As you’d expect, she not only wants to encourage more managers to gain professional qualifications, but she also wants them – and their employers – to recognise the power of becoming more ethical and collaborative in their approach to working life.

Q What attracted you to joining the CMI and what are your plans for the organisation?

A I’m interested in what the CMI does for two reasons. Firstly, I believe in the power of best practice to improve companies and individuals.

 

I was previously at the BSI [British Standards Institution] and we did an awful lot of work that proved the power of management systems such as quality management. Organisations that introduced management system qualifications improved their bottom line.

It’s no different with people. Investment in management and leadership best practice improves both organisational performance and people productivity.

 

The second reason for joining the CMI is that, despite this evidence, most employers and individuals don’t do it. Only one out of five managers are qualified. What an opportunity.

 

My background is in brand and general management for consumer companies and we need to be more market- and customer-facing. We have a vibrant member community but we can’t just talk to ourselves. We definitely have a role in engaging employers.

Q What changes do you want to see managers and management make?

 

A There are three things I would like to see. First, upping the quality and quantity of professional managers because professional managers improve productivity.

 

Second, I want to champion diversity because it promotes collaboration, openness and better EQ [emotional quotient], and it mirrors the customer base and society as well.

Third, I want to put ethics back into management. I call it ‘honesty ROI’ – doing something because it’s the right thing to do as well as making business sense. That way you’ll have a more engaged workforce. I’m talking about individual rather that social responsibility – it’s about being a good boss.

The public doesn’t trust business and so ethics is important because it starts the process of getting people to trust companies again. We have to shift the paradigm that nice guys finish last. I truly believe we can do that, which will build a very collaborate culture and engage people.

Q What can HR professionals do to groom better managers and leaders in their organisations?

A Any initiative needs to come from the top, be owned by everyone and not be seen as an HR initiative, but they can drive the changes needed. There are many things they can do: examining which qualifications their company recognises, looking at ethics and whether they are benchmarking themselves against other companies.

HR can be the conscience of the organisation, but it also needs to be connected into the rest of the business. The most effective HR managers are very connected into the organisation and to its business objectives and have a role as business enablers.

 

It’s their role to set management standards and champion those standards that make moral and business sense, and to benchmark internally.

Q There’s an argument that everyone should be a leader and everyone a team player – it just depends on the scenario. What do you think?

A Everyone needs to be accountable for their actions and their contributions to an organisation and be engaged in that.

 

I personally believe that a leader needs to be a conduit for others to succeed – to help those around them do a better job. There’s increasing evidence that collaborative leadership yields and helps in getting away from the atmosphere of mistrust.

Q What about the evidence that shows that many business and world leaders are sociopaths?

A That’s right. And it shows the importance of aspiring to raise management and leadership standards. Clearly the external environment has been shaped by the people leading, and clearly that is another call to action to improve leadership and management.

If you look at the beliefs of the younger and probably more educated generations, you’ll see a tendency towards greater collaboration encouraged by things like open source applications and Twitter.

 

It’s creating a more collaborative culture. Young people are more interested in social enterprises and more open to diversity. There will be a new leadership culture and it’s up to us to encourage that. At the CMI, we need to explore these new ideas of leadership and how integrity and collaboration are changing things.

Q How can you get employers and employees to recognise the importance of professional qualifications?

A I think it needs to be top-down from employers, but also bottom-up. We need to get employees to recognise that they are better off working for professional managers.

 

There are fundamental things that professional qualifications bring such as helping manager performance, selecting objectives and managing results – it’s not rocket science, but so many companies don’t do it.