ONE in five respondents to a recent Australian Institute of Management (AIM) survey believe they could lift their performance by more than 40 per cent if the leadership in their organisation improved.
The survey on leadership effectiveness and development identified several key leaders in the Western Australian business community from both the private and public sectors. It found that, compared with their perceptions and ratings of leadership in the broader WA business community, respon-dents were more positive about their immediate managers.
However, half of the respondents ranked their own leaders as being either fair, satisfactory, or poor, and said there was too much manage-ment and not enough leadership in their organisations.
AIM executive director Patrick Cullen said people generally liked leaders who had certain attributes.
“Generally, good leaders are people who have a clarity of direction in what they are about and where they want their organisations to go, and [they] also have a clarity about the role that others play in an organisation,” Mr Cullen said.
“There are clearly different models and styles of leadership, but we know, not only from these survey results, that people really value feedback, and our view is that there is too little feedback in workplaces.”
Half of respondents said they received too little feedback and that the two most important factors influencing the quality of leaders were ongoing support from top management and an organisational culture that supports leadership.
Mr Cullen said the surveys findings indicated a major opportunity for both large and small organisations to capture the latent potential of employee performance for business success.
“Organisations are increasingly recognising that dictatorial and hierarchical structures are becoming outdated – that sort of structure is not what a lot of the more progressive organisations are about,” he said.
“There is a powerful opportunity for organisations to leverage latent leadership capacity at all levels – it isn’t just the CEO or senior managers who can be leaders.”
Mr Cullen said there were people who naturally exhibited more leadership qualities than others, but that an individual’s capacity for leadership should be determined in order to utilise it best.
“Everyone has leadership attributes, and although the CEOs often get the glory or blame, the reality is that they have a team of people backing them up,” he said.
“Successful CEOs are in most cases flanked by very capable people, and they help the CEO run the company as a team.”
An interesting part of business leadership was the increasing movement of business leaders into the role of community leaders, Mr Cullen said.
“There seems to be a growing realisation that the business community cannot isolate itself from the community and society.
“There is a blurring of the boundaries between the social and business communities, and businesses are realising there is a benefit to be made from engaging with the community.”
WA’s LEADERS
An Australian Institute of Management survey on leadership asked respondents to name people they saw as leaders in the WA business community from the public and private sectors. Responses included:
• Private sector
Michael Chaney (most listed); Janet Holmes a Court; Tony Howarth; John Roberts; Bill Wyllie; Dr Fiona Woods; Bob Browning; John Rothwell; Len Buckeridge; Kerry Stokes; John Hughes; John Langoulant; Harold Clough; Penny Flett; Rick Hart; Chip Goodyear.
• Public sector
Dr Fiona Stanley; Dr Jim Gill; Premier Geoff Gallop; Des Pearson; Dr Karl O’Callaghan; Kerry Sanderson; John Sanderson; Dr Neale Fong; Bob Kuchera; Jim McGinty; Menno Henneveld; Michelle Dolin; Mike Daube.