Crafting the Holistic Leader
There is no doubt that companies are currently facing huge challenges prompting leaders to better prepare and guide organizations through change. Between new ways of working, increased employee stress dealing with an unknown future, and the urgency to remain globally competitive, the approach leaders take to ensure businesses stay on track is more critical than ever.
Leaders identifying with traditional management methods of leading change are seeing transformation whether they acknowledge it or not. Between the pandemic and social awareness, the messages of how employees feel and want their companies to show up has been top of the news. Employees are looking for true leadership – one that balances the normal, the undefined, and the what's to be. Leadership itself is under a microscope and the need to adopt new behaviors and approaches to both employee engagement and business, not same old practices, is required.
Look in the Mirror
As leaders face these challenges, personal reflection is a necessary first step. To remain effective, a leader must assess their self-understanding of their leadership profile – to consider their own strengths and weakness in order to make the best use of those strengths and avoid strategies that can be adversely be affected by the weaknesses. How to do this can be tricky and isn't always obvious.
To stay grounded and pay attention to where they need to shift and realign what will work for them and others involves a support network. This can be internal with trusted advisors who understand the company structure but also external guides and mentors who see a different perspective of the changing economic and business landscape. The more input a leader can get to morph their approach the better.
Deep Listening
A leader has to consider factors that were not apparent just a year or so ago. Factors such as allowing a brighter light to be shined on independent employee voices who want to provide greater input on the company's vision and purpose. Not another survey, but rather a real connection - a deep conversation with employee champions about what's working, what's not, and who are trusted with the pulse of the culture.
This journey into potentially uncomfortable dialogue surfaces new highlights and opportunities while breaking through a top-down hierarchy to understand the true sentiment of people at the line level. It's transparency of the people profiles working hard for the company's future. For a leader, it's showing a renewed trust that the collective wisdom of the organization contains the answers to the tough problems.
Peer Excellence
In addition to allowing the employee voice to break through in a non-artificial way, it's glancing across the leadership peer ranks for parity. Is the same message being echoed by other leaders? Is there a difference between those that want things to stay the same, ride the course and hope for the best, or who take a more active stance in comprehending the changes happening and pivoting to adjust in a meaningful way? Those who are changing their mindset and voicing fresh ideas to adapt to a new business climate are ally's and when this group of leadership unites their ideas, companies have the best chance of finding strategies that can form a solid and lasting plan for change.
Ultimately the ability to form a more holistic leader holistic tweaks notion of the responsible utilization of power, and the ability to realize that in different situations, different levers of power are needed. Leadership is a beacon for company strength and true power comes through creating a path for human beings to get positively signaled and motivated to drive performance with a purpose.
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