Leadership skills ‘crucial for prosperity’

THE world is desperately in need of more and better leadership — not managers — and Ireland is no exception, a leading business expert said yesterday.

Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter, who is one of the key speakers at the MBA Association of Ireland’s conference in Cork next week, said the development of leadership skills was crucial if people, companies and economies were to grow and prosper.

“The number of people using their full leadership potential is very small and that is the big gap we have to work on,” he said.

The myth that leadership was confined to chief executives and senior managers needed to be exposed, he said, so that leadership skills could be nurtured at every managerial and supervisory level in an organisation.

His message to delegates attending the conference sponsored by Thomas Crosbie Holdings (TCH) at Silver Spring Moran Hotel on Friday, September 19, will be: “You can do a better job by showing leadership. The payback to your organisation, the economy and to you personally will be very, very large.”

Many managers don’t understand the difference between management and leadership. Management is about coping with complexity; leadership is about coping with change, he said.

“Leadership is about setting direction, aligning people and motivating action.”

Unfortunately, according to Prof Kotter most managers can’t differentiate between the two.

“It’s a worldwide problem but once they get the insight usually there is no problem.”

Of the four million managers/supervisors in the US he said three quarters were not providing the leadership their organisations needed.

“This is a bigger problem when it applies to top managers,” he said, adding that this highlighted the importance of realising the need for leadership.

“Part of the reason it has become more important in recent years is that the business world has become more competitive and more volatile.

Prof Kotter is Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School and a frequent speaker at top management meetings around the world.

He is scheduled to deliver a highly practical presentation to the MBA conference via satellite link on the challenges of modern leadership and the qualities and skills that must be developed.

A panel of expert commentators including George Quigley and broadcaster Olivia O’Leary will explore the issues specific to Irish firms in the decade ahead.

Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York, is also due to address the leadership conference and is the keynote speaker.

lTickets for are available through the MBA Association, tel: [phone] and at Silver Springs Moran Hotel, Cork, tel: [phone].