The Return on Leadership

In a world where the playing field has been leveled and everyone has access to the same technology, skills and markets, how do you compete?

Compared to investments in equipment and people, leadership is often viewed as a "soft skill" - an optional nice-to-have that is all about catering to the emotional needs of employees. New research shows that's a blind spot that is undermining our potential for long-term growth. It's now clear that good leadership, focused on Vision, Engagement and Execution, is great business. But if that's true, where's the data? How can we drive a business case, alongside our ROI calculations, to grow our Return on Leadership (ROL)?

That's now possible, using new, statistically validated leadership assessments and tools that link the impact of individual leaders to critical metrics like revenue, profitability and market share. With case studies including Ford Motor Company, global IT services, and first-hand experience as a Fortune 500 executive, leadership coach and naval flight officer, author DL Brouwer provides a clear, actionable plan to help you drive your "Return on Leadership."

Excerpts from The Return on Leadership

The Return on Leadership

“It means that leadership done right is the gift that keeps on giving. Even small increases in leadership capacity yield disproportionate gains, and unlike our experiences in the physical world, advances in leadership aren’t subject to the law of diminishing returns. That’s because it’s not about the leader, it’s about unleashing the power of the organization in service to a common vision, and that’s not an arithmetic thing – it’s exponential. Clarity of vision drives engagement, which in turn drives clarity of vision, creating a virtuous cycle that feeds on itself in a self-renewing, upward spiral. In addition, the ROL effect is available to organizations in two ways, either by investing in leadership capacity growth in current leaders, or by bringing in more advanced leadership from the outside. Either way, over time, the organization will reap the rewards of its investment through concrete, measurable Returns on Leadership.”

Excerpt From: D.L. Brouwer. “The Return on Leadership.” iBooks. 

A Financial Bubble, All to Ourselves

“By 2009, the last of the traditional trading pits are being quickly relegated to the history books, replaced by a technology-centric model in which trading occurs in computer applications running on clusters of servers housed in secure data centers in New Jersey, Chicago, London, and Hong Kong. It is another unbelievably specialized business with exacting requirements for network performance and capital investment in which Savvis is an unwitting, underfunded, reluctant competitor. I know it sounds crazy, but hey, there it is…our very own Financial Network Services business, complete with its own capital requirements, product life cycle and impatient, high-visibility clientele. If we can’t keep up on the network side, there’s an excellent chance that the financial players will move out of our data centers, a devastating financial blow. We’ve got our own little financial bubble, all to ourselves.”

Excerpt From: D.L. Brouwer. “The Return on Leadership.” iBooks.

Resistance to Change

“People naturally build organizations. Leaders try to shape, energize and focus these organizations as they grow, while a set of natural forces conspire to tear them down along largely predictable lines. The people in the organizations resist all of this, because although many of us profess to love change, it’s generally only when it involves someone else, it improves our own lives, or it validates our beliefs that we were right all along. Unfortunately, that’s the exact opposite of what transformative change, which is personal, challenging, and driven by inconvenient truth, is all about.”

Excerpt From: D.L. Brouwer. “The Return on Leadership.” iBooks.

From Carnage to Crew

“The system that guides the way in which all of that raw talent is molded into skilled aviators is called NATOPS, the Navy’s acronym for Naval Aviation Training and Operations Standardization. NATOPS exists for the very good reason that, before it was created, the Navy was killing pilots and obliterating airplanes at a gruesome, unsustainable pace. This is relevant to our discussion on leadership because NATOPS and the tight crew coordination and collaboration it requires are built around a shared vision, full engagement, and precise execution at every level.

This approach starts with naval aviation overall, and continues through the ranks to include every individual aviator and sailor who has a role to play in safely launching, operating and recovering aircraft at sea. NATOPS itself arose from two convictions, forged in crisis: that there must be a single best way to complete complicated, dangerous tasks in a naval aircraft, and that the best people to define and document that best way are those who are fully engaged in doing it successfully today.

The Navy, like organizations all over the world, was faced with an apparently unsolvable challenge: How to cut costs, adopt rapidly advancing technology, and update its “we’ve always done it this way” culture, all while becoming more effective at its core mission — taking the fight to the enemy. It was obvious that the first priority was to stop the ongoing slaughter of hundreds of its carefully selected, highly trained personnel every year.”

Excerpt From: D.L. Brouwer. “The Return on Leadership.” iBooks.

Dennis is proud to have worked at, consulted for, and spoken to leading organizations around the world. He can be booked for events through all major speakers bureaus, including eagles talent, Goodman speakers, gotham artists, The Harry Walker Agency, keppler speakers and Worldwide speakers,