Leadership trends that will keep your organization innovative
Leadership can come naturally, but it’s not necessarily innate. Leadership can be learned through leadership development programs, where leadership skills are created, developed, and improved through rigorous education and practice. Those skills can help demonstrate why leadership is important.
“Leadership is often associated with top management, but leadership can occur anywhere,” Taillard says, citing good teachers and good students as exhibiting leadership skills. “It is taking initiative, it is showing interest, it is pursuing a mission to serve a greater purpose, or greater good.”
Understanding entrepreneurial leadership and honing the necessary leadership skills are important to becoming an entrepreneurial leader, able to identify, address, and help solve complex problems with empathy.
To become a leader that drives change, you must be willing to transform your leadership style.
As globalization tears down the geographic boundaries and market barriers that once kept businesses from achieving their potential, a company's ability to innovate—to tap the fresh value-creating ideas of its employees and those of its partners, customers, suppliers, and other parties beyond its own boundaries—is anything but faddish. In fact, innovation has become a core driver of growth, performance, and valuation.
More than 70 percent of the senior executives say that innovation will be at least one of the top three drivers of growth for their companies in the next three to five years. Other executives see innovation as the most important way for companies to accelerate the pace of change in today's global business environment.
Ensure your organization stays current by embracing the five trends below:
Create a culture of well-being - According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), depression causes an estimated 200 million lost workdays annually and costs employers between $17 billion and $44 billion. Leaders of the future are paying attention. As we head into 2022, creating cultures where employee well-being is the top priority. It starts at the top, and leaders must lead by example. Every individual on a company’s executive team must be committed to workplace well-being and modelling a holistic lifestyle that prioritizes physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Resisting the new wave of balance and wellness is futile for any organization that does not wish to be left behind along with the old ways. A supportive environment offers resources for mental health issues and incentives for healthy habits like regular exercise. Organizations must offer EAP services for mental health, finances, spiritual and social well-being. An investment in training and education is an important piece of the puzzle in creating a supportive environment. Training and education on creating psychological safety where employees can feel comfortable talking about their well-being. Training and education on empathy and how to recognize that an employee or co-worker is struggling. Training and education on communicating about challenging issues. Training and education on living a healthy lifestyle. And finally, keep the lines of communication consistent and open. Leaders should have regular check-ins with their employees and have meaningful conversations about well-being every week.
Invest in employee development - A study published in 2013 by Oxford University estimates that just under 50% of the U.S.’s total employment has a high risk of automation over the next two decades. Unsettling statistics for those struggling to understand what future jobs will look like, because of this, leaders must commit to upskilling their workforce. Start by designing a learning and development program focused on new technologies and software, advancing job-specific knowledge, skills and teaching effective management and leadership techniques, including power skills such as empathy, listening, problem-solving and communication. Upskilling programs should include job rotation — the practice of moving employees between jobs and job enlargement — adding new tasks and responsibilities to an employee’s job. Invest in coaching and mentoring activities. Many firms use outside coaches to upskill key employees, the results have been very positive, but there are challenges with scalability. Peer-to-peer coaching and mentoring have also proven to be effective when structure and expectations are prominent.
Address inequality within your culture - According to Gallup’s recent report, Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures, “76 percent of employees experience burnout on the job at least sometimes, and 28 percent say they are burned out 'very often' or 'always' at work.” The number one reason is unfair treatment at work. Leaders are responsible for ensuring that their workplace is equitable. Where to start? Pay! Complete a full assessment of employee compensation. Consider all factors gender, role, the gap between individual contributors, mid-level managers, and executive leadership. Then address all inequalities. A CEO should not make 350 times more than that of the typical worker, and the sole purpose of your company should not be to maximize value for shareholders. These issues are why we see inequality and distrust for leaders. However, if you are an employee-owned organization, maximizing shareholder value is a great goal that can help keep everyone on the same team. The goal, in this case, is to create value and wealth for all employees, not just those at the top. Other ways to tackle inequality in the workplace? Invest in bias training that focuses on experience sharing and teaching intersectionality. Create safe spaces for under-represented people to access support and give them a platform to share their stories. Review and revamp your hiring practices to source more intentionally, looking beyond the homogeneous networks so you can tap more diverse candidate pools. Conduct panel interviews to allow for various perspectives. Use a structured interview process, including a scorecard, so every candidate is asked the same questions in the same order and ranked on ability and competency rather than general, highly biased statements such as, "I like them". They seem to be a good fit. Finally, terminate employees who don’t fit your values of diversity, inclusion and equality. What you tolerate becomes what’s accepted and expected.
Build your technology infrastructure - Read Seth Godin’s recent blog post on shifting your tech time horizon. “Ten years ago, if you were as good at using networks and software as you are today, most of your peers would have considered you some sort of wizard. The question isn’t whether or not each of us is going to get better at using our tools, the only issue is: how soon?” There is no doubt that the future is built on technology and most companies and governments are not ready for what’s to come. Trade-offs will have to be made, such as investing in your company’s infrastructure rather than growth. But what good is growth is if it’s not sustainable and if you aren’t agile enough to change when the next big disruption arrives? There is no time like the present to invest in your technology infrastructure. Sit down with your leadership team and scenario plan. What technology do we know we need now? What might we need in the future? How do we build an agile system? Then create the roadmap. Without a roadmap, it won’t be easy to get where you want to go. Outline priorities, investments and talent requirements. Then create simple use cases for your top priorities or low-hanging fruit.
Embrace an experimenter’s mindset - There is no doubt that more disruption lies ahead; it’s the new norm. What you did yesterday will most likely not work tomorrow. Which we experienced in March 2020. To be future-ready, you must be willing to try new things, to experiment in all areas of your organization: product development, customer success, digital customer experiences and employee training and education. Teach team members how to embrace a growth mindset and not fear failure. Possessing a growth mindset does not mean taking significant risks; discipline is required. By creating a simple two-page case study outlining pros, cons and potential outcomes. We create boundaries around our experiments, following Jim Collin’s eloquently put advice, “fire bullets, then cannonballs.” Large initiatives should be broken into bite-sized chunks to create quick wins that keep our customers hungry for more, motivate our employees and maximize flexibility as you transform your company and develop capacity. The more you get used to adapting, learning, growing and pivoting, the better. Economic instability will continue to be a factor, embracing a growth mindset will help you stay ahead of the curve. The time to embrace these leadership trends was yesterday. Chaos creates opportunity. Be prepared for what will come next and create an organization that changes the lives of your employees, customers and the world.
Innovation is a big idea with a big potential. But it is wise to approach it in small steps, implementing just one or a few of the ideas we propose and building from there. For many companies, the initial steps on this value-creating journey are the most critical of all.