leaders on leadership - heidrick & struggles/media/publications and reports/leaders … ·...

Leaders on LEADERSHIP

LEADERSHIP CONSULTING

Andrew Mackenzie CEO BHP Billiton

Peter Coleman CEO Woodside

John Bertrand President, Swimming Australia

Lyall Gorman Executive Chairman, Western Sydney Wanderers FC

Professor Ian Williamson Melbourne Business School

Strategy + culture + shared leadership = smooth execution

To gain an insider perspective

on the rapidly changing

business models confronting

Australian companies today,

we invited some of our most

forward-thinking business

leaders to discuss the role

played by corporate culture

in individual, team and

organisational effectiveness.

There was unanimous agreement that having a

higher purpose and a culture that supports that

purpose inevitably leads to a smooth execution of the

organisation’s strategy. In fact, intentionally shaping your

culture to align your people to strategy and purpose will

almost certainly guarantee success.

In the following pages, the leaders reveal exactly how

they are approaching the challenging task of aligning and

engaging their teams.

In our own experience in assessing and developing

individuals and teams, and shaping corporate cultures, we

know that the two main questions asked by CEOs when it

comes to their top teams are:

• How can I get the right people exhibiting

the right behaviours?

• How can I make sure I am preparing the

next generation of leaders?

Every year, with predictable regularity, corporate surveys

emphasise the importance of talent management and

succession planning as the top concerns for organisations.

Yet proper planning is done only by around 50 per cent of

companies of all sizes and shapes around the world.

Why isn’t planning done more often?

The answer is two-fold:

• Companies tend to take action only when

an event makes a problem visible.

• When they do take action, they often leave out an

important part of the puzzle – the forward strategy

and how to align the culture through a motivated top

team and workforce to execute on the mission.

Leaders on LEADERSHIP

2 Leaders on leadership

Our approach is to start a process of ‘discovery,’ which

looks at the strategic direction of the organisation up to

five years out, while at the same time assessing internal

talent and mapping the external talent market.

It is increasingly common for chief executives to find that

current leadership may not be sufficient for the forward

direction. At that point, CEOs can turn their attention to

precisely what changes are needed in the strategy from

technical, behavioural, and cultural perspectives.

Getting the right fit for all involves a structured approach,

looking at four main features of the organisation:

1 Strategic direction

2 Desired culture

3 External brand expectations

4 The leader’s desire to develop their leadership style

The outcome of the process is a leadership journey which

both develops and acquires the best talent to fire up the

engine for the next phase of growth.

The questionsWe asked our corporate, academic and sporting group of

Andrew Mackenzie, Peter Coleman, John Bertrand, Lyall

Gorman and Professor Ian Williamson to discuss:

• The role culture plays in individual, team

and organisational effectiveness.

• The changing nature of strategy in an

increasingly fast-moving world.

• The desired profile of future leaders.

Follow-up questions revolved around the challenge of

developing cultures ‘by design’ which facilitate agility,

consistency of the enterprise across geographies, and a

sense of engagement with the broader community.

There was general agreement that:

• The current business outlook is uncertain.

• A ‘sense of purpose’ is fundamental to success.

• Engaging the workforce around the ‘how’ of strategy,

or execution, is the hardest thing to achieve.

The answers, in their own words, follow.

Heidrick & Struggles 3

ANDREW MACKENZIECHIEF EXECUTIVE, BHP BILLITON

Higher purpose means higher performanceNot only is the world demanding

high performance in today’s

business climate, but in themselves

people want to wake up every day

and do extraordinary things.


Culture is all about the higher purpose. Start with the why.

People need to have a connection with the purpose. At

BHP, we have a single-minded focus. And if you do this,

you will find that when you shift the mean performance to

your highest performance, your competitors won’t see you

for dust.

If the right values are not present, you cannot have an

aligned culture. We believe in a sense of service to the

nation. We say to Australians, ‘We’re not working for the fat

cats – we’re working for you.’

While culture is hard to define, you will know when it

is not working. My view about culture at the executive

level is that leadership covers everything – it’s the email

you don’t send or the phone call you do make. It’s about

authenticity. But the CEO sets the tone and must personify

the culture.

I don’t like the word ‘behaviours’ because it sounds like a

correction. People can become overly compliant due to

fear, so you need to change the way you do things in order

to remove fear and unlock the potential of your people.

How do you change beliefs? I don’t think you can – but

what you must do is to couple your goals with people’s

need for self-actualisation. You have to change the

conditions that people impose on themselves. So you

don’t so much change the beliefs as change the context

so your people can perform. They need to feel more self-

determined and empowered.

We have a ‘step-up’ culture which helps people to grow. We

will grow our company not by using more capital, because

that won’t help people do their jobs better. We will grow

the company as people step up and add more value.

You can have a million conversations about how people

can be more productive, but what ‘improved productivity’

actually means is a radical re-direction of people’s time.

But culture alone is not enough. You need systems in

place. Strong systems will facilitate creativity. We will soon

have everyone globally on SAP. You need systems to know

what’s happening in an organisation in order to identify

what’s working and what’s not.

Lastly – and this is hard – you have to pull away parts

of the systems that have become self-serving.

“I don’t like the word ‘behaviours’ because it sounds like a

correction. People can become overly compliant due to fear,

so you need to change the way you do things in order to

remove fear and unlock the potential of your people.”


PETER COLEMANCEO, WOODSIDE

Culture of ‘we’ – with a flexible, global outlook

We believe that culture is all about the ‘we,’ not the ‘me.’ At Woodside we

don’t manage risk through assets but through relationships. So we are

constantly engaged in a global team-building exercise.


While we have ‘the Woodside compass’ which expands on

who we are (culture), what we do (strategy) and how we

do it (the hard part), it could be summarised simply as ‘do

the right thing.’

The first two – who and what – set the expectations and

the ‘how’ is where we create value.

Getting the right graduates and developing them is

important, assessing the executive talent we have, and

developing them, is important, and then buying people

off the street to fill the gaps is also necessary to bring in

fresh blood and new ideas.

We are a knowledge-driven and relationship-driven

industry. The oil and gas business is a long-dated industry.

And engineers love certainty. But today we are learning

to embrace uncertainty because that is where the value

is captured.

For a CEO today, understanding business on a global

scale is a huge part of the job. While 95% of our value

comes from assets in Western Australia, the Asian market

beckons, and we need to have global intelligence. We

need to understand what is happening in governments,

sectors, new areas that are opening up, potential

disturbances, and the commoditisation of technology.

Our executives today are those with a broader view.

They need to be open to our competitors critiquing the

company, and they need to examine the way we are

treating people and how we are interacting with the

marketplace and our customers.

Our executives also need to be flexible. The markets are

becoming more liquid. Where once the spot market for

gas was 1%, now it’s 30%.

“today we are learning to embrace uncertainty because that is where the value is captured”


JOHN BERTRANDPRESIDENT OF SWIMMING AUSTRALIA FORMER AMERICA’S CUP-WINNING SKIPPER BUSINESSMAN AND PHILANTHROPIST

Trust, transparency, and world leadershipIn business, as in sport, you have to understand that you are not

competing against your competitors – you are competing against

yourselves. You’re competing against your inability to take the blinkers

off and ask, ‘How will this look in five or 10 years’ time?’


If that is the prevailing mindset, your human capital, your

people, will be unleashed, because we know that in the

future, the game will be much more sophisticated, much

more efficient. Higher, further, faster. History tells us that.

The question is, ‘who can get there the fastest?’

We know the future of this great country of ours is to

unleash the creativity of our workforce and our people.

We would never have won the America’s Cup if we’d

accepted the status quo. We were in the business of

endeavouring to understand and apply what the game

would look like in 20 years’ time, within our world of

administration, technology and team-building. We

then launched ourselves on to a new S-curve of high

performance. We knew we were in the business of creating

sporting history.

Leadership is about the creation of high-performance

teams. In swimming, you have a group of individuals who

have to work as a team. The vision for Swimming Australia

is eventually to have the Americans benchmark Australia

as the pinnacle of achievement.

We aim to excite the minds of our swimmers and coaches,

and our administration, to empower them to search for

excellence as we become the world’s best in everything

we do.

Great leaders are listeners – they learn and lead. The

three Ls are ‘listen, learn, lead.’ And the starting point for

leadership is vision. People need to know where they are

going. And natural leaders are natural visionaries. They

have the ability to communicate and constantly reinforce

that vision.

What defines a leader? Leaders have the ability to form

teams of people with complementary skills around that

vision. They also have the ability to live their life with a

strong set of values, so that people want to be involved.

These values will typically be very basic human

traits – trust, integrity, honesty, and transparency of

communication. I would add another element for

Australians – ‘having fun.’ You could also call it ‘passion.’

Two sports are fundamentally important in the Australian

psyche globally – cricket and swimming. When we’re not

on song with these sports, it affects the nation. So there is

real responsibility here with Swimming Australia, and of

course a wonderful opportunity.

We will generate substantially more medals at the next

Olympics than we did in London. By 2020 – and this is

the big vision – we aim to be the Number One swimming

nation in the world, from the Olympic podium and

Paralympic podium, through to grassroots.

It’s a huge challenge, and an exciting challenge.

We are in the business of exciting the minds of our

swimmers, and empowering them to search for

excellence. We are in the business of leading the world.

“What defines a leader? Leaders have the ability to form

teams of people with complementary skills around that

vision. They also have the ability to live their life with a

strong set of values, so that people want to be involved.”


LYALL GORMANEXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS FOOTBALL CLUB

Community engagement, long-term commitmentThe future cannot be built entirely in Microsoft

Excel spreadsheets. People are our most mportant

investment. We employ people, not “players and staff.”

We work and partner with people and organisations.

We engage with people, not customers.


High-performance organisations grow when the people

within them are growing, and when they are doing what

they do best. We call this is a ‘strength-based culture.’ This

means we don’t try to teach goal-keepers to be strikers.

When we created the Wanderers, we had the advantage

of being able to start with a blank sheet of paper. We had

a rich football heritage and multi-cultural diversity across

western Sydney on which to frame our business model,

but we firstly had to establish:

• How we do what we do – our cultural

and values framework

• What we do – our strategy

• Why we do it – or a sense of greater

purpose and vision

We were in a western Sydney catchment area with

professional sporting codes all drawing on the same

resources, and we needed a point of difference. It is the

point of difference, not the point of sameness, that makes

all the difference!

Yet we had only three months to build up the club. When

I asked Football Federation of Australia Chairman Frank

Lowy how we could turn the club around in just three

months, he counselled: “It’s very simple, Lyall – just double

the shifts.”

Armed with that sage-like piece of wisdom, and with

the belief that successful organisations are built on a

foundation of clarity of vision, values and culture, our

journey began.

Through a process of consultation, communication,

collaboration and ultimately connectivity across our

region, we were able to establish:

Our vision – to be a world-class football club, and the

pride of western Sydney.

Our purpose – to enable our elite men’s women’s and

youth athletes to be the catalyst for true social impact and

change across the western Sydney region.

Our values – a great culture flows from the consistent

application of core values.

We then set about recruiting and retaining the best

people, by which I mean getting the right people in the

right seats on the bus!

‘Fit’ was critical, because our future was built around being

a significant community asset through a focus on making

a real difference across the western Sydney region in a

values framework that had already been defined for us

through our market engagement.

The focus was to be ‘proud, respectful, inclusive, youthful,

raw and real, aspirational and ambitious.’

Ambition was defined as ‘a future of endless possibilities’

and we also decided we would not be glamorous, elitist

or intimidated. So Shinji Ono would fit, but Del Piero

would not.

‘Stand up for us, make us proud, and be competitive’ is

our mantra.

Authentic and relevant community and stakeholder

engagement became a driving force for us. This also

meant that we would regularly and consistently engage

with our community at all levels, whether fostering

and nurturing grassroots and community football,

enhancing elite player pathways, working in schools and

community organisations or partnering with business and

government sectors.

For us, our business – the business of football – is the

conduit to being a true community asset and making a

real contribution.

When we go anywhere, the club goes, not the team. It’s all

about communication, collaboration and connectivity.

Our culture is one of long-term commitment, internally

and externally. Our vision and values drive our strategy.

For example, we partner only with organisations which are

like-minded.

Leadership is driven by ‘cause’ and not ‘self.’ We espouse

a culture which fosters a safe environment that allows

for ideas, challenge and input to come from all.


PROFESSOR IAN WILLIAMSONMELBOURNE BUSINESS SCHOOL

Leadership means being a role modelFor years people have talked about the ‘War for Talent.’ However, I believe

this war is over and talent has won. The balance of power has shifted. Today

highly skilled individuals are in short supply and high demand across the

globe. As such, individuals, not companies, have far more power when it

comes to shaping their career paths. Thus, leadership today is more than

just shaping the firm strategy. It is equally about convincing talented

individuals that they should join an organisation in order to implement

that strategy.


One key for effectively attracting and retaining top talent

is the development of an effective organisational culture.

Culture can oftentimes seem hard to define or measure,

however, from my perspective an organisation’s culture boils

down to three things:

1 What you see

2 What you do

3 What you believe

If culture is to be a positive asset for an organisation, leaders

must work to make sure these three aspects of culture align

with each other and with the broader mission and strategy

of the firm. A failure to do so will cause employees to raise

questions about the viability, legitimacy and even the integrity

of an organisation and its leaders, hindering a firm’s ability to

attract and retain top talent.

Senior leaders in particular play an important role in shaping

‘what employees see.’ Rightly or wrongly, leaders have

a symbolic role in organisations. Their behaviors set the

stage for what employees expect or don’t expect from their

employers. When the leader’s behaviour is inconsistent with

organisational practices and values, their very legitimacy to

lead is questioned, as is their strategy. Thus, leaders must

embrace the role of being a role-model for the culture they

desire in their organisations.

Organisations often face situations that challenge cultural

values. But these situations of dissonance represent critical

leadership opportunities. It is in those moments that

employees will look to leaders to reconcile the dissonance

and illustrate the behaviours necessary to support the firm’s

culture. For example, if a firm values trust, is the leader

transparent with bad news about firm performance? If the

firm values collaboration, does the leader accept selfish

behaviour by a high-performing executive? If the firm values

innovation, does the leader punish an employee who tried an

unsuccessful experiment?

Each of these examples represent symbolic opportunities

for leaders to reaffirm the culture of their organisation and

in doing so establish the firm’s credibility and their personal

credibility in the eyes of talented employees.

“When the leader’s behaviour is inconsistent with organisational practices and values their very legitimacy to lead is questioned, as is their strategy.”


Clearly, we see similar themes

mentioned by the corporate,

academic and sporting leaders

who have contributed to this

paper. This is not surprising, given

that organisations are made

up of people and we all have

similar needs, regardless of our

chosen profession.

We need a clear outline of success – starting with the

‘why,’ and moving along a simple pathway to achieve

‘the how,’ and then developing a meaningful way of

achieving this within the work environment. Think of

the work environment as being ‘who we are.’

What is challenging is harnessing the right leaders,

and then aligning them with beliefs that can engage

and motivate the whole organisation into action.

What is critical is the ability to create an organisation

that is agile in the fast-changing global environment.

At the same time, leaders need to provide significant

meaning to those within the organisation so

they can move together in delivering exceptional

business results.

Summary and conclusions

At Heidrick & Struggles, we help leaders understand

the linkages between strategy, structure and culture

in order to ensure they are all working in unison

to accelerate the achievement of their business

goals. We do this by working with the leadership

to ‘design’ a culture that fits with their specific

business imperatives, assisting the leaders to ‘live’

the behaviours and then provide the framework to

cascade this throughout the organisation.

We also ensure that there is a plan to align all systems

and processes to the desired culture to ensure all

is working in harmony. Sustainability is delivered

through a structured ‘transfer of competency’

program, enabling the organisation to continually

refine the culture with the changing needs of

the organisation.

“we help leaders understand the linkages between strategy, structure and culture in order to ensure they are all working in unison”


Leadership Consulting Practice

The Leadership Consulting Practice at Heidrick & Struggles provides a range of services including:

• Leadership assessment and development

• Senior talent management

• CEO succession and transition

• Top team performance enhancement

• Board effectiveness reviews

• Culture-shaping consulting

Diana CoelhoPrincipal Leadership Consulting Practice, Heidrick & Struggles

Level 35 140 William Street Mebourne VIC 3000

+ 61 (0)3 9012 3000

[email protected]

Lana LedgerwoodPrincipal Leadership Consulting Practice, Heidrick & Struggles

Level 28 Governor Phillip Tower 1 Farrer Place Sydney NSW 2000

+ 61 (0)2 8205 2000

[email protected]

Dani FraillonPartner Leadership Consulting Practice, Heidrick & Struggles

+ 61 (0)3 9012 3000

[email protected]


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Heidrick & Struggles is the premier provider of senior-level Executive Search, Culture Shaping and Leadership Consulting services. For 60 years we have focused on quality service and built strong relationships with clients and individuals worldwide. Today, Heidrick & Struggles leadership experts operate from principal business centres globally.

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