An integrated approach to leadership
Head, hearts and guts is a shorthand way of saying that leaders and managers need to use three different styles of leadership if they are to be successful.
Overview
To succeed across a range of responsibilities – from making decisions and setting strategy to handling relationships, motivating others and resolving problems – leaders need to use different styles and approaches that are appropriate to each situation and the people involved, to ensure that a company’s full potential is realized.
The success of each decision we make and implement depends on accessing a wide range of skills. For example, a strategy based on sound analytics will be ineffective without the courage, emotional intelligence and people skills that are also needed to make it happen.
Often, individuals rely on one preferred way of working, which leads to oversights, missed opportunities and underperformance. For example, relying predominantly on data and rational analysis (head) can make a leader too narrowly focused, while over-emphasizing emotional aspects (heart) can lead to flawed, ill-conceived strategy. Similarly, an almost exclusive dependence on courage (guts) to direct decisions and operations is likely to underestimate some key factors and the opinions of others.
Resolving the challenges leaders face requires brains, emotional intelligence and courage. Ensuring that leaders develop all three enables them to deploy the right approach at the right time to optimize an outcome and to ensure that decisions and relationships are not skewed by an over-reliance on one style. The holistic, integrated approach of head, heart and guts is effective because it sees situations from many angles, giving a fuller picture and a more appropriate way forward.
In practice: a systemic, integrated approach
David L. Dotlich, Peter C. Cairo and Stephen H. Rhinesmith advocate the holistic approach of head, heart and guts to avoid the damaging effects of leaders relying heavily on one method – such as not achieving performance improvements by failing to connect properly with others – and to enable leaders to deal with challenges and uncertainty and to operate effectively.
Implementing a four-stage process will help develop and empower leaders to use their brains, emotional intelligence and courage to meet the many challenges they face.
The four-stage process to developing an integrated approach
1 Address systemic issues
Remove potential obstacles that inhibit the ability to show heart and guts behaviors or to challenge existing norms such as a risk-averse culture.
2 Involve the executive committee
Get everyone in the organization to buy into this new, integrated approach — it has to become part of the company’s culture. For this to happen, you will need to secure the commitment of top management.
3 Use leadership development as a diagnostic tool
Bring systemic issues to the attention of top management by encouraging those developing their leadership skills to provide feedback and to share their opinions,
4 Customize the development program
Ensure that the head, heart and guts approach is tailored to your company’s specific needs and culture to enable it to be successfully integrated and of maximum benefit