What are the most innovative strategic leadership models for creating shared value and social impact?

A lideran?a ideal é a jun??o de uma lideran?a transformacional e sistêmica. Quando for difícil encontrar líderes que contemplem essas duas capacidades o ideal é ter um líder transformacional e um executivo no time que seja capaz de fazer com que toda essa energia e vis?o transformadora seja traduzida em entregas de valor e passe por um projeto de prioriza??o. Muitas vezes assisti grandes líderes transformacionais que n?o conseguiam aterrizar em execu??o sua vis?o o que logo desengaja investidores e o board que está mais acostumado com o previsível do que o imprevisível. Muitas vezes vi líderes sistémicos que n?o conseguiam levar a organiza??o até outro patamar. Portanto o mais importante em todos isso é a composi??o do time.

When leading a transformation project, it's crucial to bring your team along with you on the journey from the current state (Point A) to the future state (Point B), which involves taking on risks and uncertainties. To gain their support, you must clearly explain the future state and why it's crucial to each team member. However, the pathway to get there can be unclear due to the many available options and unknown factors. As a leader, it's essential to approach this like an expedition - seeking external partnerships and internal collaboration to empower your team to explore uncharted terrain. But above all, the vision of the future state must be crystal clear to instill confidence in your team.

The transformational leadership motivates employees to innovate and create the change necessary to shape the future success of the company. This leadership model designed to give employees more flexibility to be creative, look to the future, and find new solutions to potential problems. Employees will also be prepared to become transformational leaders themselves through mentorship and training.

Creating an environment that cherishes challenging the status quo is a key success factor for innovation. This happens often within engineering teams yet needs to be mirrored throughout the organization to create the right value chain to get technology and products to market.

Transformational leadership focuses on inspiring followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes by connecting their self-interest to the collective interest. As Steve Jobs said, "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." Transformational leaders motivate people towards a collective vision and empower them to be creative. Tools like Impraise and Officevibe can help leaders inspire their teams.

When your team comprises members with diverse skills and areas of expertise, I recommend a shared leadership model. This model enables team members to take on leadership roles at various times based on their skills, expertise, or assigned tasks. The underlying idea is to encourage everyone to become a leader in their own right! To make this approach work, shared leadership involves setting a collective goal, distributing decision-making power, and leveraging individual strengths to create shared value and social impact. This method emphasizes collaboration, fosters a sense of ownership and accountability, and can lead to more innovative solutions as diverse perspectives are considered.

This is a great approach for e.g. product launch, campaign approach or digital transformation to name a few communications and marketing areas. Put the opportunity and responsibility into the hands of the experts and then enable the team to the best of your ability. See thoughts on the next chapter as it relates to this.

Shared leadership distributes leadership across different levels, promoting collaboration. As Elon Musk tweeted, "Talent is extremely important. It's like a sports team, the team that has the best individual player will often win but then there's a multiplier from how those players work together." Tools like Slack, Asana, and Trello facilitate team collaboration.

Servant leadership is crucial in today's world. According to the American Psychological Association's 2022 Work and Well-being Survey, 39% of employees have reported that their work environment has adversely affected their mental health. In my experience, empathy and compassion are crucial for authentically and truthfully serving your team. In Servant Leadership, the leader exists to serve the people instead of the people working to serve the leader. Servant leaders prioritize showing genuine concern for their team members on a personal level. By placing the needs of others first, servant leaders empower people and contribute to the broader community, shared values, and social impact.

It is crucial to ensure your team has the necessary resources to get the job done. On this aspect, every leader is a servant leader. Yet we are most often faced with constraints such as budget, need more team members, require better tools to get the job done etc. At the same time, you need to guide the team along to “raise the bar” when the budget, people and other resources are lacking. A great reflection process for me to take forward.

Servant leadership prioritizes the needs of followers, helping them develop and perform at their best. As Bill Gates said, "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." Tools like 15Five and BetterUp provide coaching for employees' professional and personal growth.

Through my years of experience, I find that servant leadership in today's world, stands out as one of the most innovative strategic leadership models for creating shared value and social impact. Servant leadership is predicated on prioritizing the needs of others and fostering a collaborative and mission-driven culture. This model emphasizes empathy, ethical decision-making, and community engagement. It is important to understand that under servant leadership, the leader does not disappear. Rather, the leader focuses on setting the strategic vision, ensuring the teams have the required resources, budget, and skills to make an impact, and providing a framework for empowerment and ownership which encourages creativity and innovation.

This is very important during times of transformation such as an M&A phase, a significantly new strategy/direction, bringing a breakthrough innovation to market or a new service or new paradigm product to market. Building resilience is needed.

Adaptive leadership mobilizes people to tackle complex problems that defy technical solutions. As Satya Nadella tweeted, "Leadership is not about having all the answers; it is about having the courage to listen to new answers." Tools like ObservePoint and Matillion provide analytics to uncover fresh insights.

In a systemic leadership model, leaders focus on creating a shared vision, fostering collaboration, and promoting sustainable outcomes. This model encourages leaders to think beyond individual roles and responsibilities and consider the broader impact and interconnectedness of their actions. It promotes collaboration, adaptability, and innovation, ultimately leading to more sustainable and successful organizations.

I experience this leadership style quite often in manufacturing and supply chain management teams and customer service teams. AlsoHSS and Quality teams usually have this leadership and approach. It is also helpful in a large cross-functional project with a matrix approach.

Systemic leadership takes a holistic approach to address complex challenges spanning organizational boundaries. As Demis Hassabis said, "General intelligence requires both the ability to learn simple rules and the ability to reason flexibly in more complex situations." Tools like Cognify and DataRobot leverage AI for systems thinking.

There are a number of successful leadership styles for business innovation, including servant leadership, adaptive leadership, shared leadership, and systemic leadership. But one often overlooked model is creative leadership - a style based on the concept of working cooperatively and fostering an environment that inspires others. The environment has a sense of urgency, high expectations, a celebration of failure as learning, allocated time and resources for experimentation, and modeled behaviors of risk-taking.

Opine that for establishing and accomplishing a strategic leadership model for creating shared value & social impact, it should be based on the tenets of for profit social initiatives and social innovations. A significant portion of profit is in turn shared with the target community where such initatives and innovations are deployed and the remaining is ploughed back for continued enhancements of existing innovations or new social initiatives. Such a model could selfsustain & also have ability to create a visible impact upon execution or deployment of its initiatives / innovations. This model can eliminate loopholes & flaws in Not for profit social initiatives where the intended value does not always reach target community / beneficiaries

There are 2 innovative strategy leadership models that can create shared value and social impact. The key is for leaders to embrace the idea that business success and societal impact can go hand in hand, and to integrate these principles into their decision-making processes and organizational strategies. 1. Triple Bottom Line: This model focuses on three principles: profit, people, and planet. It requires leaders to measure success not only in financial terms but also in social and environmental impact. 2. B Corp Certification: B Corps are companies that meet rigorous social and environmental standards. This model promotes the idea that businesses should be a force for good, and leaders are responsible for balancing purpose and profit.

Let's not forget that a high level of trust within a team is a critical catalyst for innovation, creating an environment where risk-taking is not only accepted but encouraged. Trust fosters psychological safety, empowering team members to explore uncharted territories without fear of judgment or reprisal. In this atmosphere truly novel ideas flow freely, challenging the status quo. Here leaders play a crucial role in cultivating this culture. By demonstrating integrity, providing support, and celebrating successes and failures (but not incompetence!) as learning opportunities, leaders empower teams to push boundaries.

Emerging approaches like design thinking, lean startup, and agile incorporate iterative development with customer feedback. As Jensen Huang said, “Data science is the ultimate tool for meritocracy.” Tools like Tableau, Looker, and ThoughtSpot provide actionable data insights.