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Emerald Article: Shared leadership: from rivals to co-CEOs Maria Arnone, Stephen A. Stumpf
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To cite this document: Maria Arnone, Stephen A. Stumpf, (2010),"Shared leadership: from rivals to co-CEOs", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38 Iss: 2 pp. 15 - 21 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10878571011029019 Downloaded on: 19-09-2012 Citations: This document has been cited by 2 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 1493 times since 2010. *
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Maria Arnone (mariaarnone@msn.com) coaches leaders of Fortune 100 rms and has published in the areas of leadership and the design of corporate universities. Stephen A. Stumpf is professor of management at Villanova School of Business and the Fred J. Springer Chair in Business Leadership (steve.stumpf@ villanova.edu). He has been chief learning ofcer of professional development at BoozjAllenjHamilton and is an author of several books on leadership.
s businesses confront a world of increasing complexity, some global organizations have responded by placing co-CEOs at their helm, judging that the demands of the job merit the commitment of two executives. This response has yielded mixed results and continues to generate controversy. Notable successful examples of rms run by co-CEOs include Research in Motion, Twitter, California Pizza Kitchen, and Motorola. Other partnerships have ended in much publicized failures including Martha Stewart Living, Omnimedia, Unilever, and Kraft. And, there are rms that remain committed to the structure of shared leadership despite mixed results, such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. In these organizations, the shared leadership structure is an accepted leadership strategy used throughout the organization sometimes at the top, and more often at the business-unit level, with the added benet of grooming business leaders and providing a testing ground for the top spot).
To address the dynamics and efcacy of shared leadership, we interviewed 19 co-heads, the majority of whom have shared the role more than once. They discussed reasons for their sharing leadership, and the benets and pitfalls for them and their organizations. Most found the experience beneted the rm and accelerated their growth as global leaders. They identied practices that would lead to a more strategic approach to the use of co-heads (see box, About this research).
DOI 10.1108/10878571011029019
VOL. 38 NO. 2 2010, pp. 15-21, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1087-8572
PAGE 15
Some rms selected co-heads to manage geographic expansion or a merger. In one case, it was simply impractical for one person to serve the business in the US and Asia; in another situation, co-heads separately served the US and China based on cultural issues. In the case of one merger, the co-head roles were part of the Boards strategy to support post-merger integration and to provide incentives for collaboration among those inuence leaders from each business unit of the merged rms. The intent of assigning a senior leader from each rm as co-head helped to assure fair representation of both rms in business development and stafng decisions (Exhibit 1).
Retaining high performers Transition management Immediate need Time perspective of Board
Complementary skill sets Geographic expansion and/or merger integration 2-3 Year view
businesses are highly subjective. Two people can see the same thing and draw entirely different conclusions. People are prisoners of their perspectives and how you look at a situation will determine what drives your decisions. The initial challenge of successful shared leadership is to craft a set of roles, rules, and responsibilities that leverage the talents and interests of each leader and avoids replicating the silos of function-based power often entrenched in the organization. As one co-leader commented, No one wants only half the job. Successful co-heads developed a clear understanding of their distinct roles and responsibilities distinctions which then were easily seen by those inside and outside the organization. Roles and responsibilities were typically divided by personal style, distinctive competencies, and specics of the situation that precipitated the co-head structure. Often style differences were distinguished by a task versus people focus. One co-head would focus on developing and sustaining key business relationships, while the other on problems needing resolution. Differences in business competencies tended to reect functional expertise, such as marketing and sales versus production and engineering, or entrepreneurial zeal versus six-sigma efciency. While the leadership role was shared, each co-head took primary responsibility for areas of their greater expertise. Decisions still needed the approval of both co-heads. Two situational factors geographic expansion and mergers/acquisitions directly affect co-head roles and responsibilities. When growing abroad, co-heads often took primary responsibility for different regions because of cultural factors or language skills. In mergers, co-heads often maintained responsibility for the part of the business with which they had the strongest business relationships. As one co-head noted, The goal was always clear merge the various entities in ways that retain the best people, expand market share, and lower costs.
To address the dynamics and efcacy of shared leadership, we interviewed 19 co-heads, the majority of whom have shared the role more than once.
The co-head structure runs counter to a desire to be the sole leader the pack.
At the point of being assigned co-head, the risk/reward equation for personal success changes. The risk and reward factors are expanded to include the failures and accomplishments of the co-head. Many new challenges can undermine success, including:
B B B
Not establishing sufcient trust with former rivals and their subordinates. Not effectively integrating the views of ones counterpart into decision-making. Limited self-awareness, particularly about the untested aspects of leadership.
The winner-take-all nature of competitive business reinforces habits of evaluating the intent of others in ways that undermine interpersonal trust. In contrast, trust requires one to become vulnerable to another through sharing information, resources, and control all of which were previously protected to maintain power. A common misconception that can undermine trust is attributing anothers self-interest as the guiding principal for decision-making. Two examples: He took this action because he is only out for himself. He wanted to make his people look good. The lack of trust limits the inuence of colleagues in strategic situations and tends to diminish the perspective of the leader. Colleagues are viewed with mistrust as they represent former competitors in the race for internal rewards such as promotions or share of bonus dollars. It was harder to establish trust than I thought. People are very aggressive about wanting to succeed, and they are good at presenting themselves to maximize their benet. They dont want to expose their shortfalls. Under these circumstances, how do you give your partner the benet of the doubt? To anticipate the unintended consequences of competitive zeal and mistrust, some rms used consultants and coaches to work with co-heads before promoting them. The goal was to have each leader develop greater self-awareness through identifying style differences, behavioral tendencies under pressure, and assumptions that may detract from building mutual trust. The focus was on understanding how the differences in perspective and talent could contribute to or impede the desired business results.
restaurant with the goal of saving their jobs. Unless they resolved their differences without further in-ghting, both would lose. This tactic resulted in the co-heads surfacing and reaching resolution on the issue that was formerly lled with partisan politics.
More experienced co-heads reported less likelihood of encountering many of the above pitfalls particularly those that could be avoided through negotiations prior to accepting the role. While distrust of the others intentions and not enough communication continued to plague second-time co-heads, disagreements over issues, unfair recognition, and lack of respect were less of a problem. In contrast, rst-time co-heads struggled most with perceiving unfair recognition, disagreements over issues, and lack of communication. Examples of second-time co-head negotiations relating to recognition included: transparency on bonus arrangements, who would take the lead on administrative issues, and who would lead the discussion in strategy meetings among peers. One experienced co-head suggested that it was imperative that co-CEO candidates thoroughly discuss their business philosophy and differences in perspectives in advance of accepting the position. His assessment: Shared leadership involves aligning the sources and forging agreement across disparate groups who have different P&Ls and different motivations. It is helpful to understand the differences in perspective before entering the co-head relationship and this will minimize disagreements about specic issues. This did not seem possible without a coach or facilitator present. Attempts to do so without facilitation were viewed as failing to accomplish the desired level of understanding or acceptance of anothers point of view. Experienced co-heads often recognized distrust of intentions as a pitfall, whereas rst time co-heads were less likely to expect or discuss this openly. One new co-head described his reaction: Why would you increase the likelihood of failure by discussing the details of a lack of condence in the relationship? Leadership is based upon envisioning positive outcomes. Not enough communication was an important issue for all. However, when ranking the potential pitfalls in order of importance, unfair recognition was more signicant for the rst time co-heads. After the initial period of working together, the issue of communication frequently became a by-product of other challenges. For example, if mistrust became an issue, communication tended to focus on a need to know basis and conversations explaining intentions and risks were less frequent. When unfair recognition was perceived, some co-heads sought to even the playing eld through selectively ltering information.
Recommended reading
CCL Research Report, 10 Trends A Study of Senior Executives Views of the Future, Center for Creative Leadership, 2007 The Conference Board, CEO Challenge 2007: Top 10 Challenges, 2007. J.L. Alvarez, S. Svejenova, and L. Vives, Leading in Pairs, MIT Sloan Management Review (Summer 2007), 9-14. D. Heenan and W. Bennis, Co-leaders: The Power of Great Partnerships, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999). B. Johansen, Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2009). S. Miles and M. Watkins, The leadership team, Harvard Business Review (April 2007): 2-10. J. OToole, J. Galbraith, and E.E. Lawler, III, When two (or more) heads are better than one: the promise and pitfalls of shared leadership, California Management Review, 2002, (Summer 2002): 65-83. C. Pearce and J. Conger, Shared Leadership Framing the Hows and Whys of Leadership, (Sage Publications, 2002). D. Pottruck and T. Pearce, Clicks and Mortar, (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000). D. K. Rigby, K Gruver, and J Allen, Innovation in turbulent times, Harvard Business Review (June 2009): 1-10.
Corresponding author
Maria Arnone can be contacted at: mariaarnone@msn.com
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