The Leadership Conundrum for the Modern Leader

Leaders need to rally their people to master two golden principles from years gone by: patience and resilience and mix them with the more contemporary flexibility and inclusivity, to have lasting success in the present fast paced ‘normal’.

The world has gone through and learnt from many extremes in the last few years, and the global business landscape today has a clear focus on productivity, cost optimization, and profitability. There are no freebies, and the flavour of the season is that businesses and employees need to toil hard for their results and prove their worth. India is better placed than most other economies at the moment and clearly in the driving seat, but there is immense competition in pretty much every sector, and a business appetite riddled with caution for most customers.

If you are an experienced leader, you have probably seen such business environments before. Many pre-pandemic years resembled this – cautious investments, selective and though-out hiring, bottom line focus and a strong focus on performance.

However, expectations of most of the working population have significantly changed and that has made it a more challenging gig for leaders. More choice in terms of flexible hours, hybrid working and career choices is the norm in many organizations now, and there is often an impatience from a young workforce to achieve outcomes without the necessary hard yards being put in.

Focus on the journey

It is important for leaders to focus on and enhance the quality of jobs that their employees have, and reward smaller wins and those following the right processes. The leader walking the talk on this front breeds an environment of calmness and patience that instils much greater ability for a young workforce to absorb failures and learn along the way. Strong results should be the natural follow up of doing the job with good quality and sincerity over a mid-term, and an overt focus on short term results usually achieves the opposite of the desired outcome, with a lot of disengaged employees.

Striking a fine balance

An optimal balance of supporting and challenging your employees has become critical now, along with a habit of providing honest, candid, and caring feedback. The margin for error on this is much lesser than before. While having a more supportive approach was a pretty alien skill for many leaders at the start of the pandemic, many are erring on the other side of the spectrum now and find it difficult to be demanding.

What do we do with the flexibility ‘beast’ then? There is no denying the benefits and power of flexibility and autonomy, and there is clear evidence that for those with a strong work ethic, these elements are uplifting and strongly improve performance and longevity. The tricky ones are the ‘on the fence’ employees, though – well-intentioned individuals with low to moderate ambition, but not quite willing to walk through a wall for their leader or organisation yet. It is here that the need to lay down what the organisation strongly stands for becomes essential. Once the purpose and values are communicated regularly and also positively recognized and reinforced, there is a much better chance that flexibility will be an enabler rather than a hindrance.

For instance, if meeting clientele face to face and building relationships is clearly laid out as an organisational principle, then flexibility can be woven by an individual basis their preferences but knowing what is a non-negotiable. Similarly, if a weekly team meeting with everyone attending in person where the previous week’s successes and challenges can be shared is part of the value system, it is easier for employees and supervisors to work to a flexible schedule knowing the commitments they need to keep in mind.

An independence and accountability based culture

Ultimately though, leaders need to be comfortable with and encourage an independent and accountability driven culture. Flexibility can be a real enabler as long as team level and customer focused ‘anchors’ are laid down clearly. What is often underestimated today is the criticality of rapid skill enhancement to succeed in a flexible and hybrid environment – both for leaders and the larger employee pool. There is a genuine need to fast track learning, both technical and leadership or soft skill related, at a pace far greater than pre-pandemic years.

How do you know as a leader whether an employee unable to cope with difficult or demanding circumstances and pinning it on health and lack of wellbeing is genuine, or just demonstrating a lack of resilience? The giveaway is usually in the attitude. Mental health concerns are real in the demanding lifestyle of today, however with those committed towards the organisation and genuinely under distress, you will still see an honest commitment to do the best possible under their circumstances. With those simply unable to handle the pressure, the frequency of blaming external events and individuals will be high. The key is for performance standards and wellbeing of employees to be looked at independently and in parallel, and not as a substitute for each other.

Working with an ever-improving skill level, clear knowledge of organisational values and purpose, and a high degree of flexibility and autonomy with trust demonstrated from the supervisor is potent mix that would give maximum chances of individual and organisational success in the complex business landscape of today, and minimize cases of burnout as well as low productivity leading to unplanned layoffs. All of us need to strive hard to make this a reality!

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Ankit Agarwala is the Managing Director of Michael Page in India. Having joined the organization as a Consultant in Singapore 14 years back after a number of years as a banking professional, he has worked across various locations and set up or grown a number of industry and functional practices in the country which have helped make Page the leading search and recruitment organization in the country.

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