As Wharton marketing professors George Day and Paul Schoemaker see it, the recent and well-publicized travails of the Ford Motor Co. offer a clear example of the distinction between vigilant leadership and operational management.
To explain that distinction, Day and Schoemaker -- building on research from their recently published book, Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company -- have identified four leadership traits: external focus, conceptual ability, organizational role and time horizon.
Vigilant leaders are more externally oriented: They are open to new ideas, seek diverse perspectives, listen to a wide array of sources and foster broad social and professional networks. Richard Branson, says Day, is an example: The inveterate inventor and promoter -- with 200 start-ups under his belt -- is now developing alternative fuels. Operational leaders are more narrowly focused, have less interest in outside opinions and confine their networking to familiar settings.
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