Leading From Below

The importance of leadership from the top is firmly embedded in corporate culture. An image survives of the all-powerful CEO, able to change the way a company operates at will.

But the truth is that at most companies, senior managers are increasingly hamstrung by the demand from investors and analysts for immediate results. If change is going to come about at these companies, it will be because managers below the CEO (and below the whole "C suite" of CEO, COO, CFO) take the initiative and risks to drive the company in a different direction. Change will have to come from those leading from below, rather than relying on leadership from the top.

These potential leaders face their own constraints. Their day-to-day responsibilities can be all-consuming, leaving no time or energy for the effort to expand their influence. And for many below the C suite, the risks of sticking your head up to suggest change seem too great, and the odds of success seem too low.

But those constraints can be overcome.

In seven years of studying the process of leading from below in hundreds of companies around the world, we have identified clear patterns in how managers succeed—and fail—in this effort. These patterns suggest two broad lessons: For the vast majority of business managers who are not CEOs, there are practical ways to play a leadership role that helps their companies, helps improve the impact their companies have on the world, and helps improve their career prospects at the same time. And for that small number of individuals who inhabit the C suite, there are practical ways to encourage the kind of leadership from below that can provide energy, innovation and advantage to the company well beyond what they can deliver alone from the top.

BECOMING A LEADER

We focused our studies on managers in two overlapping fields that usually aren't high on the agendas of top management and therefore serve as a laboratory for leadership from below: environment, health and safety; and corporate social responsibility. The clear majority of the managers we studied found themselves stuck in predominantly service and/or governance roles—performing tasks like setting and enforcing company standards, and providing the resources for people in the company to meet those standards. Many expressed a desire to take on more of a leadership role, but didn't see a clear way to do so.

So, how do managers make the shift from service and governance to a leadership role? How do they lead from below successfully? While each situation differs, there are several common threads that run through each of the successful examples we have studied.

• Make the decision to be a leader.

There are three painful realities about moving from service and governance roles to a leadership role: No one will tell you to do it; there will always be people who tell you to stick to the other two roles; and you have to earn the right to play a leadership role, often by succeeding in a service or governance role first—which in turn only increases the expectation that you will keep playing those roles.

In every case of successful leadership from below that we have studied, the manager made a conscious decision to move beyond the service and governance roles, without waiting to be told to do so.

In deciding to take on the risks involved in a leadership role, it helps to understand that failure to lead is also dangerous. In an age when job cuts are common at even the most successful companies, being a good manager who doesn't make waves is increasingly risky. Those who take risks are more likely to keep their jobs and to be promoted.

The managers we studied usually found two ways to spur the transition from service and governance to leadership roles:

First, they reorganized their group to make themselves less essential to the provision of services or the exercise of governance. This began to free up time and energy for leadership. It also unlocked their staff's potential, as roles they formerly dominated became opportunities for their subordinates' growth.

An executive director of environment, health and safety at one manufacturing company had five managers reporting to him who were each responsible for a different unit of the business. The executive director designated one of the five as the coordinator of that group, freeing himself up to take the lead in some critical areas of corporate social responsibility that hadn't been addressed in any comprehensive way. Over time, the designated coordinator's role evolved into a promotion and the other four reported to him directly. The executive director ultimately made progress on the corporate social responsibility issues he tackled and also was promoted.

Second, the managers we studied opened themselves up to influences from outside the company. In many companies, middle managers have been trained to focus on internal rather than external signals. (We have found environmental, health and safety directors unable to name their companies' five biggest customers, five biggest competitors, and five top products or services in revenue.) To take on a leadership role, managers needed to listen to the signals coming from outside—customers, competitors, suppliers, neighbors, the media. Then they could begin thinking about what those signals meant for action inside the company.

• Focus on influence, not control.

Every successful case we have found of leadership from below involved a basic shift in thinking: The managers did their job with their colleagues—not to them or for them. People simply react more enthusiastically to being enlisted in a common cause than they do to being ordered around. And getting people to act on their own to achieve the goals you have in mind is far more effective than having them only react to your direction. There are several ways to accomplish this: