Why majority of businesses are led by managers not by leaders?

Today majority of organizations are led by managers rather than leaders. This is because the high performing functional specialists are being promoted to take on larger role without given proper handholding to lead business in the frequently changing competitive market condition. With the rapidly changing expectations of customers & growing cut throat competitions, companies are engaged in frequent innovation, transformation and development. In the changing global business scenario, new businesses are constantly evolving and existing businesses are under pressure to innovate something new. With effect of this, the jobs and Job roles are becoming complex. This situation in business requires transformative multi-dimensional proficient leaders who can handle complexities & drive business to grow into the next level. Unfortunately majority of companies are not able to handle leadership transitioning to develop competent leaders. This is the reason, managers are engaged in micro managing things with conventional techniques of command and control, rigid hierarchy, complex bureaucratic decision making & authoritative allocation of power. In order to develop transformative multidimensional leaders we have to follow structured process of leadership transitioning. Following are some steps of leadership transition.

Identify potential leaders

Conventionally businesses commit mistake in identifying potential leaders on the basis of seniority & functional performance. Spotting & developing potential leaders need structured process. The potential leaders must have the following traits. ?

·?????? Those who look beyond current job performance and take extra initiatives with proactive mindset.?

·?????? Positive attitude to solve problems, adopt change & learn from failures to improve future course of action.

·?????? The ability to encourage & inspire others for collective contribution for the common goal.

·?????? Volunteer for new initiatives, mentor and lead the team by helping others to learn and grow.

·?????? Encourage managers to recommend team members who show commitment and take accountability.

·?????? Take challenges, adopt changes & learn from failure to bounce back to succeed.

·?????? Curiosity to learn, keen to upgrade knowledge & brush up skills to continuously to lead in changing business scenario.

Post identification of aspiring leaders, organization must have right framework to train, nurture & evaluate their leadership skills & proficiency before assigning them the role to lead.?

Role clarity & Goal clarity

Many organisation never? communicate the expectations of the business while promoting a functional specialist to a leadership position. Most of the time, lack of role clarity leads to stress, poor prioritisation, lack of alignment with strategy and operational inefficiency. Even proficient employees cannot perform effectively as per expectation without role clarity in an organisation.

Many companies assume that their employees understand that how their role determines the success of the company. In this process, the roles of the employees are not redefined at all and the expectations are kept unclear.

Many organisations also don’t communicate their goals to the newly promoted leaders. They presume that the employee must

Understand the goals by virtue of his experience. Without goal clarity leaders are not able to deliver up to the expectations.

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Training & coaching

I believe, once the potential leader is identified, there must a competency gap analysis in line with the prospective leadership position. On the basis of the role, he should be trained and coached by in-house and out-house experts. These training programs need to be tailored in line with the knowledge, skills & attitude that are required for the prospective leadership position within organisation. The learning objectives must include the development of competencies in leadership, conflict resolution, strategic planning, team handling, decision making, growth strategy, team handling, communication etc. The goal is just not only to prepare him for a specific role but also he should be trained as a leader to face future challenges effectively and drive business to grow on the ?right direction. Unfortunately, many organisations don’t follow continuous practice to coach potential leaders before assigning them the role to lead.

Change Management

Today managers are not ready to face changes because they are not trained to handle change. This is the reason, many organisations appoint leaders, who have experienced failures and bounced back with the spirit of resilience to succeed. At the turn of industrial4, new business trends are constantly evolving. Without having growth mindset, preparedness to change & spirit of resilience, its difficult for leaders to manage unique ?changes in business. To manage change effectively, organisation has to groom their managers as transformative multidimensional leaders who can adopt change and drive business to grow. In constantly evolving business, the role of change leadership is extremely important. “Change leadership is?the process of leading an organisation through significant disruptions, transitions, or other organisational transformations.?

Empower aspiring Leaders

Empowering the leaders to just achieve the functional targets is not sufficient. The real empowerment is to trust them for a higher role and put them in different critical situations and examine how they are responding to the situations. Encourage them and enable them to take challenges without having fear of failure and let them face different challenges in business before they are given the steering to drive. Give your potential leaders the freedom to take risks, handle challenges, adopt changes & learn from success & failures to lead the business effectively and make company? grow. This stage is extremely important which most of the organizations don’t even attempt. “This hands on experience is invaluable; it builds confidence and helps potential leaders understand the consequences of their choices.” Encouraging them to lead function, cross functions, enterprise & business projects, which can provide a safe environment to nurture their leadership styles & decision making skills.

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Exchange Feedback

Constructive feedback is essential in building transformative leaders. Regular logical evaluation and guidance help future leaders identify their strength and areas of improvement. Establish a friendly culture with open communication where feedbacks are exchanged in most supportive & constructive manner. This will help them redefining their skills and develop a mindset for growth.

Mentoring

Mentoring is the most important tool in leadership development. Organization must deploy senior experienced ?leader with right attitude to guide, support and coach the potential leader with deep insight and nuances of the business. Mentor can act as an advisor, guide or role model and help grooming leadership style & qualities of the mentee. Effective mentors coach potential leaders on regular basis, rate their performance and give them feedback to

overcome mistakes. Role of mentor is extremely important in training change management & transformative techniques.?

Train to lead

Business is all about people. Making people encouraged, trained & inspire them to perform with passion & their collectively contribute for the business mission are the important tasks of the leader. It’s not easy. Everybody doesn’t want to sacrifice to lead. Leader has to learn humility. when things go right he gives credit to his people and when things go wrong, he takes responsibility. According to Simon Sinek,” Great leaders are not responsible for the job. They are responsible for the people, who are responsible for job.” The main problem in the industry today is that, they promote functional specialist to lead but they don’t teach how to lead.

Give him challenges

The proficiency of leadership is tested, how they react to the real life challenges and failures. Assigning them projects which push them out of their comfort zones and stretch their abilities to achieve targets in uniquely complex

Business scenario. The repetitive assignments of? handling complex business situations will foster their confidence to adopt different situations and gain resilience.

Customer Centricity

The main objective of every business is to solve customer problem. Leader must be trained to develop customer oriented attitude and increase the degree of customer centricity. In digital age, every business in hurry to solve customer problem in most effective ways in least possible time. In this case leader needs deep down approach to identify, analyse and solve customer problems in most effective ways. Unfortunately many organization never invest on leaders to train ?customer centricity and customer oriented attitude. But in return they expect their leader to be agile and to create high degree of customer delight & unique customer experience.

Lead transformation

With the frequent innovation & transformation, processes are no more static today. Continuous Transformation of process, workflow, nature of jobs, roles, know-how etc. are essential on continuous basis . Leaders Must be proficient in transformative thinking to predict in line with the prospective changes in business.?A continuous approach to drive transformation & lead culture of transformation, make organization to grow by learning from its mistakes are highly essential in business today. Conventional organization hardly make efforts to transform their process, culture and leadership to increase business capabilities.

Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking is simply?a logical thought process that focuses on the analysis of critical factors and variables that will influence the long-term success of a business. Strategic thinking? helps leaders to clearly define their goals, develop strategies, set priorities and make action plan to achieve business targets. Strategic Thinking helps leaders to be their better version in every step of the way in their life.

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The present situation in business requires transformative multi-dimensional proficient leaders who can handle complexities & drive business to grow into the next level. Moreover, digital transformation in competitive age requires leaders who are digitally enabled persons empowered by computational thinking to connect computer science with other functional disciplines; who can be able to solve multifarious problems of employees, customers & business. In the frequently changing business landscape, to handle business and lead people, companies need trained and proficient transformational leaders. Managers on the other hand are practicing conventional command and control, strict supervision & authoritative allocation of power. At the turn of industrial4, command & control & management techniques are becoming obsolete day by day. In order to increase capability, foster quick decision making and deliver effective result in shortest possible time, Industries need proficient leaders who can encourage, inspire & lead people to take initiative and make them accountable to perform with passion and contribute desired result within limited duration. Companies must adopt leadership transitioning techniques to train the managers and make them proficient to lead business in the changing business dynamics.

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