R&D - Model leadership behaviour

How can managers enable their R&D teams to master innovation challenges that lie ahead? Bernard Zimmermann specialises in personal development of leaders and their teams in R&D

How often have we read or heard that innovation is a company’s engine for growth? For high performing engines one has to use top quality fuel and maintain it extremely well. Although successful innovation is a cross-functional undertaking of R&D, marketing, supply chain and sales, without leading edge technology any innovation will be short-lived. Leading edge innovation can only come from highly creative people and teams, and creativity excels in a highly motivating climate. Hence a motivating climate is the fuel your innovation engine needs to run properly.

So what are the components of such a climate in R&D? The very basic ones are norms and values. Members know what is expected of them and what they can expect of each other and the company. Clarity of purpose and bilateral loyalty are key. Openness to challenge from within the team and resilience to failure is important as well as appropriate delegation and reward and recognition. Although one could argue that these components are set by the company culture and the individual leader has no direct influence, research conducted by the Hay Group[1] examined which factors affect the working climate the most. The results showed that 50% to 70% of the working environment is influenced by leadership behaviour.

Research conducted by McBer in 2002[2] showed that climate and prevalent leadership styles in a company have a significant effect on the company’s performance. In one case study he compared two global technology enterprises. One had a predominantly motivating climate and the other a more demotivating climate. The effects on the gross margin and profit margin are detailed in Figure 1.

Intuitively, such results are not surprising. However, the scale of the impact is. To influence this situation leaders focus very much on teambuilding activities to develop the motivation in their teams. What they often miss is a congruent approach where motivational activities and their leadership behaviour are consistent.

Richard Mansfield[3] began to develop a model for leadership behaviour at McBer & Company as early as the mid 1980s. In his model he divided the spectrum of leadership behaviour into six distinct styles:

Directive The primary objective of this style is immediate compliance. It relies on directives rather than directions and it uses very little dialogue.

Visionary The primary objective of this style is to provide long term direction and vision for employees.

Affiliative With this style the key objective is to create harmony and avoid conflict.

Participative The main driver in this style is to build commitment through consensus among the employees and to generate new ideas.

Pacesetting The main objective of this style is task accomplishment to high standards of excellence. Managers who use this style tend to lead by modelling.

Coaching This style is focused on the long-term development of others. A manager using the coaching style helps individuals to identify their unique strengths and weaknesses.

In 2002 this initial model was further developed into the Inventory of Leadership Styles of the Hay Group in its present form.[4] Figure 2 shows a graphical example of the output of feedback using the leadership style model.

This tool is also being used very successfully by the author when supporting R&D leaders developing their leadership competencies.

Two important insights can be drawn from the studies of McBer and the Hay Group. Firstly, leaders in an organisation with a rather discouraging climate use a very restricted repertoire of leadership styles. Secondly, superiors who create a motivating climate use neither the directive nor the pacesetting style very often (see Figure 3), but use most of the others as dominant styles on a regular basis; a percentile over 60 indicates that a style is dominant. An effective leader should be able to use several styles in parallel in day to day work.

Though an optimal climate seems to be created most effectively by a mixture of different styles, the key is to use the different styles appropriately for particular situations.

Due to ever increasing pressure in R&D teams to deliver innovations faster leaders may tend to use a more pacesetting or directive style to meet the milestones for implementation. This would be short-sighted in several ways because:

Alternative or new ideas may be suppressed as scientists or engineers are limited in the creative space.

Pressure-prompted behaviour hardly allows an open and challenging interaction within and between teams.

Such behaviours are driven by short-term thinking. The R&D organisation would then lack the more strategic and visionary view.

Such aspects are crucial in the successful development of robust, successful and innovative products, and services.

Practical application

Of course theories are great but how does it work in practice? Take the example of a leader in an R&D organisation. The head of R&D in a company is facing continuous pressure to deliver innovation faster. Rather than just responding to this demand he created a strategy and vision aligned to the company’s strategy. He involved the R&D team in the vision and strategy development. He also designed with the team a flexible organisation that allows individuals to cycle in and out of highly time pressured phases. This allows people short periods of highly creative or explorative work which they could take into downstream projects. In doing so his R&D team keeps a stream of radically new ideas flowing creating impressive innovation in the market.

However, he still had to stand up to the challenges of faster turnover of innovations. His key selection point for initiatives to take on or refuse was the level of alignment with the strategy. Of course this is not easy to practice and needs considerable standing in the organisation. However, the longer term success of his company has demonstrated the merits of this approach. It motivates his team to face the challenges as they had seen strategic consistency of the elevated effort in their work rather than opportunistic idea hopping.

Increasing motivation

So what can a manager do to increase the motivation in their team? Here are some ideas of behaviours the author has successfully worked with or observed in R&D organisations:

Clarify with your team the norms and values and walk this talk. Be aware that if these norms and values are not kept alive it will be a waste of time. If you hold people accountable on breaches of values and norms it will be a key building block in setting a motivating climate when done properly.

Create an open atmosphere to allow critical challenges. Invite people to an open discussion. If they dare to challenge (you) they may dare to be more radical in their thinking and creativity.

Give people the space to take risks and cope with failure. If you tell your people “failure is not an option” how much room do you leave them to experiment with speculative ideas? You may want to give recognition not only for successes but also for failures. The organisation may learn as much from them as from successes.

Ask questions about ideas; don’t tell them how to execute work. If you tell them how to do things you will restrict their degree of influence and impact on their willingness to come forward with new ideas. Instead, show more interest in their ideas and spark new thinking by asking open questions.

Share your vision for the programme and group frequently and take inputs from the team. Give your team a sense of direction and let them participate in the development of a shared vision.

Be a leader and take decisions when it is needed (don’t be a dictator or a softball) Take decisions when your team needs them to move forward. But take only those decisions which are not in the remit of your team members. Delegate as many decisions as appropriate to the people who do the work.

Inspire people with great ideas Praise great ideas publicly, inspire people to think outside the box. Give them a vision of what could be achieved with breakthrough ideas.

Be your people’s champion Be there when your people need you as a sounding board or to back them up. Support them in their personal development by giving them a safe space to experiment with new skills and competencies.

Of course, these are ideas which may not exactly fit your situation. Feel free to modify or develop them further so that they fit your particular circumstances. Obviously there is always a time for one or the other style. There are no rules on how to choose the appropriate behaviour. The best is to rely on your intuition, your emotional intelligence.

There are some interesting articles about leadership and emotional intelligence written by Daniel Goleman and published by Harvard Business Review.[5,6] He has also published a book called Working with emotional intelligence.[7] Also good is The emotional intelligence quick book, Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves.[8] As a work book, Managing yourself by von Paul Morgan and published by Pearson Education Ltd (2003)[9] can be very useful.

References

1. Hay Group, Managing Directors, business performance study, internal paper Hay Group (2002)

2. McBer & Company, Study of Technology organisations, internal paper Hay Group (2002)

3. Richard Mansfield, The Managerial Style Inventory, McBer & Company (1987)

4. Hay Group, Inventory of Leadership Styles (2002)

5. Daniel Goleman, Leadership that gets results, Harvard Business Review April (2000)

6. Daniel Goleman, What makes a great Leader, Harvard Business Review (1998)

7. Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books (1999)

8. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book, Fireside New York (2005)

9. Paul Morgan, Managing yourself, Pearson Education Ltd (2003)

Author

E-mail info@zimmermann.com

www.bazimmermann.com