Stagnant Leadership and How to Overcome It

As a leader, we should always be on alert for signs of complacency, not only in your team, but also in your own job.

And because almost every organisation relies on innovation and continuous improvement for its success, innovation remains one of the driving forces in avoiding stagnant leadership.

Leadership and innovation expert Professor Don Mroz highlights this in a recent article on wired.com

In the article, Prof Mroz explains how there are three key areas required to transform a stagnant leader into a dynamic and passionate one:

1. A strong learning environment

For a leader and their team to be successful, there must be a culture of learning within their organisation. This means opportunities for improvement with an emphasis on idea sharing, professional development and discussion. Team building and collaboration are also important, with the innovative leader setting the pace in these areas

2. Consider an ‘attitude adjustment’

Any leader worth his or her salt realises that to be competitive, their organisation must maintain an open, honest, collaborative work environment that encourages sharing and the exploration of new ideas and concepts. To help achieve this, the leader should be able to embrace change and new attitudes, while also encouraging closer links between organisational groups. They should also exhibit empathy, trust and a complete lack of fear in all their dealings

3. Don’t be afraid to experiment

By encouraging a positive ‘yes’ culture of innovation, successful leaders can really get the most out of their team. Of course, there is no set formula for innovation, but a good way to promote and maximise innovation is for organisations to encourage feedback from both employees and leaders. Of course, implementing an internally developed suggestion process to help stimulate debate and discussion can do this.

In order to avoid stagnation as a leader, there are many areas to consider. Leading adaptive change is one, and in a recent Forbes article, US change management expert Brent Gleeson outlines some of the most important areas for a leader to focus on in order to prevent complacency and ineffectiveness in the face of change.

These include:

·     Making change a good thing

Some leaders have no idea how to present change and innovation to their teams. The answer is to clearly explain to your staff how important the changes are, and how embracing them will create a new culture of improvement. Also, by showing the changes to be a ‘positive necessity’ good leaders soon win over their staff - creating a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation within the organisation

·     Managing conflict

When changes do occur, good leaders need to realise that some staff members may become uneasy or suspicious. However, the answer is not to avoid this conflict but instead, turn it into a positive by addressing it as it occurs. Indeed, most good leaders will soon realise that those who challenge change are not the enemy, and that this can be positively channelled into better outcomes for all concerned. This in turn, also helps reduce any stagnation within the organisation

·     Maintaining the ‘status quo’

Despite the chaos that can occur in times of change, there are certain ‘norms and balances’ that need to be maintained to help avoid stagnation. Thus, in order to maintain the ‘status quo’, successful leaders always keep in mind their organisation’s overall vision, company culture and operating systems. Moreover, by bringing together all the team members for regular open discussions, good leaders ensure morale is maintained and stagnation reduced.