How Successful Leaders Think
June 7th, 2007 | LeadershipOnly people with “first-rate intelligence” can continue to function while holding two opposing ideas in their heads.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald
Bob Young, cofounder and former CEO of Red Hat, the dominant distributor of Linux open source software. Young recognized from the beginning that he didn’t have to choose between the two prevailing software business models. Inspired by both, he forged an innovative third way, creating a service offering for corporate customers that placed Red Hat on a path to tremendous success.
As Roger Martin mentioned in recent Harvard Business Review, in search of lessons to apply in our own careers, we often try to emulate what effective leaders do. However, he warned that this focus is misplaced, because moves that work in one context may make little sense in another.
A more productive, though more difficult, approach is to look at how such leaders think. After extensive interviews with more than 50 of them, he discovered that most are integrative thinkers — that is, they can hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once and then come up with a new idea that contains elements of each but is superior to both. He argues that this process of consideration and synthesis is the hallmark of exceptional businesses and the people who run them.
To support his point, he examines how integrative thinkers approach the four stages of decision making to craft superior solutions.
- When determining which features of a problem are salient, they go beyond those that are obviously relevant.
- They consider multidirectional and nonlinear relationships, not just linear ones.
- They see the whole problem and how the parts fit together.
- They creatively resolve the tensions between opposing ideas and generate new alternatives.
Nonetheless, integrative thinking is an ability everyone can hone.
Comments
June 8th, 2007 at 11:40 am
hehehe… couldn’t agree no more
June 8th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Leaders also need to develop a “beginner’s mind”, become better sensors and see things with fresh eyes. Much of what leaders do in organizations is based on the idea of finding the right answer to a question. Unfortunately it is often assumed there is only one right answer, and we do not need to think about the topic further. In real life, much of what is known is in a state of flux, waiting for a new bit of evidence to modify the knowledge.
June 11th, 2007 at 7:24 am
holding itu maksudnya, tetep mempertimbangkan ke dua ide tersebut ya?..
*maabh bhs inggris gue kucrut jadi kurang mengerti ;)
June 11th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
I experienced working with several bosses with their unique leadership. Two are Indonesian.
The first is a drop-outs who managed his way to become an excellent Marketing Director says, “No Pain No Gain, just push your way through”.
The second is a well-educated man with various experience working in good companies around the world, says “Speed and Accuracy is what’s important”
The last is the eldest, which is American btw, having many experiences in various telecommunication companies in US says “Do like I say, not do like I do” :):):) …..
June 12th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
I never follow the footsteps of today’s great leader. What I do follow is their approach to different kind of critical situation (in which you have to choose between one path to another completely different). Following the path of other people is moot.
June 17th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
whoaa… what if i may say: a success starts from an idealism followin’ with reality… what U do, is what U get…
reagrds…
July 16th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Ummmm………. doesn’t this mean - logically, that more women should find their place among industry leaders? It has long been known that men are most comfortable with “yes/No”, “Either / Or”, one or the other decisions. Women are known to do “Twig thinking”- or “Web thinking” going through alternatives and pulling other factors. This does drive males to distraction. But to “discover” this as a radical new way of thinking for “industry leaders”- this is really annoying.
Is this like with medications? - test series have to be restarted, for even the most common medications -since the tests were “of course” done on white males, for the most part. Forgotten were women (who, inarguably have a different chemical household) as well as people of different ethnic backgrounds. Who also all have different chemical sensitivities and makeups…..
Well, perhaps having men in influential positions thinking like women would not be at all bad….. its just annoying that this is sold as a radical new idea, rather than recognizing that there are two genders, and not all thinking is male patterened.
Ok, so it is a radically new way many for men to think……….. good luck guys, practice!
August 11th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Is leadership born or bred?