One Leader is Not Enough for Major New Service Development: Results of a Consumer Banking Study

This article reports the results of a study into leadership in retail bank product development. New product development is an increasingly important business activity in many services businesses. Financial services specialists involved in this activity are required to have an understanding of project working that aims to match new product concepts to potential customer needs. In the empirical study reported here all the new product projects were aimed at developing a new area of business and were of great potential importance to the sponsoring businesses in which they were pursued. It was found that success in completing a project efficiently was associated with effective co-leadership between different levels of the organisation. Lesser project success was found when leadership was confined to a single leader. Co-leadership involved a common leadership style that was enabling, participative and highly communicative. Empowering junior colleagues to act as co-leaders confronts top management with challenges to traditional concepts of authority. Our results show how enlightened top management turns these challenges to the best advantage of their business.