The business dictionary defines a leader as someone who steps up in times of crisis, and is able to think and act creatively in difficult situations. Unlike management, leadership cannot be taught, although it may be learned and enhanced through coaching or mentoring. As our course material pointed out an effective leader is one who can impart effective change through the adaptive behaviors of others and shape that behavior through mobilization. Asda needed just such a leader in order to bring them back from the brink of self-destruction. Archie Norma was that leader.
Asda is a grocery store chain located in Great Britain that has once seen great success during the 90’s that is until they made a fateful decision to change their customer base. This created a landslide effect in which an increase in competition resulted in decreased profits, customers and morale amongst its employees. It was through this bad management decision that a change needed to take place and this is when Archie Norman was brought in to impart that change.
In the Heifetz and Laurie article “Learning to Lead” they describe five principles that leaders can use to mobilize people to do adaptive work. They are: identify the adaptive challenge, regulate distress, maintain disciplined attention, give the work back to the people and protect leadership form below. Archie Norman was able to identify the adaptive challenge from the outset. When he first came onboard at Asda he realized that there was a complete demoralization of the workforce through the highly political subdivisions within the central headquarters and that many of the internal groups within the company had little to no communications amongst them. Mr. Norman immediately went to work on this by replacing most of the top management team and bringing in a core team of top level managers that held the same leadership beliefs he had. He