The 1 Million € challenge for leaders

The difference between good and bad leadership is very impactful in today's organisations. The effects of bad leadership can be disastrous for companies and organisations. Examples are numerous: a toxic culture, lack of accountability, unclear or wrong communication, fear of making mistakes, too high expectations, no innovation, motivation dip, burnouts or departures of experienced employees, wrong hires, open positions leading to business loss, etc etc. A bad leader brings out the worst in a team. We have estimated the cost impact of bad leadership on teams to be over 1.000.000 Euro per person. That is 1 million bottomline impact.

Moreover, studies show that 75% of employees experience the contacts with their manager as the most stressful part of their job.

What on earth has gone wrong?

We have neglected our managers. That is what happened. We have forgotten to train or coach our managers in their roles. Leadership is a set of competencies and a mindset you can learn, train, grow and coach. It is not in our DNA. You are not born a leader. The reality is quite often as follows.

For many years we train specialists or experts for specific roles (sales, marketing, accounting, etc.). And when they master the discipline or they become the best of the team, we promote them to lead the team. Imagine yourself what happens next. The experts, who became managers of a team overnight, continue to do what they have been doing for years, what they have excelled in and what they have been trained for, namely being an expert. And that is precisely why we end up in a way of working called micro-management. Being the super-expert of the team.

Can you blame them? Nobody ever explained them that the primary job of a leader is the care for and connection with their team, motivating them, listening to ideas, establishing the playground and the direction and maintaining oversight and progress. Nobody ever mentioned that the role would imply more emotional intelligence, more psychology and empathy. As if these characteristics appear spontaneously with the new title and role? As if the best sailor spontaneously becomes the captain of a ship?

We see that starting managers sometimes become pedantic school teachers in their teams knowing everything best, or in some case little dictators wanting everything their way leaving no room for feedback, or in other cases completely disappearing out of sight of their team out of fear of people. And all, because nobody ever told them that other behaviour was expected. If not, there is at least 1 Million Euro bottomline at risk. So the challenge is to avoid that 1 Million Euro risk in your organisation by investing in leadership.

Maybe you have more visionary aspects, or you are a strong communicator. Maybe you are empathic by nature, or very efficient or focussed. But to master it all you need training or coaching, repetition and time. It is vital that leaders also experience they are allowed to make mistakes. This will enhance their learning curve.

Leaders should make others better. It is about letting others shine. Leadership is not about you, it is about the others, about the team. High performing teams are often the result of good leadership. In order to do so a lot of interaction between manager and employee is vital. A leadership style is influenced by the employees, which is less obvious in today's changing world with hybrid working and many digital tools. Nevertheless, you cannot lead without seeing your team. Otherwise it is very difficult to assess whether something is going wrong in the team or with the team members (think of the iceberg).

Good leaderschap is more than a set of management skills. Effective leaders develop a strong vision, inspire on the way to get there, put the customer perspective first, deliver on results and bring the best out of the team through shared objectives and values. They are open for discussion, communicate clearly, decisive when necessary and vulnerable when appropriate. They stimulate resilience and flexibility, thrive on engagement and promote team collaboration, wellbeing and core values. They are ambassadors but always need to remain authentic. Despite their own personal behavioral preferences hig performing leaders are able to adapt their style to the different people in teams.

We all know that good leadership is a big challenge and needs time and effort. We all know examples of great leaders we have worked for and how it made you feel. And we can also relate to how bad leadership made us feel and how the team suffered.

Investing in your organisation necessitates investing in your leadership and not only in experts. Otherwise you will be very soon confronted with the 1 Million Euro challenge and in today's war for talent that is not a luxury we can afford anymore.

Patrick Desaeyer

JDI Just Do It