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Roselinde Torres: What it takes to be a great leader
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The world is full of leadership programs, but the best way to learn how to lead might be right under your nose. In this clear, candid talk, Roselinde Torres describes 25 years observing truly great leaders at work, and shares the three simple but crucial questions would-be company chiefs need to ask to thrive in the future.
Roselinde Torres - Leadership expert
BCG's Roselinde Torres studies what makes great leaders tick -- and figures out how to teach others the same skills. Full bio
BCG's Roselinde Torres studies what makes great leaders tick -- and figures out how to teach others the same skills. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:13
What makes a great leader today?
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Many of us carry this image
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of this all-knowing superhero
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who stands and commands
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and protects his followers.
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But that's kind of an image from another time,
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and what's also outdated
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are the leadership development programs
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that are based on success models
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for a world that was, not a world that is
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or that is coming.
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We conducted a study of 4,000 companies,
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and we asked them, let's see the effectiveness
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of your leadership development programs.
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Fifty-eight percent of the companies
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cited significant talent gaps
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for critical leadership roles.
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That means that despite
corporate training programs,
corporate training programs,
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off-sites, assessments, coaching, all of these things,
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more than half the companies
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had failed to grow enough great leaders.
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You may be asking yourself,
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is my company helping me to prepare
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to be a great 21st-century leader?
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The odds are, probably not.
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Now, I've spent 25 years of my professional life
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observing what makes great leaders.
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I've worked inside Fortune 500 companies,
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I've advised over 200 CEOs,
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and I've cultivated more leadership pipelines
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than you can imagine.
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But a few years ago, I noticed a disturbing trend
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in leadership preparation.
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I noticed that, despite all the efforts,
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there were familiar stories that kept resurfacing
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about individuals.
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One story was about Chris,
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a high-potential, superstar leader
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who moves to a new unit and fails,
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destroying unrecoverable value.
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And then there were stories like Sidney, the CEO,
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who was so frustrated
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because her company is cited
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as a best company for leaders,
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but only one of the top 50 leaders is equipped
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to lead their crucial initiatives.
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And then there were stories
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like the senior leadership team
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of a once-thriving business
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that's surprised by a market shift,
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finds itself having to force the company
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to reduce its size in half
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or go out of business.
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Now, these recurring stories
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cause me to ask two questions.
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Why are the leadership gaps widening
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when there's so much more investment
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in leadership development?
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And what are the great leaders doing
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distinctly different to thrive and grow?
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One of the things that I did,
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I was so consumed by these questions
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and also frustrated by those stories,
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that I left my job
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so that I could study this full time,
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and I took a year to travel
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to different parts of the world
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to learn about effective and ineffective
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leadership practices in companies,
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countries and nonprofit organizations.
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And so I did things like travel to South Africa,
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where I had an opportunity to understand
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how Nelson Mandela was ahead of his time
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in anticipating and navigating
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his political, social and economic context.
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I also met a number of nonprofit leaders
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who, despite very limited financial resources,
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were making a huge impact in the world,
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often bringing together seeming adversaries.
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And I spent countless hours in presidential libraries
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trying to understand how the environment
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had shaped the leaders,
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the moves that they made,
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and then the impact of those moves
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beyond their tenure.
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And then, when I returned to work full time,
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in this role, I joined with wonderful colleagues
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who were also interested in these questions.
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Now, from all this, I distilled
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the characteristics of leaders who are thriving
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and what they do differently,
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and then I also distilled
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the preparation practices that enable people
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to grow to their potential.
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I want to share some of those with you now.
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("What makes a great leader in the 21st century?")
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In a 21st-century world, which is more global,
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digitally enabled and transparent,
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with faster speeds of information
flow and innovation,
flow and innovation,
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and where nothing big gets done
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without some kind of a complex matrix,
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relying on traditional development practices
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will stunt your growth as a leader.
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In fact, traditional assessments
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like narrow 360 surveys or
outdated performance criteria
outdated performance criteria
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will give you false positives,
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lulling you into thinking that you are more prepared
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than you really are.
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Leadership in the 21st century is defined
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and evidenced by three questions.
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Where are you looking
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to anticipate the next change
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to your business model or your life?
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The answer to this question is on your calendar.
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Who are you spending time with? On what topics?
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Where are you traveling? What are you reading?
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And then how are you distilling this
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into understanding potential discontinuities,
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and then making a decision to do something
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right now so that you're prepared and ready?
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There's a leadership team that does a practice
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where they bring together each member
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collecting, here are trends that impact me,
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here are trends that impact another team member,
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and they share these,
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and then make decisions,
to course-correct a strategy
to course-correct a strategy
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or to anticipate a new move.
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Great leaders are not head-down.
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They see around corners,
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shaping their future, not just reacting to it.
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The second question is,
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what is the diversity measure
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of your personal and professional
stakeholder network?
stakeholder network?
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You know, we hear often about
good ol' boy networks
good ol' boy networks
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and they're certainly alive and
well in many institutions.
well in many institutions.
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But to some extent, we all have a network
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of people that we're comfortable with.
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So this question is about your capacity
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to develop relationships with people
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that are very different than you.
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And those differences can be biological,
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physical, functional, political,
cultural, socioeconomic.
cultural, socioeconomic.
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And yet, despite all these differences,
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they connect with you
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and they trust you enough
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to cooperate with you
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in achieving a shared goal.
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Great leaders understand
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that having a more diverse network
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is a source of pattern identification
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at greater levels and also of solutions,
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because you have people that are thinking
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differently than you are.
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Third question: are you courageous enough
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to abandon a practice that has
made you successful in the past?
made you successful in the past?
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There's an expression: Go along to get along.
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But if you follow this advice,
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chances are as a leader,
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you're going to keep doing
what's familiar and comfortable.
what's familiar and comfortable.
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Great leaders dare to be different.
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They don't just talk about risk-taking,
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they actually do it.
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And one of the leaders shared with me the fact that
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the most impactful development comes
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when you are able to build the emotional stamina
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to withstand people telling you that your new idea
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is naïve or reckless or just plain stupid.
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Now interestingly, the people who will join you
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are not your usual suspects in your network.
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They're often people that think differently
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and therefore are willing to join you
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in taking a courageous leap.
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And it's a leap, not a step.
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More than traditional leadership programs,
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answering these three questions
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will determine your effectiveness
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as a 21st-century leader.
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So what makes a great leader in the 21st century?
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I've met many, and they stand out.
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They are women and men
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who are preparing themselves
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not for the comfortable predictability of yesterday
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but also for the realities of today
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and all of those unknown possibilities of tomorrow.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Roselinde Torres - Leadership expertBCG's Roselinde Torres studies what makes great leaders tick -- and figures out how to teach others the same skills.
Why you should listen
Roselinde Torres is a senior partner and managing director at the consulting firm, BCG. A senior leader in the firm’s "people and organization" practice area, she is also the company's resident expert on leadership, a topic she has studied her entire career.
Questions she likes to ask include, "what innovative methods can help prepare the next generation of leaders?" and "how do we enable leaders to unlearn past modes and habits of success?"
Prior to joining BCG in 2006, Roselinde was a senior partner at Mercer Delta Consulting, while she has also led internal consulting teams at Johnson & Johnson and Connecticut Mutual Life. She speaks frequently about organizational transformation and leadership; her work and thinking have been featured in publications such as BusinessWeek and The Economist.
Roselinde Torres | Speaker | TED.com