Assignment:
Leaders come in all colors, ages, shapes, and sizes, with all manner of skills and temperaments, a variety and diversity seemingly matched only by the real-world challenges they must confront. In recent years, that expanding pool of leaders has been captured in an ever-broadening and deepening body of HBS?case materials.
The study of leadership, like everything else at HBS, begins with the case method. In the pages that follow, five alumni, whose leadership skills have been examined under the case-method microscope by thousands of HBS students, tell it like it was and relate what they've learned and what they believe about being a leader.
Toby Johnson
Putting Her People First
Whether leading in military or civilian life (bottom, at Frito-Lay), Johnson says, "If you do your job well, you can change people's lives for the better."
Photos Courtesy Toby Johnson
A standout high-school student-athlete who turned down Ivy League schools to attend West Point (its education of the total person beyond academics appealed to her), Toby Johnson (MBA '07) was deployed to Baghdad as an Apache helicopter pilot and staff officer during the Iraq War. Reaching the rank of captain while serving as a battalion adjutant in charge of all personnel matters, Johnson won raves from superiors and subordinates alike. Whether leading soldiers or civilians, Johnson strives "to put my people first." She believes leaders cannot be successful unless they show vulnerability, are consistent, take time to be balanced, have a vision, and embrace their role as decision-makers.
In the 2010 case "Toby Johnson: Leading After School," Johnson, with military service behind her and MBA in hand, is sent to PepsiCo's Frito-Lay plant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to introduce a new pilot project designed to enhance the motivation and performance of a group of 200 employees. A rare female manager at Frito-Lay, Johnson finds that her youth, inexperience, and outsider status, not her gender, are hurdles to be overcome to win the workers' allegiance. She does so in part by meeting one-on-one with every employee and introducing innovations such as pairing a shift worker with a manager in coleadership roles.
"This is an unusual case because it's about an MBA in her first job," notes the case's coauthor, HBS professor Boris Groysberg. "At Williamsport, Toby worked to understand the organization and get the employees involved, so when it was time for buy-in and action, they were ready to go. She's a high-potential leader." And an open-minded one as well: "I learned that I need to be a better listener and more understanding, especially of my peers," Johnson says of the experience, which in the end was a resounding success.
In the case, Johnson privately wonders if she can transition from the intensity and engagement of "defending freedom" to "producing snack food." To her surprise, she found employees' concern for their workplace "unit" similar to military life. "A driving motivation among the frontline workers was not letting down the people around them," she explains. "Leading in a civilian setting is not unlike in the military: if you do your job well, you can change people's lives for the better." And it's all about empowerment. Says Johnson, now a senior executive at PepsiCo in New York, "Coming to work and doing no harm is very different from coming to work and changing the way people perceive themselves."
-GE
Jamie Houghton
A Leader for All Seasons
Visiting a Corning plant in England in 1983 (bottom) and today in retirement. Says Houghton, "Perhaps the spirit of leadership is the spirit that is not so sure it is right all the time."
Photos Courtesy Corning Inc. Archives (bottom); Justin Ide (top)
The case "Corning 1983-96: Transition at the Top," written in 2001 by HBS?professor Michael Tushman and senior lecturer Mike Roberts, opens with Jamie Houghton (MBA '62), the great-great-grandson of the company's founder, taking over the corner office of his family's firm. After a grooming process begun at a Corning lightbulb factory in Kentucky, his mission is clear: lead the venerable but technologically innovative company away from specialty glass, television tubes, and fiberglass production into newer, faster-growing profit-making areas.
At the time, the economy is plagued by recession, worker morale is flagging, and the company is falling short of its operational goals. Leadership is needed. So how did Houghton, who would become renowned for his inclusive, team-oriented, nice-guy leadership, get everybody's attention? "I hit them over the head with a two-by-four and said, ‘Here's what we're going to do,'" Houghton recalls with a smile. That included instituting total quality management, still a novel concept in that era, a move that initially met resistance. But because TQM forced company-wide excellence in everything, not only in product quality, "It was one of the best things I ever did in a leadership role, and I'm proud of it," Houghton says.
Houghton renewed the company's culture on three cornerstones: quality, performance, and valuing the individual employee. As for strategy and the bottom line, the commercial areas he focused on were the medical-services business and the fiber division-even though fiber was losing $12 million annually-because Houghton believed a fiber-optics revolution was coming. His hunch proved right, the company flourished, and Houghton retired after a successful 13-year tenure.
But then came perhaps an even greater challenge. With the telecom meltdown and the bursting of the high-tech bubble, Corning's stock sank from $113 a share to around $1 a share in two years. With the company's survival in question, Houghton was called back as CEO in 2002. This time, leadership required lifting spirits, not dropping the hammer. He exhorted his employees ("We will succeed") while encouraging and relying on the very executives many thought had laid the company low, making this one of his finest leadership hours as he oversaw Corning's return to stability.
A former board chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and former (and longest-serving ever) member of the Harvard Corporation, Houghton believes a leader must "define reality, articulate the vision and set the strategic path to it, enshrine the institutional values, demand performance, empower the people, and then get out of the way and say thank you." A leader should also be a good listener, encourage a team culture, and be willing to make mistakes.
Humility is important, too: as Houghton once wrote (paraphrasing Justice Learned Hand), "Perhaps the spirit of leadership is the spirit that is not so sure it is right all the time."
-GE
Q1. Why do you think topy jhonson feels that leaders need to show vulnerability? Do you agree or disagree with her? Why?
Q2. Why does topy feel that the leadership role at her workplace is similar to her role in her military life?? Do you agree or disagree with her? Why?
Q3. Evaluate Jamie houjhton's leadership in light of situational leadership model. In your opinion what role did humility play in his success, if any?