IT’S NO GOOD COCOONING BUSINESSES IN A SOUND PROOF BOOTH. ORGANISATIONS NEED TO BE BRACED FOR CONTINUED SHOCKWAVES. FRUSTRATED BY DELAY, INERTIA AND SKILLS SCARCITY, WEARY OF PANDEMIC HINDRANCE, WARY OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC AND GEOPOLITICAL UNCERTAINTY AND PERPLEXED BY EVOLVING HYBRID WORKING. TIME TO EXPLORE, SPECULATE AND INNOVATE A PLAN FOR GROWTH, COMPANIES MUST PLAN BOTH LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY, BE SUSTAINABLE, DIGITALLY-DRIVEN, HUMANCENTRIC AND ALERT TO CONTINUOUS DISRUPTION.
Leaders and teams must transform with seven momentum building leadership powers. First, we need to anticipate disruption and initiate transformation, whilst performance and energy are high and resources plentiful. Delaying action until the storm hits creates an emergency which consumes resources and diverts team energy into steadying the ship, instead of steering a new course. Disruptive inflection points begin with weak signals around the edges, threats seem insignificant. Busy agendas, the lure of short-term profits and the comfort of stability all-too often congeals into apathy. This is where predictive analysis, vision and planning are essential, complemented with the courage to act decisively on the unknown. To gain momentum and engagement, leaders need to channel personal power by reframing the way they engage and influence – a combination of increasing self-awareness, activating deep strengths and personality advantages – and overhauling belief systems, behaviour patterns and mental wellness. It’s then a case of amplifying personal power with goal power, by creating an inspiring vision of a transformed world, using razor-sharp and dynamically tracked goals and adding the methodical, disciplined implementation of process power.
Next comes people power, a performance double helix between leader and team, where together they achieve a proficiency and performance greater than the sum of individual contributions. People power is invoked when leaders create the conditions for the team to flourish by instilling confidence, building, shaping and re-shaping the team, until the chemistry is right. They must know when and how to shuffle the deck to start a new performance curve, when to inject experience and maturity or to bring new energy, creativity and hunger. The leader must also foster flow, the place where increasing challenge meets increasing skills to create the trance of peak performance. Flow starts with the attitude and the ability to view challenges as potential for enjoyment rather than opportunities to fail and be judged. The leader removes distractions, uses clear goals, encourages reduced self-consciousness and coaches to cultivate the attitude. It’s important to pay attention to the environment, how to support the team and make sure every person is free to use their strengths, experiment, express themselves, apply their creativity. It’s also crucial to create extraordinary work experiences filled with indelible moments.
An employee’s sense of being noticed and understood by the boss is more critical than it has ever been. Consequently, leadership efforts to engage must be continuous and personalised. Developing empathy with each team member and recognising their most important needs is key, but so is being mindful of who is motivated by skills, status and traditional career, who desires greater meaning, independence and flexibility and who values extraordinary experience and social connection. When we have these conditions right, a symbiotic relationship occurs, a compound effect of learning from and building upon the confidence of each other which ignites emergent talent and energy. Finally, when this intense people focus is paired with rigorous accountability, customer intimacy, excellence and is sustained using smart power and staying power, we have culture power – a flywheel effect of ever-increasing performance and agility which transforms the business from disrupted to disruptor.
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