A STUDY ON ROBUST LEADERSHIP: ADDRESSING KEY TENSIONS - IICM
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A STUDY ON ROBUST
LEADERSHIP:
ADDRESSING KEY TENSIONS
In cooperation with
PROF. DR. JAN OLIVER SCHWARZ
Professor for Strategic Management and Leadership, ESB Business School, Reutlingen University
PROF. DR. BERNHARD WACH
Professor for Entrepreneurship, Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences
2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. The case for robust leadership 4 2. The robust leadership framework 6 3. Study design 11 4. Assessing robust leadership 13 5. Leadership tensions 17 6. Facilitating robust leadership 32 Further readings 38 Authors and contact 40
1. THE CASE FOR ROBUST LEADERSHIP
Organizations face the challenge of achie- longevity, particularly in times of change.
ving value creation in a business environ- With tensions we refer to challenges and is-
ment often characterized by volatility, sues which arise due to conflicting ways of
uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity dealing with different situations – triggered THE ROLE OF ROBUST LEADERSHIP
(VUCA). Some organizations perceive the- by VUCA – from a leadership perspective. FOR NAVIGATING THROUGH
se dynamics as a risk, others as an oppor-
tunity – or both. One question, however, Leadership and organizational culture –
UNCERTAIN TIMES
ROBUST
is critical for all organizations: what kind that is, the structures and routines that
LEADERSHIP
of leadership culture can help them tackle shape an organization’s overall behavi-
this challenge successfully? or – lie at the heart of establishing sound
mechanisms of corporate resilience. In STRATEGY &
Robust leadership provides a central stabi- our empirical study of 326 managers from VUCA CREATIVITY
lizing mechanism for organizational value international and German companies we Volatility
Uncertainty
creation, whether in terms of performance found that only 20% of the participants
Complexity
or of organizational development. This be- would describe the leadership approach
Ambiguity
comes particularly relevant in times mar- within their company as “robust”. The ana-
ked by disruption and change, which res- lysis of our results shows that the compo-
hape the business environment radically nents of robust leadership are interconnec- VALUES &
CULTURE
into a “new normal.” ted by distinct mechanisms, which together
constitute what we describe as the “robust
How can leaders prepare their organizati- leadership framework.” Among these, trust Co
v zati
on
appears to be the key mechanism that ena- Global diid
sr-1up tali
ons to respond robustly to disruption and 9 tions Digi
change in ways that foster corporate stabi- ble leaders and, consequently, the organi-
lity and strengthen every aspect of an or- zations they lead, to think strategically and
ganization – from strategic direction and creatively in VUCA business environments.
innovation capabilities to organizational
fluency, identity and role? To answer this
question, we identify seven key types of
tension that leaders need to address in or-
der to ensure the organization’s success and
6 7
2. THE ROBUST LEADERSHIP
FRAMEWORK
To provide insight into the mechanisms 1. Providing orientation on
that enable robust leadership to address WHAT
WHAT
the tensions we identified, we conceptuali-
WHAT leaders aim to achieve.
STRATEGY &
ze a framework that underpins the efforts
What vision do they have, what pur- CREATIVITY
of leaders and organizations to achieve
pose should their organization fulfil
their goals. The overall aim of the robust
and why does it matter? This question
leadership framework we propose is to es-
relates to an organization’s strategy, as
tablish (1.) which challenges leaders need
well as to the creativity that is necessa-
to address and how and (2.) which mecha-
ry for developing a sound strategy.
nisms enable them to do so, particularly in
VUCA environments. Here, we present the ROBUST PERFORMANCE/
HIGH PERFORMANCE/
key characteristics and mechanisms of this 2. Providing orientation on HOW
LEADERSHIP OPERATIONAL
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
EXCELLENCE
framework to provide orientation to lea- members of an organization
ders so that they can provide orientation can work together to achieve its
to their organizations in turn. Indeed, the
need for leaders to “provide orientation” is
goals and purpose.
a key takeaway from this report: it became
This question relates to the values and
clear that the responsibility of leaders, par-
more generally to the culture of an or- VALUES &
ticularly in a VUCA world, is to provide gui-
ganization and how these are enacted CULTURE
dance to their teams and strengthen their
and experienced.
organizations.
HOW
HOW
The first main question is, how can leaders
provide orientation, particularly in VUCA
environments? The answer lies in the two
components of our framework:
ROBUST LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK FOR SUPERIOR
ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN VUCA ENVIRONMENTS
8 9
WHAT
WHAT
STRATEGY &
CREATIVITY
STRATEGY & CREATIVITY VALUES & CULTURE PERFORMANCE-RELEVANCE ROBUST
LEADERSHIP
HIGH PERFORMANCE/
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
OF VALUES (PROV)
VALUES &
Leaders need to provide orientation in Leaders need to provide orientation also in
CULTURE
HOW
HOW
terms of what the organization needs to terms of how the organization will achieve
achieve. In this sense, leadership strong- its goals. In other words: “How do we need
ly depends on strategic and creative thin- to work together to be successful? Why do
king. It is a leader’s task to visualize how we need to change and adapt?” How an or-
HIGH PERFORMANCE/
the organization’s future can be different, ganization pursues its goals in practice re- OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
to challenge assumptions about how to do lates fundamentally to the organization’s
business or how the industry operates and values and how its members enact and ex-
to consider new ways of going forward. In perience them. Organizational values are
ACCOUNTABILITY
making insights and assumptions explicit, essential for collaboration across different
leaders define the organization’s vision and hierarchical levels and functions and define
tangible goals. This is essential for strate- the organization’s culture.
gy-making. It also drives innovation and
DEVELOPMENT
enables organizations to constantly adapt
to an ever-changing environment.
TRANSPARENCY FEEDBACK
PROV ENABLING MECHANISMS
Of these values, trust is fundamental: it is to foster accountability in individuals and
the basis on which everything else must be teams is critical. This is important, because OPENNESS
built, particularly with regard to accounta- high performance and operational excel-
bility for actions and decisions. lence depend on trust. In the context of our
framework, trust is what enables what we
Trust is a prerequisite for openness, which describe as the “performance-relevance of
in turn is a prerequisite for transparency values” (PROV).
and feedback. How leaders establish trust
TRUST
and openness and invite feedback so as
10 11
SAMPLE DESCRIPTION
3. STUDY DESIGN
More than
12 different
industries
Over 70%
To test empirically the robust leadership
with a framework and to collect feedback, we de-
leadership role signed and conducted a survey.
We sent our survey to 1,710 managers
across all industries. The final response Felix: RAUS!
rate was 19.1%, which is an outstanding
rate for a digital survey. The survey took
place between early-to-mid 2020.
Over 300
participants
Over 60%
from large
corporates
12 13
STRATEGY 4. ASSESSING ROBUST LEADERSHIP
About 20% of the respondents described However, organizations that are “stuck in
the leadership in their company overall as the middle” are also in a danger zone. With
robust. While only 10% described the lea- a leader who only partially meets the orga-
ROBUST dership as “fragile,” we were surprised to nization’s demands and in piecemeal fa-
LEADERSHIP see that the majority – around 70% – as- shion, the organization may be falsely reas-
sessed the respective leadership as neither sured that the leader takes care adequately
good nor bad. We labeled this category of of the issues and problems that emerge. If
respondents as “stuck in the middle.” Con- the organization’s environment becomes
sidering that businesses operate in a gene- more dynamic, or even volatile, false reas-
ACCOUN-
TABILITY rally dynamic environment, any organiza- surance could prove particularly problema-
tion whose leadership is “fragile” will need tic.
DEVELOPMENT to strengthen it.
TRANSPARENCY FEEDBACK
LT S &
ROBUSTNESS
E
UR
OPENNESS
CU LUE
ASSESSMENT OF
LEADERSHIP IN
VA
TRUST
ROBUST “STUCK IN THE MIDDLE“
FRAGILE
DANGER ZONE SURVEY-SAMPLE
INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF FRAMEWORK ELEMENTS – POSITIVE
IMPACT OF TRUST ON STRATEGIC AND CREATIVE THINKING 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
14 15
TRUST IS KEY IN LARGE ORGANIZATIONS THE MAIN INSIGHTS WE
GAINED FROM OUR SURVEY
ARE THE FOLLOWING:
The variable trust measured the trustwort- and creative thinking than smaller ones.
hiness (e.g. appreciation, the failure tole- In essence, in small companies you have
rance and the solidarity) of organizational a strong and often direct personal invol-
leaders rated by subordinates. Based on vement of the leaders anyways that might
our empirical data we found support for compensate or override any trust-related 1. Only a minority of companies
the positive direct relationship between issues. Yet, in large organizations, trust is in our sample have a robust
trust and strategic and creative thinking. particularly relevant as any personal con- leadership culture, according
Interestingly, the company’s size (i.e., in tact between upper echelons and first-line
terms of number of employees) “modera- workers is almost non-existent. Large or-
to the respondents’ assess-
tes” this relationship – where trust is low, ganizations should therefore pay attention ments.
smaller companies score higher in strate- to building a trustworthy relationship bet-
gic and creative thinking than larger ones. ween leaders and subordinates to leverage 2. Strategy & creativity interact
However, when trust is high, larger com- the full potential of strategic and creative
panies perform better in terms of strategic thinking.
strongly with the values & cul-
ture of an organization; there-
fore, both components of our
framework influence financial
Creative Thinking
6.00
performance.
5.50
5.00
3. Values influence financial per-
formance: trust in particular
Strategy
Small
4.50
Companies COMPANY SIZE has a positive impact on (i.e.
promotes and facilitates)
Strategic and
4.00 MODERATING THE
Large RELATIONSHIP strategy.
3.50
Companies BETWEEN TRUST
3.00
AND STRATEGIC AND
-1.50 -1.00 -0.50 0 0.50 1.00 1.50
Trust CREATIVE THINKING
16 17
OVERVIEW OF LEADERSHIP TENSIONS AND
HOW OFTEN THEY HAVE BEEN MENTIONED 5. LEADERSHIP TENSIONS
The “Trans-
parency”
The “Missing tension
The comments and feedback we received THE SEVEN KEY TENSIONS:
Link to Impact” through the open questions in our survey
from the respondents enabled us to:
tension 17x • The “Orientation” tension
The “Orientation” 1. Gain a better understanding of key
• The “Missing Link to Impact” tension
tension 35x aspects of leadership and of the chal-
lenges organization leaders currently • The “Either-Or” tension
face
40x The “Either- • The “Transparency” tension
Or” tension 2. Relate these insights to our framework
• The “Me vs the Organization” tension
3. Identify the main tensions that leaders • The “Trust” tension
need to manage
35x • The “Role Modeling” tension
Looking more closely at the interplay
among the elements that make up our ro-
bust leadership framework allowed us to
identify the main tensions that leaders cur-
The “Me vs the rently face. These tensions typically repre-
Organization” sent particular dilemmas or problems that
tension seem tough or even impossible to solve. As
The “Role these tensions often arise from imminent
Modeling” challenges that pose a significant threat to
13x the organization, they highlight weaknesses
tension that are less obvious when the organization
The “Trust” can carry on with “business as usual.”
tension 31x
35x
18 19SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “ORIENTATION” TENSION
Leaders assume that they provide orienta- ”Transparency would create
trust – on strategies – on reasons
tion but are perceived differently. for decisions; Keeping promises
[…] – on commitments […] – on taking
responsibility – on bearing
• Strategy and values as such do not pro- consequences of decisions
vide orientation; leaders need to com- from the past“
municate these continually to teams
and individuals.
• Leaders need to take into account how
teams and individuals perceive the
organization’s values. “We have wonderful leadership
commitments elaborating a lot
about the importance of trust,
• Leaders need to adhere to the organi- but trust is an individual thing.
zation’s code of values, but also need to It cannot be dictated”
be “authentic”.
“In a big corporation it is very
difficult to give generic statements – Some
departments are better than others, some
countries let their national identity
overtake the corporate one...”
20 21SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “MISSING LINK TO IMPACT” TENSION
Leaders fail to make the link to action of
many activities explicit. “(strategy and creativity)
Considered ‚too fancy‘ to be
applied.”
• Energy and resources spent on strategy,
change, creativity, culture, … are often
perceived as nice add-ons but not as
essential for the business.
• However, future performance in VUCA
worlds essentially means changing and
having a culture that supports change. “Strategic thinking is high in
our organization. Creativity is
much harder in our rather
• Leaders need to establish a strong Link rational and numbers-driven
between these activities and overall per- culture.”
formance.
“You need the (time)
capacity to think out
of the box.”
22 23SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “EITHER-OR” TENSION
Leaders assume that they need to choose
between options.
“Very few people are equally
strong in creative & strategic
thinking, normally it is
• Conventional thinking in terms of either or.”
“either-or” creates false dichotomies:
e.g., people have to be either rational
or creative while organizations must
either optimize or innovate, be either
sustainable or profitable.
• Sometimes a leader can combine diffe-
“It all depends on whom you look
rent options or ambidextrous leaders at as leaders (top management :-)
can handle better the challenges of a or middle managements :-(“
VUCA world.
• Leaders often think that different op-
tions are mutually exclusive, whereas
in fact, it is often possible to combine “In moments of crisis when
different options. strategic decisions need to
be taken, the majority only looks
at cost reduction, and drop the rest,
sometimes you would think is the
wrong approach. It is the super
dual factor effect. Do you
transform or do you deliver?
Do you have a traditional
hierarchy or an agile hierarchy?
Do you invest in people or
do you cut all trainings?”
24 25SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “TRANSPARENCY” TENSION
Leaders often struggle to find a balance bet-
ween too much and too little transparency.
“transparency in decision
making, authentic behaviour”
• Transparency can have several positive
effects in an organization. For instance,
transparency on strategy and respon-
sibilities fosters commitment to the
organization’s goals.
“there is a tendency to be open
• Too much transparency could have a
and transparent on good things
negative effect. For instance violating but to talk more behind the back
confidentiality or personality rights. about challenging stuff”
This is why leaders often struggle to
strike the right balance between too
little and too much transparency and
to make its limits clear to the members
of the organization.
“creating transparency and
also show that everybody
• Leaders need to find the right balance can fail and learn from
in regard to transparency and foster a mistakes”
transparency culture.
“not being afraid of
transparency – there is risk and
reward in that. Some topics cannot
be transparent to everyone in large
organizations – but the highest
possible extent is
required”
26 27SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “ME VS THE ORGANIZATION”
TENSION
The dilemma of balancing one’s own inter-
ests with the organization’s interests.
“Make sure to eliminate the
„this not my f*** job“ syndro-
me”
• Both for leaders and other staff, ba-
lancing personal interests with the
interests of the organization is often a
struggle.
• While the organization’s members are
not expected to act altruistically, they “Personal agendas often drive
do need to act in ways that promote the activities that are not helpful or
organization and serve its goals. productive for an organization.
Openness is the only way to stay
• It is the responsibility of leaders to pro- successful in business.”
vide sufficient orientation in terms of
what needs to be achieved and how it
shall be achieved in a way that balances
the organization’s interests with indi-
vidual interests and fosters employee
engagement.
“Employee goals need to be
clear, in line with corporate goals,
measurable and reachable.
Processes and operations need to
support employees at
reaching their goals.”
28 29SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “TRUST” TENSION
Trust is central to organizations, but should
“Trust is the emotional glue
it be offered or does it need to be earned? in the organization. Trust is
given rather than earned but
should not be lost!”
• Trust is central to our value pyramid.
In organizations, trust provides a basis
for leadership as well as for collabora-
tion and, consequently, for every other
aspect of organizational life.
• In contrast to conventional wisdom, “Leaders do not try to win the
trust should be granted in an organi- trust of their employees. Leaders
zation. A „trust needs to be earned“ do actively mistrust their
approach does not reflect the pressure employees thus creating an
the VUCA world is putting on organiza- atmosphere of mistrust.”
tions.
• Leaders need to foster a trust-culture
in their organization and need to make
sure that transparency exists on what a
trust-culture also means in daily routi-
nes.
“Mistrusting your people.
No Empowerment,
hierarchical structures”
30 31SELECTED QUOTES FROM
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
THE “ROLE MODELING” TENSION
The challenge of leading by example. “Trust needs to grow over
time, but can be destroyed
within minutes. Only truly
authentic behavior
• Leaders need to be role models. To be generates trust.”
effective role models, however, leaders
need to be “authentic”.
• Being an „authentic“ leader means
being real, honest or genuine and not
merely to pretend being a leader.
“- lead by example - open
and honest regular communication
• „Role Modeling“ for leaders is abso- - involve people also when
lutely essential, in particular when presenting results to exec. mgmt.
organizations are undergoing change. „show who was really doing
It is the leaders which need to demon- the work“ - speaking about
„team“ rather then I ...!”
strate to the organization why a change
is needed, what it takes to change and
what shall be aspired.
“Leadership is in this
space in my opinion too
often delegated.... a true
leader must be the face of
decision assuming
responsibility for the
message its
consequences.”
32 336. FACILITATING ROBUST LEADERSHIP INDIVIDUAL LEVEL: CLEAR ORIENTATION WITH EXPLICIT
VALUES AND STRATEGY
Our study of robust leadership raises a On the individual level, we need to address What makes this approach distinct is that
number of questions: the necessary competences leaders need to leaders involve other actors in the process
possess. In our framework, we identify two of defining the organization’s strategy and
1. On the INDIVIDUAL LEVEL, how such competences as key; namely, the ab- that this process is transparently formula-
can leaders foster and achieve robust ility to provide a clear orientation to the or- ted and communicated throughout the or-
leadership? ganization and the ability to promote acti- ganization.
vely the organization’s strategy and values
2. On the ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL, simultaneously. In other words, leaders We believe that providing a clear orienta-
how can leaders foster robustness in need to share explicitly and clearly with tion to the organization and at the same
the organization – that is, what actions their organization’s members “what the or- time promoting actively the organization’s
need to be taken in order to ensure that ganization wants to achieve” and “how” to strategy and values is an effective approach
the organization becomes and stays achieve this; i.e., on the basis of which va- to handling the tensions we have identified
robust? lues, practices and strategy. in this study.
3. How can leaders promote VALUE Steering the organization in this manner
CREATION, strengthen performance towards its goals is particularly important
and support the organization’s effort in a VUCA world. It also presupposes that
to create a competitive advantage in a leaders are capable of generating unders-
VUCA-world? tanding within their teams and in the ent-
ire organization. For instance, leaders need
Drawing on the results of our survey, we to ensure that everyone in the organization
address these questions in the following. is clear about what a particular strategy or
set of values entails.
34 35ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL: CONCRETE TOOLS THAT ESTABLISH ROBUSTNESS THROUGH COLLABORATION AND RELEVANCE FOR
SHARED UNDERSTANDING ON THE WHAT AND HOW VALUE CREATION (PERFORMANCE)
Our framework emphasizes that leading Both openness and collaboration are fun- The survey results made clear that leaders To summarize: Drawing on our survey, we
robustly and fostering robustness in the damental to approach open-strategy. This need to be able to link the organization’s propose a robust leadership framework
organization requires following particular approach stresses the many advantages of values and culture to the practices that aim that combines strategic and creative thin-
approaches and practices, such as specific including broader groups in the process of to boost value creation and performance. king on the one hand with the organizati-
tools and methods. These approaches and strategy-making, rather than leaving this The robust leadership framework relies on’s values and culture on the other. Pay-
practices, in turn, rely on a leader’s abili- task exclusively to leaders and top mana- on inclusiveness and collaboration, which ing attention to both components should
ty to provide clarity and orientation to the gers. Open strategy is inclusive and creati- means that leaders need to include a broa- enable leaders to ensure that their orga-
organization, promote a shared understan- ve. der range of members in the discussions nizations remain robust, particularly in
ding of its goals and values among its mem- that define the organization’s values and VUCA environments. Our framework also
bers. Openness and collaboration are thus There are various methodological tools how they should be enacted. For example, highlights the need for leaders to provide
central to the framework for robust leader- that have proved useful in applying this ap- it would benefit an organization to include orientation in terms of both what the orga-
ship that we are proposing. proach in practice, such as Scenario Plan- employees on different hierarchical levels nization seeks to achieve, particularly in a
ning or Strategic Simulations, also known in discussions on the role of trust in per- fast-changing business environment, and
as “Business Wargaming”. forming various tasks and pursuing various how an organization should handle change.
goals.
Further, as described in the figure below,
our robust leadership framework feeds into
the central elements of the levers of trans-
formation and therefore can be perceived
as being part of an effective change archi-
tecture.
36 37LINKING THE ROBUST LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK
TO TRANSFORMATION AND CHANGE
WHAT HOLISTIC TRANSFORMATION CHANGE ARCHITECTURE
STRATEGY &
CREATIVITY
„What do we want to achieve?“ UNDERSTANDING &
MOTIVATION
„What do we stand for – where do we want to go?“
ng
di E SKILLS &
LEADERSHIP
n
COMPETENCIES
ng
sta
age
ROBUST
& Under
ment & Iden
HIGH PERFORMANCE/
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
ion
LEADERSHIP &
at
nt
ROLE MODELS
tit
ie y
Or
„How do we want to achieve our goals?“ STRUCTURES,
„How do we need to work together?“ ORGANIZATION,
OPERATING
VALUES & SYSTEM Orientation / Strategy
CULTURE
Co-creation & enabling
HOW Communication
38 39FURTHER READINGS
Day, G. S. and Schoemaker, P. J. H. 2019. Schwarz, J. O. 2020. “Revisiting Scenario
See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Lea- Planning and Business Wargaming from
ders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence. an Open Strategy Perspective”. World Fu-
Management on the Cutting Edge. Cam- tures Review, 12(3): 291-303.
bridge: MIT Press.
Schwarz, J. O., Rohrbeck, R. and Wach,
Frei, F. and Anne M. 2020. “Begin with B. 2020. “Corporate Foresight as a Micro-
Trust: The First Step to Becoming a Genui- foundation of Dynamic Capabilities.” FU-
nely Empowering Leader.” Harvard Busi- TURES & FORESIGHT SCIENCE 2 (2):
ness Review, May-June. e28.
Kotter, J. P. 2012. Leading Change. Har- Schoemaker, P. J. H., Krupp, S. and How-
vard Business Publishing. Boston: Harvard land, S. 2013. “Strategic Leadership: The
Business Review Press. Essential Skills.” Harvard Business Re-
view, January–February.
Krupp, S. and Schoemaker, P. J. H. 2014.
Winning the Long Game: How Strategic Seidl, D. and Werle, F. 2017. “Inter-Organi-
Leaders Shape the Future. New York: Pu- zational Sensemaking in the Face of Strate-
blic Affairs. gic Meta-Problems: Requisite Variety and
Dynamics of Participation.” Strategic Ma-
Oriesek, D. F. and Schwarz, J. O. 2020. nagement Journal 39 (3): 830–58.
Winning the Uncertainty Game: Turning
Strategic Intent into Results with Warga-
ming. London: Taylor & Francis.
40 41AUTHORS AND CONTACT
PROF. DR. JAN OLIVER SCHWARZ PROF. DR. BERNHARD WACH DR. FELIX VON HELD DR. FELIX WERLE
Professor for Strategic Management and Professor for Entrepreneurship and Hu- Founding-Partner, IICM Founding-Partner, IICM
Leadership, ESB Business School, man Resources, Bielefeld University of
Reutlingen University and Applied Sciences
Senior Advisor, IICM
jan_oliver.schwarz@reutlingen-university.de bernhard.wach@fh-bielefeld.de felix.vonheld@institut-icm.de felix.werle@institut-icm.de
42 43Institute for Innovation and Change Methodologies (IICM) GmbH Holbeinstraße 26 81679 Munich Germany Phone + 49 89 122 24 94 80 info@institut-icm.de www.institut-icm.de
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