What is the Role of Leadership in Times of Crisis?

In a normal or logical world, we shouldn't have needed the pandemic to understand that people are generally better off when their leaders are smart, decent, empathetic and humble.

The Covid-19 crisis is testing our political leaders like they’ve never been tested before. Leaders that appear to score high on narcissism and low on empathy are failing dismally. It’s interesting that those political leaders – especially female leaders - who combine competence, transparency and empathy and are using data and science to inform their decision making appear to be performing much better. 

The brilliant Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is my guest on this week’s episode of the podcast. In a recent article for HR Examiner, Tomas shared his belief that the crisis will accelerate the retirement of outdated leadership profiles and highlight the need for competence, intelligence, integrity and empathy.

Tomas is an international authority in psychological profiling, talent management, leadership development, and people analytics. He is the Chief Talent Scientist at Manpower Group and Professor of Business Psychology at both University College London, and Columbia University.

Tomas is also a prolific writer and his articles in publications like HBR, Forbes and Fast Company regularly feature in my monthly round-up of the best HR and People Analytics articles. Tomas has also written ten books including his most recent: 'Why do so many incompetent men become leaders?’ and is one of the most knowledgeable, interesting and engaging people in our field. I know you will enjoy listening to our discussion.

You can listen by clicking on the image below or by visiting the podcast website here.

(People Analytics is leading to) transformational improvement in the reputation that HR has internally and externally and there is still room for improvement

In our conversation, Tomas and I also discuss:

• Why digital transformation is primarily about people – not technology – and what this means for leaders, HR and employees ("Most organisations are struggling with their digital transformation efforts because of cultural issues")
• Why skills is the new currency and learning is paramount ("To be high on learnability, to be a curious person and have a hungry mind is the number one ingredient of talent and potential today")
• How people analytics can be integrated into other fields such as leadership development, selection and assessment, and diversity and inclusion: "D&I analytics, which is using data to model inclusion, exclusion, whether a network is more or less diverse and what happens to individuals that are different. Are they excluded or not in an organisation?"
• How to stay on the right side of creepy with regards to AI and analytics ("Computers don't have the ability to be creepy, to be sexist, to be racist, not that that is an ability, but the propensity towards these kind of toxic or dark side behaviours can only be found in humans."
• The critical role of trust: "If employees do not trust their culture and their leadership even non creepy and non-intrusive AI will backfire."
• What HR needs to do to drive more value: "I think for an HR professional it is especially critical that they have the humility and self criticism to question their intuition and find out that even when something is not obvious or they don't agree with it, that might be the correct answer to a problem"

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in ethical and empathetic leadership and the role of HR and how both will need to evolve as the use of data, analytics and digital technologies become widespread in our organisations – so business leaders, CHROs and anyone in a People Analytics, HR Business Partner or Talent Acquisition role.

(Data is meaningless) if you do not have the expertise to translate the data into insights and the culture to act on those insights afterwards

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

To listen to the Podcast and read the transcript of my discussion with Tomas, head over to myHRfuture by clicking on this link: What is the Role of Leadership in Times of Crisis?

WATCH THE VIDEOS

As well as the podcast, there will be a couple of videos available on the myHRfuture YouTube channel highlighting two of the topics Tomas and I covered in our conversation. Listen to Tomas explain why everyone needs to develop a growth mindset:

GET INVOLVED

If you enjoyed listening to this week's podcast episode, I'd be grateful if you could take the following steps:

1. Please subscribe to the Digital HR Leaders podcast and weekly newsletter to make sure you don’t miss an episode.
2. Please take the time to rate the show on iTunes. We rely on your feedback and support to make the podcast, so this is very helpful!
3. Who would you like to see me interview in future episodes? Let me know in the comments below.
4. Lastly, don’t forget to share on social media with your friends and colleagues, your support is always greatly appreciated!

THANK YOU

A huge thank you to Tomas for such an enjoyable and wide-ranging conversation and for sharing his time and knowledge. You can connect with Tomas on LinkedIn, follow Tomas on Twitter @drtcp, buy his most recent book 'Why Do So Many Men Become Incompetent Leaders' and check out his website at drtomas.com.

Tomas is a prolific writer and I highly recommend delving into the numerous articles he has published. For ease, a selection of ten articles are provided below:

1. Building Ethical AI for Talent Management (with Frida Polli and Ben Dattner)
2. Digital Transformation Is About Talent, Not Technology (with Becky Frankiewicz)
3. Should Companies Use AI to Assess Job Candidates? (with Reece Akhtar)
4. Is Employee Engagement Just a Reflection of Personality? (with Lewis Garrad and Didier Elzinga)
5. Are You Still Prioritizing Intuition Over Data?
6. How to Spot an Incompetent Leader
7. Will the Pandemic Reshape Notions of Female Leadership? (with Avivah Wittenberg-Cox)
8. 3 things you can do now to be a more inclusive leader
9. Why are Some Leaders more Committed to Diversity than Others?
10. Do We Need a Different Type of Leader During a Crisis?

Thanks also to Ian Bailie, Manpreet Randhawa, Caroline Styr and the myHRfuture team for creating the Digital HR Leaders podcast and video series.

CATCH UP ON THE DIGITAL HR LEADERS PODCAST

If you haven't listened to all of the episodes of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, you can catch up now by clicking on the links below.

• Summer Special #1: Amy Edmondson - How to create Psychological Safety at work
• EP 40: David Green - How can People Analytics drive business value?
• EP 39: Jeremy Shapiro - How People Analytics has progressed in the last ten years
• EP 38: Heather McGowan - How Covid-19 is accelerating the Future of Work
• EP 37: Thomas Rasmussen - How National Australia Bank has scaled People Analytics
• EP 36: Ravin Jesuthasan - Six imperatives for HR in the Future of Work
• BONUS EPISODE: Amit Mohindra & Dawn Klinghoffer - What is the future of People Analytics?
• EP 35: Peter Hinssen - What is the role of HR in driving and enabling innovation?
• EP 34: Bruce Daisley - What do business leaders want from HR?
• EP 33: Dirk Jonker - Why People Analytics needs to behave like a start-up
• EP 32: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic - The role of storytelling in People Analytics and Data Visualisation
• EP 31: Piyush Mathur - How Johnson & Johnson uses People Analytics to drive business outcomes
• BONUS EPISODE - Heather Whiteman, RJ Milnor & Ian Bailie (Live at PAFOW) - How to develop the HR skills of the future
• EP 30: Katy Gray - How Arup uses reward data to drive behavioural change
• EP 29: Uri Ort - What is the future of talent assessment?
• EP 28: Zara Nanu - The role of People Analytics in Gender Pay Analysis
• EP 27: Julia Shaw - How can technology reduce bias in the workplace
• EP 26: Stela Lupushor - How HR can be a Catalyst for Change
• BONUS EPISODE: Volker Jacobs - How to scale Employee Experience
• EP 25: Julie Digby - How HR Drives Transformation and Org Design at Mars
• EP 24: RJ Milnor - How McKesson uses ONA to identify what drives high performance in sales
• EP 23: Rupert Morrison - Rethinking Workforce Planning & Organisation Design
• EP 22: Dawn Klinghoffer - The Evolution of People Analytics at Microsoft
• EP 21: John Boudreau - Reinventing Jobs: The Future of Work and it's impact on HR
• EP 20: Tanuj Kapilashrami - How Standard Chartered designed an exceptional Employee Experience
• EP 19: Anna Tavis: What is Agile HR and how are companies adopting it?
• EP 18: Sarah Johnson: How to use employee surveys to create strategic value
• EP 17: Leena Nair - How HR drives business value at Unilever
• EP 16: Keith McNulty - HR 3.0: more data driven, more agile and more business focused
• EP 15: Jason Corsello - The Shift From HR Tech to Work Tech
• EP 14: Jill Larsen - How does the CHRO successfully partner with the CEO
• EP 13: Frida Polli - How AI and Behavioural Science can reduce bias in recruiting
• EP 12: Ian O'Keefe - The Workforce Analytics journey at JP Morgan Chase
• EP 11: Dave Ulrich - The role of HR in the Digital Age
• EP 10: Jordan Pettman - How Nestlé uses People Analytics to measure Gender Pay Gap and Equity
• EP 9: Catalina Schveninger - The Evolution of Corporate Learning at Vodafone
• EP 8: Richard Collins - How is Automation, AI and Analytics changing recruiting?
• EP 7: Katarina Berg - Spotify's CHRO on Leading HR in a digital world
• EP 6: Nick Holley - How HR can become more business relevant 
• EP 5: Eden Britt - How to build a People Analytics team in a global organisation | The People Analytics journey at HSBC 
• EP 4: Yvette Cameron - How Blockchain will disrupt the Future of Work and HR Technology 
• EP 3: Didier Elzinga - How to Create a Culture First Company 
• EP 2: Edward Houghton - The Head of Research at the CIPD on Driving Business Performance with People Data 
• EP 1: Sharon Doherty - How to transform HR to be more digital and building a culture of diversity

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David is a globally respected writer, speaker, conference chair, and executive consultant on people analytics, data-driven HR and the future of work. As an Executive Director at Insight222, he helps global organisations create more cultural and economic value through the wise and ethical use of people data and analytics. Prior to joining Insight222 and taking up a board advisor role at TrustSphere, David was the Global Director of People Analytics Solutions at IBM Watson Talent. As such, David has extensive experience in helping organisations embark upon and accelerate their people analytics journeys. David also hosts the Digital HR Leaders Podcast on myHRfuture.