Why Do We Chase Stars?

Published:	November 4, 2010
Author:	Jim Heskett http://hbswk.hbs.edu/

Summing Up

Three themes appear to characterize many of the responses to this month's column: (1) leadership talent is portable, (2) the reasons that we chase stars are traceable to human nature, and (3) women have qualities that explain why they have greater success in porting their talent from one organization to another.

Several discussants maintained that portability is high for certain leadership talents. C. J. Cullinane stated, "The manager who is experienced in cost-cutting and turn-arounds can use this talent in many different situations and be successful." Philippe Gouamba said that "Management performance is 75% portable … (but) today's tough environment has forced upper management to adopt a 'welcome to the team, good luck, here is the deep end of the pool, hope you survive'" approach. Guy Higgins added, "Management is highly portable if people will take the time to learn their new company's management processes." Stephen Basikoti put it this way: "The fact that some transplanted leaders do not succeed does not negate the fact that management performance is portable; it simply points to the uniqueness of the learning curve for each change."

Transferability was thought to be particularly difficult in a move from a large, successful organization to a smaller, struggling one. In Gerald Nanninga's words, "If you put a super-operator in a place where the position is poor and resources are weak, they have nothing to leverage. Their skill-set is wrong."

We chase stars for a number of reasons: "… corporations and the media encourage stardom and discourage team work" (Nauman Lodhi); "It is the expectation that some 'miracle worker' or 'hot shot' can come in and fix issues without the board facing the pain and agony of doing the hard work themselves." (Phil Clark); "It's about selling the dream that the star will add to the bottom line fast with new clients, etc." (Jacoline Loewen); "Rather than create succession plans to hone existing talents, it's so much easier to scavenge for those floating around in the industry." (Vanitha Rangganathan); and "We chase stars because we are fallible …Glamor always is enticing." (Vadeed Lobo)

Women are particularly successful in porting their skills because "… women are more associated with transformational leadership," according to Fidel Arcenas. As Ratnaja Gogula put it, "…traits (that) make women better contenders for talent portability (include) … women's ability to better cope with stress, better communicate and multi-task …" Tom Dolembo asks "are women really different, or have they simply evolved in management by gender bias with skills and talents so alien to their male counterparts that they are uniquely powerful in an information world?"

Other questions come to mind. Do we continue to overstate the portability of star talent? If so, how much of it is attributable to our need to believe that management is a profession? What do you think?

My POV (posted at HBS Working Knowledge @http://hbswk.hbs.edu/):

Boris Groyberg's observation, as posted by Jim Heskett, that "female star analysts are significantly more successful in porting their talent... than male stars" leads us, with much validity and relevance, to the gender issue in organizations, or more precisely, in managerial leadership.

Since the Women's Lib Movement, there had been several studies on the role and competence of women in organizations. Schien, Brenner, Tomkeweicz, Heilman, Brock, Martell, Helgesen and Rosener were among those who contributed important literature on women in organizations.

Rosener (1990), for example, observed that women's leadership center around four themes: consensus building/power sharing, conflict management, supportive climate, and commitment to diversity.

Of the many observations, one is particularly interesting: Women succeed where men fail because women are more associated with transformational leadership which inspires followers to attain higher levels of performance.

Controversial as this theory may seem, it is worth exploring in the context of this current discourse.

Fidel M. Arcenas

TIEZA - Philippines