Leadership has become one of those buzzwords everyone uses all the time and a cliché that doesn’t always spark curiosity or interest. When faced with a true leader, however, one quickly notices there is nothing boring or cliché about the individual; if anything, there is a deep well of wisdom and charisma that sparks interest, attention and a desire to grow from within.
The thing about this observation is that in the several corporate leadership development activities we had purview to lately, where we find out most of the companies are trying to serve a recently set “Vision 2025 or 2030”—an existing enterprise-wide strategy, the conversation often evolves around a single-event design. There is often no leadership strategy that involves a broader philosophy nor an acknowledgement that development is an on-going journey.
The problem is with such a limited approach, we are asked to implement specific programs to address specific gaps, alongside all the longstanding legacy programs that are not in consideration for pause or an exit. Allow me to point out the fact that this is one of the reasons why our leadership experiences end up looking like a fuzzy patchwork quilt of an organizations’ histories and current pain points all mixed up together. People rather expect to see is a display of a beautiful picture; a purposeful path the corporation has set its eyes out on.
A strategy is often defined as “a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.” In that, a person can have a strategy to exercise three or four times a week or a company can have a strategy to address climate change. In both individual and collective cases, a strategy starts with a vision and provides a purposeful path to accomplishing a specific goal with a promise of a better future.
As a long-tenured HR professional, I am accustomed to the tension between keeping what works inside a culture and allowing for what’s possible within provided perimeters. That said, each time we agree to build an edited version of a leadership program and/or accept to simply add new tricks to on-going tactics, we are choosing to not let go of previous ways of working. Despite the originality of intent, in absence of a renewed philosophy, we end up providing an advanced and blurred vision that signals to the company the acceptance of a partial transcendence and non-commitment to transforming our ways of being.
In their book, Three Laws of Performance, Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan refer to the power of language and how things “occur” to us effects our performance. When we set a strategy, it is imperative we are (1) clear about its intent, (2) concise about its promise, (3) communicate action simply. There is a difference, for example between saying to a group of leaders “We now turn to you to energize our organization and inspire action with your teams” vs. “... to create a vision, to create collaboration opportunities, to innovate and to energize for action...” The second has overlapping expectations that are competing in action and creating confusion.
No one argues our legacy leadership models are sustainable or relevant in the new century. Many start to notice the notion of a leader as the person knowing everything or being the smartest in the room is no longer in demand. Many start to acknowledge the historic evolution of labor, the transformation of business models, the reformation of workforce experience along with changing customer expectations mean a shift in definition, dimension and quality. Many also start to notice a new age leader is rather the person, who sets the context, creates networks, facilitates decision making, creates an environment of nature at all levels within an organization.
As new demographics—ages, styles, attitudes, expectations begin to make their mark in the workplace, the notion of what a leader is, and needs to be, is being challenged. The need for leadership development has never been more urgent. Corporations of all sorts, sizes and geographies realize they need to rethink organizational capabilities and invest to up-skill leadership to survive. This is the time we are asked to step up as HR leaders and say “goodbye” to historical behavior and recognition patterns.
If we are serious about building a new profile for our leaders and prove rejuvenation of workforce experience, we must find our way back to the point of strategy in the first place and truly challenge our original assumptions:
· Where is the organization headed?
· What do we need our business model(s) to accomplish?
· Who do we need in place to lead our business strategies?
· What ecosystem do we need to build support the transformation?
· How can our leaders effectively play a part?
· What do we need our leaders to forget?
· What do we need our leaders to remember?
· How do we reward the “right” behavior(s)?
Leadership is critical because it is a strong determinant of on-going direction and outcomes. Because it is emergent in its quality, its development is complex and mostly comes about thru the support of on-going processes.
Forget about fancy reasons and outlines of catchy leadership development programs. Learning in leadership is about taking responsibility to make the future happen. It is about an organization’s individual talent willing to become a better version of themselves. If that purpose is diluted or blurred and where experiences are over-parsed and distributed, the possibility of transcendence becomes a mission impossible for its receivers.
Our job in HR involves setting a new—not revised—context, identifying correlated behaviors (in support of business objectives) and putting the right culture in place as vital parts of our enterprise strategy. Our responsibility revolves around creating the right conditions for execution and learning. The simpler the taxonomy, easier it is for people to comprehend what’s expected and react.
We hope you can find the power in your authority to say goodbye to some of your own behaviors and the courage to ditch old organizational behaviors collectively.