On Choosing a Chief Executive for ESCOM
Greenwell C. Matchaya
A slightly modified version appeared in the Nation news paper’s Business section on Thursday 04/03/2010
I am pretty sure that for most government theorists, executive search agencies, management consultants and those of us with some advanced level of management theory it is platitudinous that the quest for any company’s CEO is probably the single most important decision that a Board of Directors has to periodically make. The decision of a CEO is very critical to the immediate and inter-temporal health and productivity of any organization. CEOs can, and do, make or break organizational fabrics and integrity conditional on their style of leadership, foresight and dynamism. It is hence so obvious that boards ought to usher themselves into robust search for the right candidates for the job while bearing in mind the larger goals of the organisation.
The recent media debate on the choice of the CEO for the troubled ESCOM, partly tackled by MIE staff (referring to The Nation publication of the 24/02/10) and Dr Thomas Munthali is enthusing and in my view it opens an opportunity for a flow of ideas on what board members have to seriously consider when determining who should be at the helm of larger and important organisations such as ESCOM. The purpose of this article is not to take any sides in the debate, but to contribute my pound worth of points that board members may need to consider once challenged with the difficult task of anointing a CEO.
Board members have to be aware that competency constitutes a complex matrix of values, attitudes, personality traits, knowledge and skills as well as inherent foresight. It is a complex combination of factors some of which (for example, values) are slow and hard to change, while others such as skills can be acquired once someone is already in the leadership position. The implication of this is that, although competencies can, and do grow over time, any well meaning Board of Directors is wise to assess the competencies of a candidate from different angles, robustly. This implies that the mere fact that a candidate is a well-trained engineer or economist may not always be enough. Although ESCOM is charged with power generation and distribution, which on the face of it suggest the need for engineering expertise, this should not necessary apply to the top most man/woman on the job. In general ESCOM’s Board Members ought to consider a number of competencies in their quest for a CEO and must look beyond the engineering profession alone and indeed should consider those with organisational, business and managerial acumen too.
At the very least, the CEO needs be someone who is accountability oriented, and should hence welcome the opportunity to evaluate his own work relationships and performance, and that of others. He/she has to be that person who would remain optimistic and not pessimistic when issues are unresolved and is able to take measured risks even when the outcomes are uncertain. While clarity and attentiveness are also important for him/her to effectively communicate decisions, there also has to be some marked tangency between the values and vision of the CEO and those of the organisation he/she leads. Although one would argue that a CEO’s attachment to an organisation should be correlated with their profession, such correlations may not per se obtain in practice.
Furthermore, the demands imposed by the position imply that CEOs need to be endowed with some advanced level of conceptual thinking to be able to make connections between seemingly separate relationships, trends, issues and patterns as an input into mental frameworks that aid their understanding and interpretation of issues and information. Not only should they also need to have concern for excellence, delegation, effective judgement, empathy, objectivity, open-mindedness, progressiveness, staff fulfilment and personal integrity, they need to be process oriented and should be those who have the capacity to actively and fairly work towards resolution of firm level conflicts.
Again, CEOs with a know-it all attitude with little latitude for being directed or advised, often plunge organisations into low moments and hence it is important that CEOs be people who know their inner-resources such as gifts, character, personality et cetera, well enough to provide room for consultation and advice. They need to be productive themselves and should also know what constitutes firm-level productivity and how such productivity reflects in the welfare functions of the people their firm serves. Although self-esteem is important it needs to be measured as arrogant CEOs have little chance of taking their organisations to greater heights.
So, it seems to me and it should to some of you, that corporate leadership needs not necessarily depend on technical competence in the product being produced by the firm concerned, but it ought to depend on a good combination of factors that are both person specific as well as learned. To the extent that economics PhDs empower students with a worth of related competencies, managerial skills and discipline, and to the extent that MBA programmes from accredited and great institutions do offer their disciples a range of skills discussed herein too, there is absolutely no reason why it should be stated with confidence that an MBA or PhD economics candidate should fail to deliver in an energy, water or let alone a financial firm. Economists are trained to be versatile and the skills they acquire can, and do often get applied across the board. So, while it might show lack of sanity for any board to appoint a Central Bank boss without any Economics knowledge, it shouldn’t be insane to appoint a non-engineer to head ESCOM. Having said this, it has also not escaped my notice that, well-trained engineers with the said abilities could make great CEOs too. Ultimately, the board should further look at the past and present performance of ESCOM, associate it with the cadre of the bosses that have headed it, and make judgements in the context of resources and operating environment that characterised their respective tenures.
It must be acknowledge though that there are many other factors that may explain ESCOM’s lamentable performance, apart from the cadre of a CEO, such as financing, management structure and style, ownership structure/regimes, competition, macroeconomic factors including political will, and a few others, and these must be explored if ESCOM is to turn into a reliable generator and supplier of electricity.
***Send any feedback to matchayag@yahoo.co.uk
A slightly modified version appeared in the Nation news paper’s Business section on Thursday 04/03/2010
I am pretty sure that for most government theorists, executive search agencies, management consultants and those of us with some advanced level of management theory it is platitudinous that the quest for any company’s CEO is probably the single most important decision that a Board of Directors has to periodically make. The decision of a CEO is very critical to the immediate and inter-temporal health and productivity of any organization. CEOs can, and do, make or break organizational fabrics and integrity conditional on their style of leadership, foresight and dynamism. It is hence so obvious that boards ought to usher themselves into robust search for the right candidates for the job while bearing in mind the larger goals of the organisation.
The recent media debate on the choice of the CEO for the troubled ESCOM, partly tackled by MIE staff (referring to The Nation publication of the 24/02/10) and Dr Thomas Munthali is enthusing and in my view it opens an opportunity for a flow of ideas on what board members have to seriously consider when determining who should be at the helm of larger and important organisations such as ESCOM. The purpose of this article is not to take any sides in the debate, but to contribute my pound worth of points that board members may need to consider once challenged with the difficult task of anointing a CEO.
Board members have to be aware that competency constitutes a complex matrix of values, attitudes, personality traits, knowledge and skills as well as inherent foresight. It is a complex combination of factors some of which (for example, values) are slow and hard to change, while others such as skills can be acquired once someone is already in the leadership position. The implication of this is that, although competencies can, and do grow over time, any well meaning Board of Directors is wise to assess the competencies of a candidate from different angles, robustly. This implies that the mere fact that a candidate is a well-trained engineer or economist may not always be enough. Although ESCOM is charged with power generation and distribution, which on the face of it suggest the need for engineering expertise, this should not necessary apply to the top most man/woman on the job. In general ESCOM’s Board Members ought to consider a number of competencies in their quest for a CEO and must look beyond the engineering profession alone and indeed should consider those with organisational, business and managerial acumen too.
At the very least, the CEO needs be someone who is accountability oriented, and should hence welcome the opportunity to evaluate his own work relationships and performance, and that of others. He/she has to be that person who would remain optimistic and not pessimistic when issues are unresolved and is able to take measured risks even when the outcomes are uncertain. While clarity and attentiveness are also important for him/her to effectively communicate decisions, there also has to be some marked tangency between the values and vision of the CEO and those of the organisation he/she leads. Although one would argue that a CEO’s attachment to an organisation should be correlated with their profession, such correlations may not per se obtain in practice.
Furthermore, the demands imposed by the position imply that CEOs need to be endowed with some advanced level of conceptual thinking to be able to make connections between seemingly separate relationships, trends, issues and patterns as an input into mental frameworks that aid their understanding and interpretation of issues and information. Not only should they also need to have concern for excellence, delegation, effective judgement, empathy, objectivity, open-mindedness, progressiveness, staff fulfilment and personal integrity, they need to be process oriented and should be those who have the capacity to actively and fairly work towards resolution of firm level conflicts.
Again, CEOs with a know-it all attitude with little latitude for being directed or advised, often plunge organisations into low moments and hence it is important that CEOs be people who know their inner-resources such as gifts, character, personality et cetera, well enough to provide room for consultation and advice. They need to be productive themselves and should also know what constitutes firm-level productivity and how such productivity reflects in the welfare functions of the people their firm serves. Although self-esteem is important it needs to be measured as arrogant CEOs have little chance of taking their organisations to greater heights.
So, it seems to me and it should to some of you, that corporate leadership needs not necessarily depend on technical competence in the product being produced by the firm concerned, but it ought to depend on a good combination of factors that are both person specific as well as learned. To the extent that economics PhDs empower students with a worth of related competencies, managerial skills and discipline, and to the extent that MBA programmes from accredited and great institutions do offer their disciples a range of skills discussed herein too, there is absolutely no reason why it should be stated with confidence that an MBA or PhD economics candidate should fail to deliver in an energy, water or let alone a financial firm. Economists are trained to be versatile and the skills they acquire can, and do often get applied across the board. So, while it might show lack of sanity for any board to appoint a Central Bank boss without any Economics knowledge, it shouldn’t be insane to appoint a non-engineer to head ESCOM. Having said this, it has also not escaped my notice that, well-trained engineers with the said abilities could make great CEOs too. Ultimately, the board should further look at the past and present performance of ESCOM, associate it with the cadre of the bosses that have headed it, and make judgements in the context of resources and operating environment that characterised their respective tenures.
It must be acknowledge though that there are many other factors that may explain ESCOM’s lamentable performance, apart from the cadre of a CEO, such as financing, management structure and style, ownership structure/regimes, competition, macroeconomic factors including political will, and a few others, and these must be explored if ESCOM is to turn into a reliable generator and supplier of electricity.
***Send any feedback to matchayag@yahoo.co.uk
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