Business is facing challenges our predecessors never imagined. The CEO five-year strategic plan is replaced with pivotal moves of continual evaluation and re-evaluation. Agility is key.
Focused on a less secure future, many organizations rely on the efficiency of their senior leaders. Leaders are now expected to have the swiftness of a gazelle and the entrepreneurial mindset of a 20 year old.
Smart companies are committed to building individual and organizational leadership that is able to lead change. They focus on building a culture that is not afraid to innovate and deliver customer and employee experiences that drive growth.
Facing the Current Challenges
But life isn't perfect. For the first time in history, there are four generations in the workplace. Baby boomers are retiring taking critical skillsets with them. Hundred-year-old organizations are trying to figure out how to stay fresh so they can attract new talent. As startups grow, they add necessary processes and with structure creatives go out the door. Then there are the emerging leaders. Many of whom want to advance their careers but feel unchallenged and unmotivated by the culture of their organizations. Feeling marginalized and constrained, millennials defect to other companies, taking their technical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit with them.
To top it off, change is relentless and many senior leaders are struggling to envision a future when they feel consistently pulled into day-to-day minutia. Competition is everywhere making it easy for a Millennial with access to technology, crowdfunding and social media contacts to uproot an established organization.
Finally, senior leaders, once the visionaries of the organization are now executers.
“We are all squashed, each of us are so focused on doing the work of the people below us we can’t focus on senior leadership responsibilities," says one senior vice president.
“Take me off the ledge” a regional director, instructed me when I asked her how she wanted to use her coaching appointment. A recent merger, an overflowing to-do list and continual stress robs her of her ability to focus or even manage day-to-day responsibilities. She was either heading to the ledge or going out the door, she had not decided.
“I can’t move forward until my senior leaders stop acting like managers,” sighed a new CEO.
How can you win the big game if you having trouble with little league operations?
The Solution
In order to remain competitive, business leadership must be able to manage a multigenerational workforce, anticipate deficits in critical skills sets, and enable a culture that attracts, retains and engages top talent. Today’s mobile workforce requires a great place to work, career advancement and an opportunity for employees to achieve a sense of meaning and purpose in their work.
Most leaders are promoted because they excelled at their jobs. But senior leaders can reach a level of incompetency when thrust into a position they have received no training for. Senior leadership today is not what it used to be. Managing complexity is not an inherent skill. Today’s senior leaders are expected to ensure engagement, customer-centricity, agility and overall performance.
Are your senior leaders taking the risk to boldly innovate in a performance-focused environment or will you be left behind as the global economy moves forward?
With years of leadership development training budget cuts leaders of all levels were promoted without receiving the skills they needed to succeed. While spending is up for leadership and development, many organizations are focusing on training for future leaders, ignoring those who have ascended into senior levels. It not their fault, the demands of today’s terrain took an unexpected turn and the assets needed were not necessarily covered in the MBA class.
The CEO Challenge 2014 released by the Conference Board reveals they key concerns that keep CEO’s up at night glaring into the darkness in a cold sweat. Concerns include:
· Operational Excellence: improve performance management processes and accountability.
· Employee Engagement: the US looks to employee engagement to spur growth
· Corporate Brand and Reputation: shifting to communicating brand through front-line employees
· Innovation: promoting and rewarding entrepreneurship and risk taking
· Global/Political/Economic Risk and Opportunities: growth through globalization
· Trust in Business: Increasing trust in senior leadership
· Customer Relationships: delivering customer experiences
· Human Capital: Attracting and retaining talent
· Leadership: shifting the focus of leadership to the attributes below
Leaders set the tone and build the culture.
Do your senior have the essential skills to compete on the business battlefield?
What is being discussed in your boardroom? Are your senior leaders starting the conversations needed to maximize agility, raising employee engagement and driving productivity, and improving trust and accountability? Are they spending time personally engaging with key customers, influencers, stakeholders? Alternatively, are they so focused on the problem of the day to have the time to for a bigger view?
If so, it is time to empower senior leaders to shift from managers to leaders who lead change, drive innovation and take the risks needed to position the organization for its future.
Empower Senior Leaders by giving them the leadership skills, coaching and mentoring to:
Lead Strategically: Create a compelling and inspired vision and sense of core purpose. Fosters leadership in teams and creates a culture of accountability so they can focus on the future and pivot with change. Use transparent communication so leaders and employees can see ahead clearly. Give senior leaders the freedom to anticipate and articulate vision of the future and lead teams to create breakthrough plans. With confidence, your senior leaders will be able to navigate complexity to create meaning and actionable strategies.
Lead Change: Demonstrate an ability to manage self and lead others through change and uncertainty. Breed change leadership by creating awareness of change leadership styles and leverage the strengths of individuals and team members
Drive Innovation: Bring creative ideas to market. Senior leaders don’t have to have all of the answers, allow them to ask employees for help. They are closest to the customer, have a greater understanding of their needs and will be inspired to contribute to the organization. Effectively translates failure into learnings and new ideas. Build a culture of innovation by rewarding risk taking and the entrepreneurial mindset.
Make Quick Decisions: Establish a clear consensus of how decisions are made, enabling senior leaders to navigate ongoing volatility and uncertainty with confidence.
Use Insight and Intuition: Use data to drive decisions but hypothesis to test what they know to be right. Translates learning from successes and failures and applies to current problems.
Demonstrate Courage: Set the tone. By dealing with problems directly and promptly they instill increased accountability in others.Takes unpopular stands if necessary. Faces adversity head on and is energized by tough challenges. Takes personal accountability.
Builds Relationships: Build and manages diverse relationships. Widely trusted and seen as direct and truthful. Understands and respects the views of others. Business growth is dependent on partnerships, making product and service decisions by involving customers in the choices made and maximizing productivity through employee engagement.
Empowering senior leaders is the key to organizational success. Elevate your senior leaders from “hair on fire’ task maskers to leaders who ignite the spark of inspiration and fan the flames of innovation, securing a bright future for your organization.
Current Issue - May 2024