Highly recommended course for everybody who seeks to find himself at dynamic 21st century environment! https://lnkd.in/eHabDGj You'll find it @ https://www.coursera.org/learn/leadership-21st-century

1. MY PERSONALAPPROACH TO 21ST CENTURY
LEADERSHIP
Name: Dainius Puodžiūnas
Address: Vilnius, Lithuania
Occupation: Key Account Manager at F&B company

2. Richard Branson once said that “Leadership doesn’t have a secret formula; all
true leaders go about things in their own way”. This sentence brings me back to
my initial understanding about leadership which to be honest stick inside my head
but I was not so sure about exact meaning of it before taking opportunity to join
this wonderful course. After many hours spent online and exposing plenty of
leadership examples / theories I can only assume that nowadays there is no such
one model which would suit to all needs. Every of us have to be flexible and adapt
himself according to situation.
It is a perfect opportunity to create a personal framework based on my latest
findings from this course and I am sure it will help me to make my very own
positive impact on the world. I will try to present it like my/yours own “arrival” as
new CEO, so let’s start the journey !

3. TAKING ON A LEADERSHIP ROLE
Upon getting oriented as a new CEO and
taking responsibility to deliver company to
shareholder’s desired destination, it is crucial
to understand contextual fact base of the
company you taking lead (including financial
audit, specifics of the job, culture and vision
of the company, business environment and
former leadership style). The understanding
process should not be arranged as a deep
study of the old way of doing things and
deciding what to keep and what to modify-
nowadays leaders would opt for faster
acclimatization and understanding the context
instead of pointing what was bad or good and
not taking bold actions with no clear view.
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The team : company is nothing without a
good team and team is more that sum of its
parts (exceptional talents, etc.). 20th century
leadership position “CEO must be the
smartest person in the room” is fake as it is
impossible to know everything in the world.
Taking leadership position means the wisdom
to see “Big picture” and find the right people
to help you to reach the target.
Very important principle to follow : judge
others as you would judge yourself , so before
starting to make significant changes – talk to
your team , get understand their vision of doing
things around and try to imagine do they fit to
your strategy as the team players. People will
judge you as well considering your background
and former experience, so be prepared to face
uncomfortable situations and make a pause
before defining standards and setting
evaluation criteria for others.
At the same time you assessing your team
and starting your own “100 days plan”
working, focus on company free cash flow
which is “foundation-stone” of your future
success. And not to forget to create vision
how your success will look like, as what
get’s measured – get’s done!
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Every leader should set to-do list, which
helps to stick to own leadership style and
build–up general strategy to lead the team.
There are few major points to mention:
a) Finding and retaining the best talent in
the team and empower them to deliver
maximum results;
b) Making technology a competitive
advantage as digital appearance is
transforming business world;
c) Continuously enhancing the client
service as client has the „gold“ which
you need to take to your company;
d) Leader must maintain global focus of its
business on a day-to-day basis;
e) Develop the right corporate culture as it
fuels everything you do!
Being as a CEO today means standing in a “house of glass”, where everyone is able to see your
personal life and to be more precise : your private life partly belongs to your public position. In
conditions of super-transparency- communication and actions must be “crystal-clear” otherwise it
might negatively affect the life of company employees, cause losses to company stakeholders.
Information in today‘s digital world moves around instantly so CEO always must bear in mind
these questions : “who knows you… what do they know…what do they learn about you and lead
to some conclusion” ? No one business model today can rely on strategies that depend on keeping
secrets, so try to keep your strategy aligned to these points (see below):
Practical
consideration
s
Legalities
People’s sense
what is fair
Life in a super-transparent communication era also means that
you might face a lot of challenges which needs your input as a
CEO. So if there any problems arise, CEO must be in the
frontline (media, etc.) to see what’s happening and how to
respond. You have to respond in ways that seem reasonable to
others and that are correct. If you trust your PR department only,
so you might not answer wrongly, but in this case probably you
will not deliver required answer (the truth). So choose carefully
the right source for your response in order to make it credible and
correct.

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So – you have arranged your own team of
individuals, what’s now? Can they deliver best
results just as being talented individuals, or we
need something more? We learned that we can’t
rely only on individuals only at 21st century, so
company leader must take responsibility to
make collaboration among these individuals
working.
Great collaboration is characterized by some
specific traits, such as: collaborative problem-
solving and decision-making, “Open process”
and leadership of the process rather than the
group (people). It demands leader to know
leadership context (the community, nature of the
problems), skip the barriers to collaboration and
understand exact group’s capacity to collaborate.
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Benefits of collaborative leadership:
- Sense of ownership builds commitment to common purpose;
- More involvement in implementation;
- Trust building;
- Access to more and better ideas;
- Creates the base of generating new leaders in the team
Difficulties of collaborative leadership:
- Time consuming;
- Because it demands the ability to face conflicts directly, it is not
for those who prefer everything calm;
- It is also not acceptable for those who are doing their jobs great,
but still prefer that leader tell them what exactly to do;
- It is also demands that leaders subordinate their ego’s
Picture below (source www.presentationgo.com)
describes the difference between Boss (20th century
leadership icon) and a leader (21st century leadership
idol) and gives us a hint to collaborative leadership:

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Do we know what drives our employees forward ? How they could set aside their own objectives and commit efforts to meet company objectives?
Here comes motivation and inspiration part for CEO, as desired outcome could be reached only with help of other people (team). In 20th century
motivation was based on various economic models which were continually developed. But are they still efficient in 21st century environment?
Principal-agent
theory
The employment
contract
Holmstrom and
Milgrom theory
McGregor‘s
Theory X and Y
Ouchi Theory Z
We can learn a lot from all these theories which might lead to conclusion
that financial incentives as the main motivation tool (fixed, payed for
performance, merit pay) are not longer recommended (but still widely
used) and Chester Barnard‘s idea to „create and sustain a culture of
beliefs and values that would support cooperation“ plays much greater
role in nowadays situation. CEO must find the key to make employees
identify themselves with the company and act in the name of it leaving
their self-interest aside and be prepared to sacrifice some aspect of
themselves for it. There is no secret formula how to rethink their approach
to performance, but we can use the examples from several FORTUNE500
companies which focus on:
• Instant performance management;
• Evaluation in role not vs. someone
else;
• Asking how to get best value
out of the time and money
they‘re spending
CEO of Accenture Pierre Nanterme vision about employee‘s performance motivation:
„The art of leadership is not to spend your time measuring, evaluating. It‘s all about selecting the person. And if you
believe you selected the right one, then you give him freedom, the authority, the delegation to innovate and lead..“

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The CEO who select the right people to his team and delegates them to deliver best value, always
has some formal structure behind him which enable the governance for his actions. In business
world it commonly means Board of Directors (BOD) which represent the interests of company
shareholders and CEO is reporting to BOD. In normal conditions, BOD works with CEO towards
success, they provide some advice and insights (as non-investor experts can be board members)
and make big financial or acquisition decisions. It is up to CEO to decide to take or leave their
advices, but BOD has legal right to fire CEO, so company would prosper if CEO and BOD would
act like a team. The example which we had at Santa Monica Networks (SMA) make a very good
contrast between effective BOD (after Jim was able reconfigure it) and non-effective BOD which
was present on Jim Barton‘s becoming CEO of SMA. Effective board (by Ana Doutra) could be
defined as such a) which can work as a group, clearly understand their role and mission, b) and in
specialized individual roles such as succession planning, acquisitions and capital allocation. This
context helps to identify weak boards (SMA example), where board was non-strategic, detached,
board composition was poor with no dynamics and proper process management (eg. Board
member joins meeting unprepared, etc.).
To finalize with the BOD, I would like point our several topics to remember, which might help to
assure effective board (see below). By the way - most important thing for BOD is ensure that
company has best CEO, and being member of the board it is not a honor – it is WORK!
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Preparing for meetings is a must (use modern
systems, prepare your speech as the CEO and involve
company sectretary into the role)
Members roles and responsibilities must be
clearly defined (Chairman, other directors)
Board performance (well-balanced and sized board,
keeping agenda and following action points)
Succession planning (it is not appropriate simply to
recruit a friend of the chairman or so)

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We already made enough steps in our position
as being CEO that we already are able to see
“Big picture”, where CEO normally could
start steering company to desired direction.
But every change of direction from what have
worked in the past to what used to in the
future, involves change of the team (people)
who as the most of human-being aren’t so
good in changing. So what steps are required
to take for leading change ?

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Kotter International 8-Step Process clearly defines actions for leading change, which might
be used for our personal framework:
1. CREATE sense of urgency (exciting people to sign up to change their organization);
2. BUILD guiding coalition (group with power and energy to support collaborative change
effort);
3. FORM strategic vision and initiatives (vision helps to steer the change effort, initiatives
to reach that vision);
4. ENLIST a volunteer army (who’s are ready, willing and urgent to drive change);
5. ENABLE action (removing barriers);
6. GENERATE short term wins (produce, track, evaluate and celebrate accomplishments);
7. SUSTAIN acceleration (hire, promote and develop employees who can implement the
vision);
8. INSTITUTE change (point out the connections between the new behaviors and
organizational success).
The key to success of leading change is inherent of CEO’s actions in this process, where leader must : a) Show-up (being there); b) Speak-up
(use the power of voice); c) Look-up (for bigger issue, etc.); d) Team-up; e) Never give-up (everything look like a failure in the middle); f) Lift
others-up (share success).

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People is the most important asset of any company and it is concurrent part of any
company success in 21st century organizations.
Is this good option to build up teams just like choosing extrovert personality vs.
introvert ? Do we seek to hire such who would fit our required “uniform” and
would fit into system just like a “cog in the machine wheel” ? This course proved
for us that current competitive and fast changing environment requires to have
talents which probably would be totally different from others (they might be
considered as “weeds” in other communities, but in other context - their
difference might be very valuable!). The example of “SPECIALISTERNE” seems
like a triumph of justice in nowadays world where people with disability were
turned to special ability employees. The “Dandelion principle” (for someone
dandelion is just a weed, which spoil your grass while others consider it as a
valuable plants which might deliver medically proved benefits to your health)
should be applied in conditions where 21s century leaders building teams of
outlier performers, who can perform only in their accepted conditions.
Companies will prevail in the future business competition if they will be able to
produce valuable differences (innovations). If we have only “uniformed” people
working for us, we will not be able to innovate.
Future depends on unusual and unreasonable people, who wouldn’t adapt themselves to the world.
They will persists in trying to adapt the world to their needs. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man! (George Bernard Shaw)

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But how organizations should arrange their recruiting process in order not to
leave “talent on the table” ? Do we find idiosyncratic talents if we do not change
our attitude what in some cases makes a dandelion a weed, but in fact it is not
essential characteristic?
To avoid such mistake leaders must
focus to diversity of their teams which
adds complexity to organization in a
long run. Diversity should be based
on:
• Fair distribution of gender in
leadership positions;
• Generation intelligence;
• Cultures and identity of their
employees;
• Integration people with disabilities;
• Granting LGBT rights
The CEO has to make an input into creation
of motivating environment for excellent
performers (manage the talent) as it is kind
of “red line” when defining those who
focused on capturing value (management
positions) and those who creating value
(creators, who need autonomy, has
competence and seeking for relatedness in
the process). CEO should understand that
excellent performers have no respect to
Status Quo, so applying right leadership
style might help to avoid organizational
shake-up situations.

12. *image from www.theredritter.com
First of all, leader must keep his head
cool and:
• Never get mad, deal with constant
stress (push your realistic
optimism towards, try to find an
order in chaos and stay focus to
the purpose);
• Be definite, do not vacillate and
let others talk;
• Try to keep your sence of humor
and learn to relax;
• Invite critisism and learn to take
it. Do not isolate yourself;
• Make your reputation prove that
you are able to help in crisis
If those on the left side might be
considered as personal actions, these
formal actions are crucial as well:
• Try to focus to a company cash
which will be needed to drive your
company from crisis;
• Face the reality and always
understand that things could get
worse;
• Never waste a good crisis and be
aggressive in the marketplace, as
crisis offers the best opportunity to
change the game into your favor;
• If there‘re sacrifices to be made,
leader shoud step-up first!
Your plan how to materialize company strategy might look easy to implement. But how the reality looks like? Is this really so simple? What
to do when you have to lead in crisis when things are not going as well as planned?

13. It was already mentioned that companies will prevail in the
future business competition only if they will be able to produce
valuable differences (innovations). What is the innovation?
According to Shannon Hessel (Assistant Professor, PHD
Copenhagen Business school) it is “the creation of valuable
novelty”. Novel and creation process are reflecting relevant
outcomes to the audience they aim to address and these
outcomes are unique, special and differentiated from other
offerings. Innovation can address organizations, processes and
various outcomes (products, services, etc.). We heard several
innovation stories during this course (Boeing’s Moonshine-shop,
IDEO) or SMA example even where engineering team faced
issues with “The Global systems integration” principle because
of some failures in the innovation and execution process.
So where company leader stands when we mean “Leading
innovation process” ?
* Image via https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/road-success-shortcuts-tom-
glover

14. The leader who seeks continuous innovation and
understand it as the only chance to survive should set his
mindset for continuous learning and thinking “outside
the box”. Innovation spirit must be nourished within all
levels of organization and CEO should focus on:
• Invest in the best people and get them to work well
together;
• Let them make mistakes, generate variation and ask
do not repeat the process if you want to get different
outcome;
• Never be done innovating and do not stick to precise
timing as innovations emerge;
• Do your research and collect ideas for inspiration;
• Afford team autonomy and measure productivity
differently ;
• Be persistent and no not stop before goal is achieved;
• Collaborate with others for innovation
Photo: iStock
Collaboration with others might be realized in many ways (close collaboration, co-
creation) and the outcome depends of collaboration level. In close collaboration no
one person or idea dominates and it leads to balanced situation. Co-creation might
appear in many different forms which lead to different outcomes:
• Expert mindset driven co-creation could create novelty which exceeds customer
expectation (SMA example of cockpit design where they had problem to choose
between user driven innovation and manufacturer driven innovation);
• Participatory mindset driven co-creation would benefit those who will use
innovation outcome, but from my point of view – it sometimes might look as
improvement only at the end.

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We went for a mission to understand ourselves as the future leaders. It is an endless
task to fullfill, as today‘s world is packed with challenges which requires personal
adaptability and learning agility to cope with them non-stop. What is the most
important part of our leadership journey which could connect all these passed
sections together and make it happen in real ?
EXECUTION - or in other words – the discipline of getting things done. If we
do not get execution right, nothing else matters...
Execution is a discipline which acts like a systematic way of exposing reality and
acting on it. Famous entrepreneur Jack Welsh sees execution as „The People
process“, „The Strategy process“ and „The Operation process“. This vision might
us lead to understanding that execution has to be in company culture and it is up to
company leader to getting it right. In generally, leaders responsibility for execution
lays on few core processes like a) picking other leaders to execute (the main point
is to have right people in the place, but not to delegate tasks), b) setting the
strategic direction and c) conducting operations.
How to lead execution:
INVOLVE all responsible for the
strategic plans‘s outcome
ASK TEAM how they are going to
achieve their projected demand (on
their timely basis, costs, inventory
turns, etc?
SET MILESTONES for the progress
of the plan with strict accountability
for the people in charge (but do not
micromanage!)

16. Most of us believe that people are organization’s most important asset,
but only leader’s stewardship of the people process is what will
convert that belief to reality.
Execution is the part of the company strategy, so it must be driven very
carefully. Leader must treat his employees as he wants his clients should
be treated and when employees will feel empowered – the whole
organization will win. *image from http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-374185681/stock-vector-driving-execution-
circle-stamp-word-cloud-business-concept.html
*image from http://www.theeyeworks.com/blog/comments/its-all-about-execution/

17. Execution is the key to success. Organizational culture is setting standards how the things will be executed and strong company culture
depends on corporate vision, strategy and communication based interaction among team members. Leader must understand current company
culture if he wants to transforming it’s culture because of needed change.
Failing in this will reflect in company results as it was with IBM case (a culture of
promotion with high levels of bureaucracy which led to this that IBM faced technological
discontinuity ) or General Motor’s “cost culture” with the upshot of it was that GM had to
recall 20M cars to fix major issue which caused fatalities (repair price per car was 1$, but
at the end there were enormous losses both financial and reputation concerned).
As the correct example I would point Richard Nolan who described Boeing’s corporate
culture as “explicit and implicit embodiment” where excellence is the only one standard
and they say that “how we do things in Boeing – that is how things get done”. This
example proves that company culture is one of the most important assets as reflected in
many company practices and traditions.
To summarize SMA corporate culture, the situation there was very similar to one as Gerstner found at IBM. Company strategy and culture was
very limited and demanded major change in order to survive. I would say that SMA combines similarities of Kodak case as well, where it is
clear that change is mandatory but it was to late (for Kodak) because of inability to transform company culture to change. Jim was able to unite
his team for shared purpose and started SMA to deliver solutions which should lead SMA to success in the future.
* Image from
http://www.abcam.com/index.html?pageconfig=resource&rid=12566

18. The actions performed by a leader (CEO) at „the end of the day „ will start
working and might be measured in many ways and that is desired outcome as
(I repeat it again) what get‘s measured – get‘s done. Measuring your
performance as a leader allows self analysis of leadership style you‘re
applying and helps to identify possible threats or opportunities to your
organization. This - Managerial Grid - measurement method can not be taken
as absolute one, as it doesn‘t take work environment and other variables into
consideration, but it is still highly used in today‘s organizations.
Today‘s leader tend to build his own leadership style based on all theories
mentioned below adding his own unique approach to contextual base and
understanding leadership as :
• responsibility of all team members and community;
• diversity of ideas, views, creativity;
• synergy with team as team always outperform one individual;
• feedback as a vital ingredient to individual team performance and
possibility to team members to contribute in decision-making process;
• excellence as the only acceptable standart.
1. The great man theory
2. The trait theory of leadership
3. The skills theory of leadership
4. The style theory of leadership
5. The situational leadership theory
6. The contingency theory
7. Transactional leadership
8. Transformational leadership
9. Leader-member exchange theory
10. Servant leadership theory
10 Leadership theories to
remember

19. Responsibility will always be integral part of leadership. 21st century leader must
focus to creation of values in the organizations which are inseparable from
responsibility of everyone involved. When I say values, I mean not only tangible
corporation assets (cash, equity, property, etc.), but also human qualities which are
delivered by every person itself : humanity, decency, caring, fairness,
dependability, honesty and so on.
Failing to understand responsibility as the duty by leaders of this period, led us to
Global Crisis in 2008, where lack of government‘s regulations, humanity and
responsibility to the mankind in generall end-up with crash of banks and people
lives and caused huge losses around the world.
*image from http://spip.modkraft.dk/tidsskriftcentret/undersider/article/capitalism-in-crisis-
1-2008
Another example which we had from Lord John Browne (former CEO of British Petroleum) case leaves many ambiguous thoughts when trying to
asses him as a leader and understanding his impact to meaning of leadership at all. From one side we see his efforts to change whole oil industry
addressing it as such which largely contributes to global warming and making BP global powerhouse with sense of developing good living
standarts and safe environment around the world. But from other side we also facing major BP disaster in Texas (another, Deepwater Horizon
disaster occurred after John Browne‘s retirement, but it still possible to link it to same „heritage“ which caused Texas blast at 2005) and personal
life issues which led to troubles for BP in public. This case demonstrates leader as the opportunist-dreamer who set many goals but do not have
solid plan how to achieve - execute it (if you don‘t have a plan for your goal- it is just a wish...).

20. To finish my own personal approach to 21st century leadership, I will go
back to introduction of the course video where Rob Austin (Professor,
PHD) quoted historical Abraham Lincoln speech in the Congress of
United States:
“The dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present. The
occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew”.
This universal and visionary thesis keeps the meaning in current time and
proves the necessity for everyone of us - today‘s leaders – to demonstrate
personal adaptability and learning agility to cope with non-stop challenges.
My personal leadership statement after taking this course: I see myself as
the Servant who makes the priority to serve others rather than beeing
served. People follow out of love and gratitude and not for compulsion or
fear. When you will help others to reach their goals, you'll help yourself as
well. Questions in the left sided picture might serve as the framework to
build our own Authentic leadership, as that is the only key to success!
Thank you!
*image from https://vladimerbotsvadze.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/11-themes-of-servant-
leadership-leadership/)