Research reveals challenges for senior management

Winsborough Limited
Media Release

Embargoed until Midnight Sunday, 13 May 2007

Research reveals challenges for senior management teams

Chief Executives believe their senior management teams could increase their performance on average by 25%, according to qualitative research designed to uncover practices and tools to improve the effectiveness of organisations’ senior management teams.

The research, launched today by organisational psychology specialists Winsborough Limited, represents the first systematic investigation of senior management team roles, functioning and values in New Zealand. The research covered some of the leading corporate and government organisations in New Zealand.

The survey of 13 organisations was undertaken in recognition of the important role senior management teams play in organisational performance, with Dave Winsborough, Director of Winsborough Limited, saying “if they can become more effective in their leadership practices, then the productivity of the organisation as a whole will improve.”

Importantly, it is revealed that most senior management teams do not have a formal role description and clear measures of success, which impacts on the ability of team members to balance day-to-day and strategic objectives, and increases the possibility of misalignment and discord.

“For team members, the struggle to balance functional and organisation-wide work and poor decision making processes are seen as blocks to better performance,” says Mr Winsborough.

The research has also provided a range of key findings across a range of issues that effect senior management; including the impact of public sector and private sector values on the nature of leadership, proportion of women in senior teams, and the effects of long term vs. short term planning.

They discovered through contrasting the practices of the most effective with the least effective teams of the participant organisations, that good disciplines around task focus, team development, decision making, and trust and safety, lead to better team performance.

ENDS

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