Where the consultants go wrong

In response to an article on leadership in the November issue of CEO Middle East Dr Nick Forster, Professor of Business Learning at Zayed University, writes to refute some of the points therein.

In 15 years of teaching business leadership, I have yet to come across a single one where it is taught only as a ‘science'. Given the broad and eclectic subject matter this would be quite impossible in practice. It is true that peer-reviewed academic research is based on quantitative and qualitative (social) science research, this is because it aims to generate results that can be replicated and validated by other researchers.

Although much of this research, conducted within organisations with leaders and employees, is of limited relevance to practitioners, the best of it has had a marked influence on management and the conduct of business leadership over the past 20 years (e.g. in marketing techniques, transformational leadership, CSR, financial and forensic accounting techniques, knowledge management and environmental sustainability in business amongst other examples).

Such is the case with James Kouzes and Barry Posner's The Leadership Challenge. It is true that the authors of this book - and others - do make claims about what they believe are the most important (and learnable) leadership skills and competencies. However, unlike many management consultants claim, these do have validity because they are based on robust quantitative and qualitative research conducted in many countries over a 20 year period.

Their results have also been further tested and replicated by other researchers - adding to their operational reliability. The final measure of their applicability and relevance is reflected in the large number of practitioners who have bought this book.

In addition, as all mainstream management academics will affirm, the best writing on business leadership such as that of Handy, Kotter, Drucker, Pfeffer, Conger, Posner, Kouzes, Mintzberg and others has always drawn on both qualitative and quantitative research and knowledge, as well as useful insights from many non-business disciplines. The same is true of the world's greatest business leaders, like Lou Gerstner (IBM), Jack Welch (GE) or Akio Morita (Sony), who all had impressive quantitative and qualitative skills (or, more recently, Brin and Page at Google). The same is also true of the best business leaders I've met, such as the Chair of the Business Council of Australia, Michael Chaney. Furthermore, there has been a noticeable shift during the 2000s in the world's leading business schools from an over-emphasis on quantitative disciplines (e.g. finance or economics) to more qualitative disciplines (the philosophy of leadership, business ethics, CSR and ‘green' issues).

In addition I have yet to meet any educated business professionals who have adopted wholesale any instant ‘formula for success'. On a similar theme, I make the following comments about ‘learning leadership' and why there is no one-size-fits-all model of leadership, in the preface to Maximum Performance: A Practical Guide to Leading and Managing People at Work:

"This may appear to be a strange thing to say at this point, but I don't believe that leadership and people management skills can be learnt from books. You might now be thinking, "What's the point of buying this one then?" Well, books - particularly the right kind - do play a vital supporting role in the learning process. When learning anything new, there is no substitute for a supportive mentor or an inspirational teacher, but they may be hard to find or may not always be available for help and advice. Even then, in any organisational, work or educational setting, they only form part of the learning equation. The main part is what you bring into these. This includes:

• Your personal aptitudes, abilities and experience.

• The leadership and people management skills you already possess.

• An awareness of your current strengths and limitations as a leader/manager.

• Knowing what you want to achieve and how you are going to realise this in the future.

The purpose of this book is to support your side of the learning equation, and it does this on three levels: the theoretical, the practical and the personal {...} However, it is important to emphasise that this is not a book that sells instant ‘fads', ‘quick-fix', or 'one-size-fits-all' solutions. Those who claim that you can become a better leader/manager in just a few days or weeks are misleading you, or want to sell more copies of their books, and/or get more participation at their ‘training' workshops. If anyone tells you that you can become a really successful and effective leader or manager in a short period of time they are being dishonest. This requires self-belief, time and commitment."

I quote these extracts only because they are typical of the best books on business leadership I've come across over the last 15 years (and, yes, there is plenty of dross out there). The best ones all put the onus for learning about leadership on the reader and do not try to sell instant ‘formulas for success'. In fact, most of the books I've come across during my career that routinely claim that they do have foolproof formulas for solving the many problems that companies face are those of the representatives of major consulting companies. This trend started, of course, with what is now an antique curiosity, In Search of Excellence, by the former management consultants Peters and Waterman back in the 1980s, and has continued through to several dozen highly questionable ‘secrets of business success' books produced in the 1990s and 2000s.

Leadership is a rigorous art, but the most effective leadership skills, competencies and practices are based in part on the findings of quantifiable research. I fully endorse the importance of steering clear of any ‘expert' who claims that s/he has a foolproof formula for successful business leadership be they academics or management consultants, but one must at least quantify what management academics do correctly.

Dr Nick Forster is Professor of Business Learning at Zayed University in the UAE. He is the author of four books, and has written more than 80 articles in a variety of international academic and practitioner publications.

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