Building Partnerships Inside and Outside the Organization

By Marshall Goldsmith

How will leaders of the future differ from the leaders of the past? This article builds on the finding of a survey, which was that the leaders of the future must be skilled at building partnerships inside and outside their organizations.

Six different kinds of partnerships are identified here: three inside the organization, three outside the organization.

Partnerships Within Organizations
Within their organizations, executives and managers will need to build partnerships with:

1. Direct reports. Employees no longer expect that their organizations will provide them with job security. As the expectation of security has diminished, so has the blind loyalty that was implicit in this security. Almost all of the high-potential leaders interviewed saw themselves as “free agents,” not “employees” in the traditional sense. They saw the leader of the future as a person who could build “win-win” relationships and who could be sensitive to their needs for professional growth and development. They then felt not only a desire but also a responsibility to deliver value in return, to the leader and to the organization. In simple terms, they saw the leader of the future as their partner, not their boss
   
2. Co-workers. Leaders at all levels will need to develop the skills to negotiate and build “win-win” relationships with colleagues. In the past, many leaders were taught to compete with colleagues for people, resources and ideas. In the future, they will need to learn to collaborate. The success of the larger organization will depend on leaders' abilities to become great partners with their co-workers.
   
3. Managers. Survey respondents saw the leaders of the future as working with their managers in a team approach that combined the leader's knowledge of the unit's operation with their managers' understanding of the larger needs of the organization. Such a relationship requires taking responsibility, sharing information and striving to see both the micro- and macro-perspective.

Partnerships Outside the Organization
Partnerships outside the organization include relationships with:

1. Customers. Leaders from supply organizations will need to become more like partners and act less like salespeople. Survey participants noted a shift toward building long-term customer relationships, not just achieving short-term sales. This change means that suppliers need to develop a much deeper understanding of the customer's total business.
   
2. Suppliers. In the past, leaders who partnered with suppliers may well have been seen as “helping the enemy” or having a “conflict of interest.” Today, many leaders realize that their success is directly related to that of their suppliers. Northrop Grumman, one of America's leading defense contractors, actually includes commitment to suppliers as one of their core values.
   
3. Competitors. The most radical change in the role of leader as partner is in the area of partnering with competitors. This previously unthinkable concept has now become commonplace. Most of the high-potential leaders interviewed, however, saw competitors as potential customers, suppliers and partners with few clear lines of demarcation. While there are still some noted exceptions (e.g., Coca-Cola and Pepsi), the direction of the curve is very clear. When today's competitors may become tomorrow's customers, “bashing” competitors or striving to ruin their business could have harmful long-term consequences.

©2003, Larraine Segil, Marshall Goldsmith and James Belasco.

Excerpted, by permission of the publisher, from Partnering: The New Face of Leadership, edited by Larraine Segil, Marshall Goldsmith and James Belasco. Published by AMACOM, a division of American Management Association. For more information or to order, click http://www.amanet.org/books/catalog/0814407579.htm .

To learn more, consider these AMA seminars:

• Situational Leadership II Workshop
• Cross-Functional Communication: Strategies for Workplace Effectiveness