CRITICAL DISCUSSION

The notion of leadership

The notion of leadership being

Introduction

Presents details of a study identifying the performance determinants required of chief executive officers (CEOs) and senior managers. The study compares current findings in management competences (referred to here as performance determinants) with previous research in this field. Although previous research has identified such performance determinants, the bulk of the literature has focused on middle management rather than on senior management. Sixty-six CEOs and senior managers in the public sector were interviewed. Preliminary analysis of the data indicated that there was little evidence of a generic model identifying the performance determinants for senior managers.

Previous Research

A review of the management literature dealing with competences revealed that most work on the topic has focused on middle management. There has been relatively little work on the performance determinants required of senior managers and executives. This causes concern as there is no reason to believe that the roles played by middle managers are similar to those of senior managers (Hart and Quinn, 1992;Norburn, 1989). It can be assumed, therefore, that they need different performance determinants to perform these roles.

Of the literature on senior managers, the bulk of the research has been piecemeal. Some research focused on the identification of one characteristic that a senior manager might need to possess or display. For example, “vision” was identified by Bennis and Nanus (1985) and Katz and Kahn (1978) and the “external boundary spanner role” was identified by Daft et al. (1988) and Jackson and Duetting (1988).

Few researchers have taken a more comprehensive view of the attributes necessary to be an effective senior manager. The most significant of these studies will now be discussed.

Boyatzis (1982) identified 11 competences associated with senior managerial effectiveness (see Table I). He argued that all these competences applied to executive-level managers. To develop this profile he collected data on 174 executive/senior managers from both the public and private sector.

While there is considerable evidence to support the validity of self-perception as an accurate measure of performance determinant there are limitations when this is the sole source of data. Our experience in organizations is that the opinions of significant others (which we refer to as “stakeholders”) are a valuable and enriching source of information often providing a broader and quite different perspective from that of the position holder.

The next three researchers to be discussed each developed a conceptual framework describing the performance determinants for senior managers. They did not empirically test their framework, unlike Hart and Quinn (1992) and Morgan (1988) who are discussed later.

Mintzberg (1975) identified 11 roles that fell into three main categories (see Table I). He argued that not only must senior managers be able to deliver in each of these roles but also they must be able to execute these roles simultaneously. Again, a numerically modest list was identified, as Table I indicates.

There are several possible explanations for this lack of convergence. One could argue that as two of the studies were conducted in the 1970s (Katz, 1974 and Mintzberg, ...