Developing Research/Technology Leaders

Abstract

If you're like most managers, you've had some kind of training aimed at making you a more effective leader. And there are many, many kinds. When I Googled I found over 1 1/2 million references, which, if nothing else, testifies that this is a big business. The question I'd like to raise is: what are good ways to select and develop research/technology leaders? Although I don't believe there is any one best leadership training, I'll share my views based on teaching and coaching research/technology managers. I invite my readers to share theirs, which I'll then report in a later article. Leadership selection and training should be based on our assumptions about leadership in technology companies. These are my six: 1. Leadership is a relationship between leader and followers. Even if someone is in a leadership role and people don't follow, that person is not a leader. Your whole self is involved in being a leader. Consequently, if you are someone people want to follow, you can not give your leadership to someone else. This differs from management, a collection of functions, like budgeting, scheduling, hiring, evaluating, etc., which can be delegated or shared. Although companies need both leadership and management, typically, tech start-ups with visionary leaders are under-managed, while large, mature technology companies are over-managed and under-led. 2. Technology staff want to be collaborators, not just followers. They want to find their work meaningful and to feel they are contributing to the result. 3. Technology companies need different types of leaders. Strategic, operational and networking leaders are all essential. 4. Although people with strategic leadership qualities can be effective at any level, they are essential at the top of the company. However, the success of an organization depends on how well these different types of leaders work together to implement a shared strategy. 5. Leaders are most effective when their personal qualities fit their leadership roles. 6. Although some people are born with exceptional potential, leadership can always be developed, and it's especially necessary to do so in the new context of global business. Four Ps of Training I propose basic research/technology leadership training under the headings of four Ps: Purpose, Process, People, Presentation. Purpose Technology leaders often get stuck in a web of misunderstanding about the purpose of a project. After the break-up of the Bell System in 1984, executives of ATT or, when they decided that few customers would want mobile phones, so it wasn't worth exploiting their own invention. Technology managers often argue about whether they should try to meet an expressed customer need or create a need with a great product. The answer, of course, is that they should do both, if they can. Customers didn't ask for a fax machine before engineers perfected it, although once they had one, they did ask for plain paper, but at that time they didn't know they would prefer e-mail when that arrived. …