Why a new Leadership will be more crucial than ever in the future and how can Leaders initiate a new way to Lead?

Thanks Tim CLAYTON-BALL, Global Head of DELOITTE Leadership, John HAZAN, BAIN & COMPANY’s EMEA Talent Solution Head, Rachael BRASSEY, PA CONSULTING’s Global Head of People & Change,?Olivier CHAPPERT, BEARING POINT’s HR & Real Estate Divisions Leader. I would like to thank you again for having inspired our global community of CHRO on "The New Leadership" during the HR Congress. All your insights enrich our joint vision that a new style of Leadership is required to best support companies and their employees in this health, political and economic climate that shatters standards and shakes by so many uncertainties...

There is definitively a NEW WAY TO LEAD … From the CEOs to the FRONT LINE MANAGERS, organizations expect a new style of Leadership strongly changing HR mindsets & practices, company culture, talent management, skills and all supported by digital capabilities. I shared here some key points we discussed and would like to invite you to watch the replay https://youtu.be/Fqz6M7XKpWE .

“LEAD AS A SURVIVOR OR AS A REVIVER WILL STRONGLY AFFECT THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE” said Rachael BRASSEY, PA CONSULTING

Referring to the report “THE NEW WAY TO LEAD”, Rachael shared that 70% of the 300 business leaders interviewed across the?US, UK and?Europe say they urgently need to refine their leadership approach. The way to lead affects strongly the business performance. There are huge differences between leaders referring to the “SURVIVORS”, focused on cost reduction and sustaining the pace of change and the “REVIVERS”, focused on continued acceleration, transformation and investment in growth and innovation. The “Revivers” are more willing to change their leadership style for the greater good, and convinced that the leaders of tomorrow will be much more empathetic than today’s. As all the management levels and not only for the C-Suite, it is crucial to focus on what leadership means for all the leaders …. They play a strong role influencing the culture, leading with purpose, authenticity, values, bringing diversity & inclusion and for each one to translate into actions. Kindness and empathy are also being evolving leadership, demonstrated as a strong way to not only attract but also retain talents with much more highly motivated employees.

“LEADERSHIP IS TOUGH AND IT IS TOUGH YOU ARE A LEADER” said Tim CLAYTON-BALL, DELOITTE.

Tim explained how during the last 3 years, leaders needed to reinvent themselves to have impact and make the difference. Be a great Leader is much more than deliver strong financial and operational results. The impact of a great leadership is strong to the business performance & evaluation of the company for analysts & investors. We are also considering here the capability to connect with others to show empathy and compassion, care, be inclusive and resilience as part of the value of a people side leadership facing to a massive number of uncertainties. It is crucial to think about how to develop capabilities and muscles around leadership space. The LEADERSHIP CODE on what leaders do and how they do facing to new context drastically changing. The conditions of success for leaders today are based on clarity creating clear purpose and values, connectedness shifting from silos to connected and inclusive organizations, bringing coherence by reinforcing systems, governance and processes, curiosity by learning and improving from every win/lose experience and creating confidence, ?building trust and focusing on psychological health. Great Leaders influence and inspire others, generate network of follower ship's including multiple generations, truly empower, have strong ability to adapt leading with agility but also truly transform organizations and societies. To make the difference to great to greater, it is also to sustain their energy, to cultivate resilience and to practice a good healthcare.

“THE NEW REALITY PAVES THE WAY OF THE REVENGE OF THE FRONT-LINE MANAGERS” said John HAZAN, BAIN & COMPANY.

John explained why the role of the middle and front-line managers is truly essential. As we considered sometimes in the past to standardize their role, we realized that they are for most much important to keep closed to customer needs. They are maintaining the culture, strengthening recruitment of new employees, fostering collaboration and driving innovation. To carry out all these actions, the front-line managers need to have more accountability, more empowerment and behaviours. They need to be supported but also be trained and equipped to secure their success. They need to be close and pay attention to all the needs and constraints, have more horizontal communication, create new collective routines to sustainably engage their people in a more flexible hybrid environment. The front-line managers is the link between companies and employees by leading different people, different behaviours, different “workers archetypes” and finding new way of working including new on site and remote routines, as described in the report “THE FUTURE WORKING, MORE HUMAN, NOT LESS”. They have a crucial role bringing kindness, willingness for team members and sharing a set of common values representing the culture of their organization. The companies that will succeed are those that give a full legitimacy to their local managers. They will put in place operating model with more flexible environment without massive processes, including more delegation, more freedom to their local management. The revenge of the first-line managers is already on the way.

“BRINGING BACK OUR EMPLOYEES AT THE OFFICE” said Olivier CHAPPERT, BEARING POINT

Olivier shared how the balance between remote work and on-site work and more specifically the number of remote days authorized considerably affects all the management fundamental principles. The managers are at the forefront of these transformations to find the right balance between supervision & trust, autonomy & social link, team & individual … In terms of action plan it is all about training and coaching for managers where each management fundamental principle has to be reviewed in the light of a new balance between remote working and on-site work. At the same time, the impact on the real estate is huge as we see a real drop in terms of square meters rented by organizations because occupation is decreasing because of remote working. The vocation of the office is becoming more social (we come to the office to work in a collaborative mode, to co-create, to socialize). As a result, we see a reinforcement of collaborative space (meeting rooms) that today tend to represent on average 2/3 of office building. As part of the levers to motivate employees to come back to the office, provide employees with different levels of services available at the office (concierge, medical, sports …) can be a plus really appreciated by employees. In the same time to be sure that the office will stay attractive in a long term, it is important to bring some innovations on the workspace to renew in a regular basis the office layout and the furniture which is not easy. It is now a new generation of providers that offers an approach named “WORKSPACE AS A SERVICE” where you do not buy your furniture but you rent it instead in accordance with the evolution of work environment on regular basis. ?

“USING HR TECHNOLOGIES FOR SUPPORTING NEW LEADERSHIP APPROACHES”

Technology plays a real enabling role in everything we do. In a shift to the hybrid environment, we think to digitalize and think about how we have to support the change. Leaders are responsible to understand the art of possible in terms of technology and use that at their advantage. In terms of leadership and leadership development, HR Systems will help massively to support talent management providing a clear and accessible leadership framework for example and flows through a coherence perspective in terms of system and processes attached … clearly, technologies can support leaders including front-line managers in that journey. With the pandemic, we experimented probably one of the most inclusive time communicating more broadly than ever in one platform. Now, coming back to the hybrid scenario, it is interesting to think about how can HR systems as well as we experimented during the pandemic maintain this inclusivity. It is something interesting to do by bringing system elements and human factors together and be sure that you have the right balance to secure inclusivity and the connection will continue. It is also where technologies can help and play a huge role by bringing a complete employee experience platform that empowers your talent to connect, grow, and thrive. With a full understanding of the needs, aspirations, you can design experiences that bring out the best in every person. More than even in this era of remote working, it gets difficult for our leaders and managers to identify or capture weak signals from their team and from individuals. Digital tools can also capture or monitor potential weak signals thanks to on line surveys, mood barometers, team building platforms…?

?“VULNERABILITY, CARE & DARE, KINDNESS and FEEDBACK” as part of the BEST SKILLS to LEAD in the FUTURE

The best skills to lead in the future are definitely changing ... VULNERABILITY and the ability to share vulnerability with teams will solve many problems. The power of the CARE & DARE together, to lead people with kindness while having a real ability to act and decide. KINDNESS is one of the foundation also covering many aspects but need also to include helping people to progress in their carrier and not only in your organization. FEEDBACK is key also as provide feedback is crucial and need to be rethink in remote working environment.

To conclude, I would like to thank again Rachael, Tim, John and Olivier for their inspiring insights. We are looking forward to discuss with you how we can support you in the future. Feel free to reach out to us.

Rachael Brassey Tim Clayton-Ball John Hazan Olivier Chappert Philippe Burger Radhika Philip Lindsay Stark John O'Neill Marc van der Vleugel Olle Matintupa Sarah Henry Allie Boddington Olivier Fecherolle Brigid Lury Silvia Hutz Hayley Taylor Sarah Horne Mark Brinkler Céline Haffner Assoc CIPD Claudia de Villiers Christine Sauvaget , Anne VALENTIN Zo? (Vince) Cannings FCIPD Leatham Green Andre Robberts Andre Van Den Bosch Mihaly Nagy , Rahul Misra Bruno Morais Reham Almusa Nicolas Savary Darren Hunt Leopoldo Boado Lama David Mihala Johan Van Puymbrouck Matthieu Leroy Gary Woodcock James Ronksley Adam Warsop Anton Whitefoot

#leadershipculture #diversityandinclusion #technology #hrinnovation ?#talentmanagement ?#chro ?#hrtransformation ?#hrtech ?#employeengagement ?#culture #change ?#growthmindset