(88a) A Leadership Cycle for Technical Excellence

In the pursuit of competitive sustainability amidst dynamic environments, individuals and organizations spend significant time monitoring and modifying behaviors to improve their overall performances.  Furthermore, many organizations have identified the role of leadership in establishing, sustaining, and changing cultures in order to encourage optimal behaviors.  Finally, many individuals have received formal leadership training designed to achieve and maintain high performance cultures.  Despite all of the above, technical excellence remains a “Holy Grail” for some entities.

The author posits that technical excellence remains elusive for some entities due to a lack of focus on and understanding of the real drivers of excellence.  The author asserts that technical excellence is not a value that individuals and organizations can espouse in a personal or corporate mission statement.  Technical excellence is a condition and result of an individual’s or organization’s core, leadership model, culture, and behavior set.  In order to achieve technical excellence, individuals and organizations must (1) nurture and safeguard their cores through “personal feedback loops”; (2) center and elevate their leadership mindsets; (3) serve and build caring and competitive cultures; and (4) demonstrate and inspire ethical and disciplined behaviors.

In this paper, the author details an effective leadership cycle for achieving technical excellence on personal and organizational levels.  More specifically, the author provides (1) data supporting the leadership cycle; (2) guidelines for identifying, developing, and sustaining leaders; and (3) leadership metrics.

The target audience for this paper is anyone interested in pursuing technical, process safety, business, and personal excellence.