Ethos Issue 5, Nov 2008

Accelerating the Growth of the Asian Leader
Bruce J. Avolio and Peter Ong

Research from Gallup suggests that the emerging Asian workforce may benefit from a different model of leadership development.

LEADERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN ASIA
After years of phenomenal growth, Asian economies may well be facing a much slower pace of development given the current global financial crisis, although their fundamental potential remains sound. Indeed, given the instability and volatility in current global markets, highly capable leadership will be required across both public and private sectors, and across institutions large and small to sustain growth in difficult times. Top Asian leaders in government and the private sector should be asking a very fundamental question: "Does this region have the requisite leadership to keep growth going?"

Whilst rapid up-scaling of the Asian leadership bench is needed, Asian leadership, as a focal topic, has rarely been studied. Indeed, most of the research and books on leadership over the last decade have primarily focused on Western leadership. To this end, Gallup and the Global Leadership Institute (GLI) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) recently embarked on a landmark Asian Leader Study in 2008. This study was commissioned by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) of Singapore, and covered leaders in six dynamic Asian cities, namely Singapore, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai¹. The Gallup-UNL Asian Leader Study has yielded many fascinating insights into the nature, style, quality and challenges of contemporary organisational leadership in Asia.

REDUCING ACCIDENTAL LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
Through the study, many Asian Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) interviewed revealed that they were not formally developed and groomed for leadership positions. Instead, they had often been selected to lead because they were the most qualified in terms of their job performance, without any particular qualifications or experience in leadership. This "accidental" advancement of leaders can be seen across the board, regardless of whether the CEOs were from Singapore, Beijing or Bangalore. This is due in large part to the fact that most of the organisations in the study’s sample did not have a comprehensive and strategic leadership development system.

The four most common responses to why Asian CEOs ended up in leadership roles were:

• because it "just happened" (accidental) in terms of being at the right place at the    right time;
• because they had a desire to have an impact by being a leader (a self-guided    desire to positively impact others);
• because they were simply seeking to do well in their current position and, as a    result, increasingly had leadership opportunities presented to them (incremental);
• because they were a member of the family business or had a strong parent who    encouraged them to move into these leadership positions (appointed).

Most of the CEOs said that they had no plan whatsoever to be a leader, let alone a top leader of an organisation. Very few saw it as their destiny to lead in the early part of their careers and were therefore not proactive and intentional in their personal leadership development. "Accidental" leadership transition seems to be the modus operandi in terms of leadership development for many organisations in Asia.

For organisations in Asia and for Asia as an entire region to accelerate and sustain their growth, more formal and more intentional forms of strategic leadership development must be embraced. Moving forward, leadership development in Asia must be much more strategic, intentional and proactive. If we leave leadership development to chance, Asia and its organisations run a very high risk of not being able to produce enough leaders to support their ambitions for growth.

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