Great Leaders Are Ambidextrous, Are You?

November 17, 2014 / G C Network / Comments Off on Great Leaders Are Ambidextrous, Are You?

Thank You GetVoIP!!

By G C Network | April 25, 2014

Thank you for the honor of being named a “Top 100 Cloud Professionals to Follow on G+”! Congratulations also to my 99 colleagues.  Read more at: ↑ Grab this Headline…

Facilitators Announced For NGA Agile Cloud Brainstorming Event

By G C Network | April 14, 2014

The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (ITAAC) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) are announcing a slate of innovative leaders to serve as facilitators for the upcoming  “Agile Sourcing Environment…

MBO Partners Spotlights GovCloud Founder Kevin L. Jackson

By G C Network | April 6, 2014

Associate Spotlight Interview with Kevin L. JacksonMBO Associate Since 10/2013 1)    Tell us a little bit about what you do.I am the CEO and founder of GovCloud Network, LLC. In…

ITAAC/ICH and TIA To Host Commercial Cloud Sourcing Brainstorming Session for NGA

By G C Network | April 1, 2014

The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (ITAAC) and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) are honored to team with NGA in hosting the first “Agile Sourcing Environment for Commercial Cloud” brainstorming session,…

Author and Tech Strategist Melvin Greer Profiled by WashingtonExec

By G C Network | March 17, 2014

Congratulations to my NCOIC colleague and dear friend Melvin Greer on his impressive WashingtonExec interview. A senior fellow and chief strategist at Lockheed Martin, Mel has more than 29 years’…

IT Risk Management Summit – March 26, 2013 – Reston, VA

By G C Network | March 12, 2014

In response to growing demand for formal software risk and quality management tools, the nations’ most respected standards bodies and IT communities of practice have joined forces to advance the…

PerspecSys Survey Reveals Cloud-based Security Concerns for 2014

By G C Network | March 10, 2014

Today PerspecSys announced the results of a survey conducted at the 2014 RSA Conference concerning the attitudes and policies of organizations towards cloud-based security. After polling 130 security professionals on…

NCOIC Debuts Roadmap for Designing, Managing Cyber-secure Hybrid Computing Environment

By G C Network | March 5, 2014

Open process by the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium uses cloud infrastructure to cut computing costs in half and enable collaboration by different systems and users WASHINGTON—March 5, 2014—The Network…

Why State & Local Governments Should be Prepared for Cloud

By G C Network | February 17, 2014

You are invited to attend the Cloud Webinar Series: Why State & Local Governments Should be Prepared for Cloud. This educational webinar is brought to you by RISC Networks, and…

IBM Hybrid Cloud Debate: Experts debate: Are Hybrid Clouds the End All Be All?

By G C Network | February 12, 2014

A hybrid cloud may become the solution as the debate between public vs private cloud becomes so 2013. The industry’s experts will debate on when the hybrid clouds are and…


By:
Melvin Greer
Managing Director, Greer Institute


https://www.greerinstitute.org/
 There are many important characteristics of great leaders. Team players, good listeners and visionary are clear hallmarks. But being ambidextrous is required now more than ever. Ambidextrous leadership is a balanced approach where flexible leadership behaviors that lead to better business outcomes are the rule. 
Ambidexterity is the ability to engage in innovation (exploration) and operation (exploitation) equally well. But these are two very different yet complementary leadership behaviors.
  • Exploitation: Reducing variance, adherence to rules, alignment and risk avoidance  
  • Exploration: Increasing variance, experimentation and failure, value alternatives and risk taking

And why is ambidextrous leadership required now more than ever? Leadership is in crises and leaders are facing an increasing set of complex issues. This crisis manifests itself in a lack of employee engagement and retention along with lower market share and business performance. According to 2013 Ketchum Leadership study there is an unambiguous crisis of confidence in leaders.
According to the survey, just 24 percent of people around the world believe leaders overall are providing effective leadership. Poor leadership directly hits sales, and in 2012, 60 percent of people boycotted or bought less from a company due to poor leadership behavior. This assessment indicates that we are experiencing an innovation gap where today’s leaders have neglected leadership behavior that fosters innovation in favor of operational performance.
What makes ambidextrous leadership hard is that innovation is a complex and non-linear activity. There is a dynamic lifecycle and pace of innovation, combined with situational variability. This requires leaders to develop temporal flexibility—the ability to know when to do what for maximum business impact. Given the focus on innovation, today’s leaders are encouraged to develop a 21st Century Leadership model, which emphasizes ambidextrous leadership.
So what does it take to become an ambidextrous leader? Here are some key first steps:
1.     Develop an ability to harness disruptive innovations. I’ve identified four disruptive innovations that are impacting leaders and leadership. IT knowledge has traditionally been confined to the IT department, but not anymore. Today any leader should be able to read a P&L or interpret and operate a balance sheet; they should be able to understand how technology will impact the business strategy of their organization.
2.     Drive innovation via workforce and talent. Innovative leadership requires systematic innovation; a tight linkage to the development of a strong workforce and the development of future leaders, students via a robust science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline. 

https://www.greerinstitute.org/21st-century-leadership/
The book, 21st Century Leadership, drills down to illuminate what makes leaders so good at innovation and talent, and describes how to move an innovation strategy from “chasing shiny objects” to a powerful, sustainable cultural change and create a magnet for great talent. The goal is to mature new leaders and inspire future innovators. This is how we, as leaders, turn this disruption from a challenge into an opportunity for business growth via innovation.
By taking these steps we can close the innovation gap and avoid leadership behavior that atrophies innovation in favor of operational performance. We can truly have ambidexterity leadership and engage in innovation and operational activities equally well.

The Boston Consulting Group in its top 20 most innovative companies for 2014 (https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/interactive/innovation_growth_most_innovative_companies_interactive_guide/) listed firms like Samsung, Tesla Motors, Dell and Intel.  These companies are working to drive operational performance and innovation to their clients benefit.

 

( This post was written as part of the Dell Content Partners program, which provides news and analysis on technology, business and gadget-geek culture. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent Dell’s positions or strategies.)

Bookmark and Share

Cloud Musings

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS – © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2012)

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
Posted in

G C Network

Cloud Computing

Cybersecurity