Leadership PQ

How Political Intelligence Sets Successful Leaders Apart

Gerry Reffo, Valerie Wark

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780749469610
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Governo e imprese
• Index: Business

IQ and EQ (Emotional Intelligence) are not enough. Creating profit, growth and a better future for society is the new leadership challenge. In a shared power world, no single organization is in control or can deliver alone. Leadership PQ is for leaders working with multiple stakeholders to achieve more together. Shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year 2014/15, Leadership PQ introduces a new leadership requirement, PQ (political intelligence) that will allow governments and businesses to build relationships and work together in a new and more effective way. Successful leaders have built the capability to interact strategically in a world where government and business share power to shape the future. Leadership PQ explains why political intelligence is now a critical leadership requirement, presents exclusive case studies and interview material to demonstrate the impact of PQ in action, and provides practical advice to on how to develop it by effectively navigating the Golden Triangle of business, government and society. Leadership PQ is targeted at: business leaders at a multinational and local level; leaders involved in public policy and delivery; leaders of non-profit organizations; executive teams; and aspiring leaders in all sections. While each sector features different challenges, PQ can give them greater reach and impact.

PART ONE Introducing political intelligence (PQ)

01 What is PQ and why does it matter?

Out of the confusion, complexity and challenge of today emerges an opportunity to lead differently tomorrow.

Why it matters

The future demands leaders who can do more. The new leadership challenge is to deliver profit growth and a better future by business, government and society working together.

Globalization, complex societal challenges, changes in the planet, population, wealth and technology mean that the world is becoming more interdependent and power is more broadly distributed. It’s happening now and it will intensify.

Business, government and non-profit sectors affect each other through the things they do and don’t do. They also need each other because they cannot deliver alone. Leaders in all sectors operate within this relationship of shared power. Adjusting to it means that they have to do things differently. Some are better at it than others.

What are the best leaders and the most successful organizations doing? They look beyond the urgent and immediate day-to-day demands to see what the future needs and how that shapes what they do today. What they find is complex and multi-dimensional. Dealing with it requires intense focus and the capacity to work with multiple stakeholders and partners. Likely solutions are long term, innovative and benefit all.

How do they do this? Using most of the skills you might expect: cognitive intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ). But there is more to it. It’s a different form of intelligence. We’ve called it Political Intelligence (PQ). PQ draws on both IQ and EQ and extends beyond them both. Here is our definition:

PQ is the leadership capacity to interact strategically in a world where government, business and wider society share power to shape the future in a global economy.

You might wonder why we’ve used the term ‘political’ intelligence. We’ve returned to the Greek origin of the word politics. It is politikos, meaning of or relating to citizens: civic. PQ is rooted in the relationship between citizens, government and business.

This book describes the skills, behaviours and processes required to lead effectively when power is shared and the objective is to deliver profit for business and social benefits for wider society. We know that leaders in all sectors are exceptionally busy and want tools that are useable. So, we’ve designed a simple model of PQ leadership capacity based on five facets. We’ve also included help for individuals to develop their own PQ. For senior leaders, we’ve offered tools and methodology for implementing PQ in your organization.

Our book is intensely practical. It’s written for leaders and future leaders in all sectors. We share with you practical advice and examples from successful leaders. We’ve focused on the best in class. In business, this means leaders of organizations that combine (huge) profit with an active contribution to society. In public policy and non-profit organizations, it means showing how partnership works to deliver impact and scale. We’ve also invited leaders with senior level experience of business and government to contribute.

What we describe is not easy to master, so this book is for the courageous. We want it to inspire leaders in all sectors and in all sizes of organization to challenge themselves and their colleagues about what they do, how they do it, and how they might do it better.

Who needs PQ?

If you are a leader, or want to be a leader, then PQ is for you. It is targeted at:

• business leaders at multinational and local level;

• leaders involved in public policy and delivery;

• leaders of non-profit organizations;

• executive teams;

• aspiring leaders in all sectors.

While we acknowledge that each sector faces different challenges, we’ve found a common denominator that successful leaders and successful organizations share. PQ gives them reach and impact because they work with others to deliver more in the broadest sense.

What PQ isn’t

We should say here what PQ and this book is not about. It’s not a guide to politics, nor is it a manual to help you navigate internal organizational politics.

You might be wondering – is this simply about working in a collaborative way? What’s new in it? How will it benefit me?

First, let’s be clear. Collaborative working is ongoing, important and essential. We’re not questioning that. But PQ is more than working together with one or more people to achieve a purpose.

What PQ is

PQ is for leaders with enough insight, vision and humility to recognize that they are working within a wider system. What they offer has to meet the needs of customers, consumers, citizens, the environment and future generations. No one sector or organization can deliver what is needed alone. Government, business and society share the power to provide better outcomes for all.

Why has the need for PQ arisen?

In the 1980s and 1990s in many developed economies there was a widespread view that government had proved pretty useless at trying to manage the economy. The consequence had been poor economic growth. The solution was that government adapted its role in the management of the economy to providing a stable long-term macro-economic framework and a stable regulatory climate (not too much regulation and not too little), allowing business to get on with making money.

Taxes would then allow government to do its other job, which was the provision of public services. Most business leaders at the top of companies today cut their teeth in this world.

The world is different now. Most businesses don’t operate in a stable long-term economy, nor do they have the regulatory environment they want. The world is becoming more regulated. And few countries would be described by business as ‘well governed’, with the promise of predictable business-friendly policies.

We asked Sir John Grant, Executive Vice President Policy and Corporate Affairs at BG Group and a former top diplomat, for a business view of government. He observed the following:

• Electorates/citizens are better educated, better informed, better networked and as a result better organized and more demanding than ever before.

• Governments face greater constraints than ever before, largely as a result of globalization which puts international capital in control and reduces governments’ room for manoeuvre and has created a whole set of problems which governments can’t solve by themselves (climate change, immigration being two).

The result is that democratic governments are generally in thrall to the news cycle and have to react all the time to developments outside their control. This gives enormous influence to minorities and makes it almost inevitable that governments will pursue short-term and unpredictable policies which business won’t like.

Moises Naim, a former Venezuelan trade and industry minister and editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, comes from a different background to John but reaches a similar conclusion. In his book The End of Power (2013), he argues that all leaders (including political, business and military) face bigger and more complex problems. Why? He cites three ‘Ms’:

• more of everyone and everything, which overwhelms the means of control;

• greater mobility of people and ideas; and

• a new mentality bringing different aspirations, expectations and values.

The impact of the three ‘Ms’ is felt by leaders in government, business and non-profit organizations. Those who exercise power are more constrained and less secure than their predecessors across the board. Government struggles with the speed of ideas and change. By trying to please all, politicians can miss the need to lead and govern.

Business struggles with the speed in which reputations of companies, products and services change. Partly, this is because of greater transparency and partly because consumer values, perceptions and expectations evolve.

Non-profit organizations benefit when their cause is aligned with the public mood, but struggle if public sympathy shifts. The UK charity regulator, the Charity Commission (2012), aware of the risks, recently warned about large executive pay increases when donations to charities are going down, bringing the wider charitable sector into disrepute.

So what is the challenge for today’s leaders?

The task facing today’s leaders is how to lead in a world where government cannot govern alone and the world is facing complex global challenges.

Muhtar Kent, Ch...