Defining Leadership by Ralph S. Larsen

Ralph Larsen is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson

Leadership isn’t an easy concept to pin down. You could say it’s as simple as getting people to do things they otherwise might not think about doing or even want to do. Leadership may be pragmatically based, with people motivated to take action because they’ve been shown that it’s in their best interest to do so. Leadership could involve a charismatic personality who inspires through compelling visions and dreams. Perhaps the ultimate leader is driven by high ideals and principles, wanting to make the world a better place.

These and many other generalizations could be applied to just about anyone we know in a given situation. Indeed, everyone is a leader at some time in some way. But how do you define the qualities required in a person who holds a position that demands consistent leadership? How do you ensure that people in authority will be effective leaders? I believe this is the single most critical issue faced by an organisation, whether it be a giant multinational company or a small town, community-based initiative. It speaks to the heart of how people can join together effectively to make things happen.

A year or so ago, we at Johnson & Johnson decided it could be helpful to define what leadership means to us. By creating a benchmark of sorts, we could get an idea of how effective we are as leaders and the type of leadership we need to accomplish our goals going forward. We sought to create a definition of leadership that would embrace the diverse views, aspirations and ideas of people throughout our global organisation -- that would make as much sense in Sydney, Australia, as in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

We set up a leadership task force that represented a cross-section of management levels, functional responsibilities and geographic backgrounds in our Company. This group was chartered to develop a preliminary list of key leadership attributes. It drew on the collective knowledge of our Company and our ongoing worldwide experience. Current perspectives on leadership development were reviewed with leading academic experts. We also took a look at leadership development programs in a number of other companies that are known for effective management, such as Kao in Asia, Coca-Cola in Europe and Hewlett Packard in the United States.

A preliminary draft of leadership standards was written and shared with individuals and focus groups. Interestingly, we learned that many of our operating companies were already working on leadership guidelines. Our people everywhere are contending with rapid change and increasing complexity in every aspect of their business lives. Such major marketplace shifts require leaders to have both vision and the skills to turn that vision into productive actions. Clearly, it made sense to create enterprise-wide standards that everyone could draw on.

Based on the feedback, the leadership standards were revised, refined and reviewed by an even larger group worldwide to arrive at a consensus. We made a conscious effort to write the standards in a language that would be familiar to the people of our Company and that was built around our culture.

Our newly established Standards of Leadership are the fundamental requirements we are looking for in our leaders. The standards encompass five areas of competency, each of which is linked to core values that reflect our Credo. If you were to visit any Johnson & Johnson facility in the world, you would find the Credo displayed prominently and proudly. The Credo is a simple but powerful document written more than 50 years ago by then-Chairman, the late General Robert Wood Johnson. It outlines our responsibilities toour customers, employees, communities and shareowners. Credo values include behaving with honesty and integrity, and treating others with dignity and respect. At Johnson & Johnson, our Credo is the tie that binds our 90,000 people together with a common set of core values.

Here is a summary of the five areas of leadership competency and a few details about each:

1. Keeping our organisation focused on the customer and the marketplace. Our main focus is the customer. Leaders must understand the people they are serving and have a passion for serving them well.

2. Innovation. Leaders must forge a vision of the future, foster new ideas that can fuel growth, generate and encourage creative ideas and promote continuous learning and improvement. As we see it, our whole business is built on innovation – on finding new and better ways to improve the well being of people worldwide.

3. Interdependent partnering. Leaders must encourage cooperation and leverage capabilities across functions, operating units and geographic boundaries. We have to share our ideas, knowledge and resources to identify the best opportunities for our company and to capitalize on them.

4. Mastering complexity. As the world grows more complex, leaders must have the skills and understanding to gain competitive advantage. They need to know when and where to take action, be able to make the complex clear and compelling, and implement positive change. You could say that leaders must be like a compass pointing the way in a forest filled with a high velocity flow of often confusing information and very challenging, changing terrain.

5. Organisational and people development. Leaders must create an environment that challenges, motivates and rewards employees and encourages them to assume leadership. Leaders need to promote the value of diverse perspectives, ideas, backgrounds, styles and cultures. They must recognize that one of their most important tasks is to ensure that the people they lead become good enough at what they do to become leaders themselves

These leadership standards are not a rigid formula of behaviour but rather a flexible tool that can be enhanced by units of our Company around the world to recognize specific requirements and cultural issues. Developing them was just the first step. To make them come alive, we are taking steps to build them into virtually every aspect of our Company.

While we are still in an early stage of our leadership development program, we feel we have already gained much from our effort to pin down what good leadership means to us. The entire exercise of developing the Standards of Leadership, in itself, became a statement about the truly exemplary leadership skills we have throughout our Company. The standards will help us better harness these abilities – and make even more great things happen.

Leadership means charting a new course, bringing an organisation to a new place. Our Standards of Leadership reflect the very best leadership attributes at Johnson & Johnson and serve as a guidepost for managers with the determination and energy to translate their ideas into reality.

As we look ahead, we know we’re going to need more and more leaders to realize our vision of being the world’s preeminent health care company. Now we have a better understanding of the leadership qualities that have built our Company and that are necessary to sustain and strengthen us in the coming century. Perhaps considering what we’ve learned can help as you try to steer a leadership course in your life’s work.