“How Leaders Create And Use Networks”

Strategic Leadership

Knowledge Management

“How leaders create and use networks”

By Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter

The article “How leaders create and use networks” was published in the Harvard Business Review in January 2007. The authors, Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter, raise the conclusions of their two-year-study about the "leadership transition" in the career of thirty managers. By leadership transition, they mean the challenging moment for managers when they have the opportunity to go up in the hierarchy and to become leaders.

What has the most attracted Herminia Ibarra's and Mark Hunter's attention was the importance of networking in managers' career and how managers were dealing with this challenge.

At first, we will briefly study Herminia Ibarra's and Mark Hunter's biography, after we will focus on the article key points and then I will give my point of view about their conclusions.

To start with this study let me give you some details about Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter, according to the INSEAD official website.

Herminia Ibarra is the Insead Chaired Professor of Organizational Behaviour. She is an expert on professional and leadership development. The INSEAD (Institut National de la Statistique et des Ð"‰tudes Ð"‰conomiques) is a French business school located in Fontainebleau near Paris. Born in Cuba, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, where she was a National Science Fellow. Before joining INSEAD in 2002, she was a professor at the Harvard Business School faculty for thirteen years. In 2003 her book “Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career” focused on how people reinvent themselves at work. She also had numerous articles published in leading journals including the Harvard Business Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, and Organization Science. These articles dealt with innovation, networking, career development, women's careers and professional identity. Her research has been profiled in a wide range of media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist and Fast Company. At the INSEAD she is in charge of The Leadership Transition, an executive program designed for managers moving into broader leadership roles and Women Leading Change in Global Business. She also teaches in various executive programs including the Advanced Management Program and Consulting and Coaching for Change. Besides she lectures and consults internationally on talent management, leadership development, and women's careers.

The second author of the article is Mark Hunter. Like Herminia Ibarra he works at the INSEAD, as an adjunct Professor. He joined the school in 2001 after winning awards for his scholarly research and his journalistic articles. He also works as a consultant for multinational companies’ centres and as an associate MaÐ"®tre de confÐ"©rences of the UniversitÐ"© de Paris 2 (PanthÐ"©on-Assas), where he received his doctorate in communications for a cross-cultural comparison of investigative reporting methods. Besides, he made a film, “Chronique d'une campagnÐ"© arrosÐ"©e (Liquorgate)” that was selected for the Festival International de la Production Audiovisuelle in 1999. He is also a founding member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and he co-created the INSEAD Business Journalism Program. Moreover, he had several articles published, in particular in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal Europe, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, and the Harvard Business Review. He also wrote five books and frequently appears in French, UK and US print, radio and TV media as a commentator on French political and cultural issues.

Let’s now outline Herminia Ibarra's and Mark Hunter's conclusions about the importance of networking in leadership transition. More precisely, by studying these issues, they identified three forms of networking: the operational networking, the personal networking and the strategic networking. Besides, Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter found that a networking strategy could be set up by the combination of these three networking types and could serve a "young" leader's development plan. Before explaining more in detail this last point, I'll make a description of each types of network.

First of all, let’s start with the operational networking. Basically, this network helps managers to do their job. It assures them support and cooperation among their team but also among company's key people. However, it is not always the case. Some managers would just look for support in their operational team, forgetting key decision makers. Moreover, Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter highlight the fact that to make an operational network powerful, the relationships that built it have to be of good quality. You have to be able of relying on them and it has to work both sides. Trust is the main key success factor of your operational network. This network is mainly characterized by current issues and by internal contacts. By internal contacts, Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter mean contacts from managers' company. They conclude that independently, this network is not sufficient to support a leadership transition.

The second form of network studied by Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter is the personal network. It is mostly composed of external contacts, often made because of common interests. This kind of network is built through professional associations, clubs, alumni groups, sports associations, etc. As contacts do not belong to the company, this network opens managers' social circle. The benefits of such a network are "important referrals, information, and often, developmental support, such as coaching and mentoring". More referral potential you can get, more powerful is your personal network. It means that your personal contacts give you the possibility to be in relation with a third person you did not know, because of your mutual contact. So, if this network is important because it provides info and contacts