Backup Leaders’ Summit Looms

Leadership. Everyone is talking about it. And the tussle at the top of the nation’s political power game is, at another level, leadership-style sideshow worth watching.
But back to the real world and the demand for more dialogue and understanding about what exactly constitutes good organisational leadership and the event of the year looks likely to be in Auckland on October 8 and 9 with an International Leadership Summit, entitled “Powerful Leadership in the Age of Change”.
The New Zealand Institute of Management’s immediate past chairman Doug Matheson is currently chairman of the Asian Association of Management Organisations (AAMO) and so this country will host AAMO’s regional conference here. The big management get-together only happens every three years.
Leadership is hot international issue and AAMO agrees with NZIM as the conference organiser, that it’s time for summit on the topic. Chairs, directors, CEOs and senior managers from the 10 member countries will descend on Auckland for high level focus on the topic. India, China, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand are all members of AAMO. Big name international and provocative local speakers have been lined up to drive the discussion.
Leadership is, according to Matheson, “increasingly the cornerstone of business and organisational performance” because we are living through the “most challenging world economy of our lifetime”.
Rapidly evolving technologies and changing personal values are challenging leaders. To successfully respond they must update their understanding of the issues, broaden their perspective and enhance their leadership skills.
“We want the summit to provide intellectually stimulating and very practical workshop sessions that get to grips with what constitutes successful leadership models,” says Matheson.
The Summit will talk leadership under four themes. The first – The Leadership Challenge – will examine the nature and characteristics of the challenges faced by leaders. Leadership of the most successful organisations come from strong and compelling common vision, commitment, interaction, interrelationship and the combination of the roles of the chair, directors, CEOs and top management team, according to Matheson.
“Each contributes in different way to the visionary leadership of an organisation and everyone in it. Most successful organisations, be they companies, public sector organisations or not-for-profits, are led by strong and effective chairs and boards, and CEOs.”
The second theme, Chief Executives for the Leadership Challenge, will discuss the personal qualities and strengths CEOs will need to succeed in future.
“Developing the chief executive is essential to the continuing development and performance improvement of an organisation,” says Matheson. “CEOs need to participate in their ongoing personal development to achieve their potential to lead and manage the organisation which in turn needs to achieve its potential to survive in an ever-changing external and internal environment.”
Leadership is inextricably bound up in information and knowledge. The third theme of the conference will focus on the leadership of “Knowledge and Learning Organisations”.
As Matheson puts it, “knowledge has become an organisation’s most valuable raw material”. Understanding how to use and to improve performance requires new leadership skills.
“Knowledge management processes are critical and knowledge assets now comprise much greater percentage of the total value of an organisation. We need to know how to effectively access, use and continually learn from unlimited information and continually increasing knowledge.”
The fourth theme and much of the final day of the summit will consider and examine emerging international trends that are influencing and impacting the leadership landscape. Speakers from different countries with different perspectives will identify and examine the international trends that are either already creating, or likely to create leadership challenges.
The objective, says Matheson, who will step down as AAMO president at the Summit, is to offer organisational leaders “an opportunity to step back from the daily demands of their jobs and to see the leadership challenges they face from different vantage point, to learn from successful international leaders and to network and discuss their ideas with other leaders”. For more details contact [email protected]