The truth of the matter is businesses struggle with leadership at every level – defining it, identifying it, attracting it, developing it, deploying it, retaining it, and planning for its succession,” he writes. “Far too many people in positions of leadership remain unwilling or unable to make the changes necessary to create a healthy, thriving enterprise capable of enduring. These so-called leaders are lacking the character, the courage, or the ability to do the right thing. They cling to the status quo rather than subject themselves to the challenges of growth, development and change.”

To help businesses identify potential leadership gaps, Myatt compiled a list of contrasting organizational traits that differentiate “old paradigm” leadership from “new paradigm” leadership (taken from his forthcoming book Hacking Leadership).

Here are a few:

Old Paradigm           New Paradigm
Have a Leader   Create a Culture of Leadership
Follow “Best Practices”    Develop “Next Practices”
Compete    Collaborate
Driven by Profit Agenda    Driven to Create Value
Place People in Boxes    Free People from Boxes
Protect the Status Quo    Challenge Everything
Have a Plan    Have a Purpose
Manage Risk    Manage Opportunity
Destination Mentality    Continuum Mentality
Goal Driven    Discovery Driven
Discourage Independent Thinking    Embrace Dissenting Opinions
Quick to say NO    Find a way to get to a YES
          

Read more from Forbes.

About the Author

Steven Burns

Steven Burns, FAIA spent 14 years managing the firm Burns + Beyerl Architects, and during that time the firm’s earnings grew at an average rate of 24% per year. After founding his own software company, Steve took his management expertise to BQE Software, where he is refining their business strategy and product development for the company’s groundbreaking project accounting solution, BQE Core.

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