Changing Your Leadership Approach to Match the Times

On May 18, 1991, Sergei Krikalev climbed aboard the Soyuz space capsule. He and two colleagues were to spend a record four months on the Mir space station . This Soviet cosmonaut had no idea what awaited him when he returned to planet Earth.?

It was while he was up in space that his country went out of business.??

His team at the control center left their stations as the Soviet Union fell. Turmoil filled Moscow, tanks rolled in and bullets flew as a regime fell. Krikalev’s four months in space turned into five, then six, then more. All told, ten months passed (311 days) before the staff returned to the control center and brought their comrade back home. As Sergei stepped off the shuttle, however, he walked into an entirely new world.?

• The Soviet Union had dissolved. Mother Russia had returned.??
• Mikhail Gorbachev was out. Boris Yeltsin was in.?
• And Sergei’s salary, which was in the 95th percentile of Soviet salaries, could now barely buy a Big Mac at the Moscow McDonalds.?

The Times Are Changing?

At the risk of overstating my case, leading in these post-pandemic days may feel a bit like this to leaders. We’ve stepped into a different world with new realities, where team members expect more from their bosses and jobs and the power equation has shifted. Sociologist Adam Grant calls it “the democratization of the workplace.” It’s led to today’s “great resignation” and “quiet quitting” because many employees feel they’re not being treated fairly. What’s a leader to do??

Do we merely cave, or do we dig our heels in? Or, do we rethink our leadership style??

In 1939, Kurt Lewin conducted some studies on how leadership styles are evolving. His work influenced later theories on leadership. His research divided styles into three buckets:?

• Authoritarian or Autocratic: When leaders tell their associates what they want done and how they want it accomplished. It’s top-down.??
• Participative or Democratic: When leaders include one or more associates in the decision-making process while maintaining final decision-making authority.?
• Delegative or Free-reign: When leaders allow associates to make decisions and yet still remain responsible for the decisions made.??

Until now—leaders have been more prescriptive in their leadership, using an authoritarian or autocratic approach. Why? They need to hit their numbers. Everything is a formula. The boss knows what’s best. While it makes sense—it doesn’t win team members at the heart level.??

Today, people join our teams with higher levels of education, exposure, and expectation. They expect to have a voice or they may leave. I spoke to one middle school principal who mourned losing 34 percent of his faculty and staff in one year. A software company lost four in ten of its employees this year. Still, another retail outlet lost so many team members the managers had to shut down the store temporarily. They didn’t have enough staff for the daily shifts.??

Our problem may be simpler to understand than leaders realize. We neglected to measure how our people feel about their jobs. When staff are unhappy, they’re almost always disengaged at work. Is it possible to change how we lead to both attract and retain good talent???

Four Leadership Changes We Should Make?

1. We must offer a greater sense of ownership and autonomy.?

If they’re honest, most would claim they’re “renting” their job, they don’t “own” it. Leaders must provide a sense of ownership by offering a greater sense of autonomy to staff. This communicates trust—which is the currency of today’s workforce. Last year we launched “Deep Work Wednesdays,” knowing each team member has work that requires deep thought or planning without interruptions. Staff can decline any meeting requests that day. We also offer Work-From-Anywhere Fridays, allowing teammates to do just that. All this autonomy has deepened everyone’s sense of ownership. Trust and autonomy always go together.??

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2. We must develop their mindset and then turn them loose.?

Hiring managers often assume too much when they onboard people. Too many staff don’t really “breathe” the mission or vision of the company, even if they think they do. They’ve not internalized it. We recently made some changes in our onboarding process as we spotted this reality at Growing Leaders. We’ve become more intentional about building a mindset in staff, with a weekly Habitudes? Academy, and a Thursday afternoon “Team Time” that focuses on personal and professional development. In addition, we start every new week with a Monday morning Stand Up meeting, where we tell a story of how we practiced our purpose the previous week and then review our mission and vision statements. If we think right, we’ll serve well.?

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3. We must relax where we can and be stubborn where we must.??

It’s time for many leaders to relax on some issues, to only insist on core beliefs, and to know the difference. We allow Unlimited PTO to staff because we hire highly responsible employees who don’t want to let their teammates down. As we relaxed, it communicated belief in everyone. We also made a shift from prescriptive to descriptive leadership by letting teammates not only choose their targets but how they’ll hit them. When we manage by objective, we discuss goals with team members and then let them determine how to reach them. Leaders serve as consultants and coaches more than commanders. We stick to our mission, but we flex on our methods.??

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4. We must demonstrate to our team that we prioritize their well-being.??

We consistently tell our team members that we are just as concerned about their personal growth and well-being as we are about their performance and results. To back this up, department leaders work with each team member on personal and team development plans. Everyone is given an entire day each year to determine where they hope to grow. Then, leaders collaborate with team members to figure out how their current job can be a pathway to their dream job. Every task is seen as a step toward growing their skill set.?

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I met Ed Bastion a decade ago. The International Business Times recently named Delta CEO Ed Bastian as one of the “smartest and most compassionate CEOs ” in the U.S., citing his leadership and people-centric values through the pandemic. He led the company to new growth by taking care of his people. Sounds to me like a great model to follow.???

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