World over people are concerned about privacy. However the more we want to protect our privacy, the more public we are about our thoughts, feelings, and reactions. Thanks to the smart phone and social media! Should the organization keep a tab on the sleep pattern of its people in leadership roles?

Hard work needn’t be long hours!

Researchers have proved beyond doubt that sleep deprivation makes one feel tired, irritable, edgy and blunt in making judgments. So, leaders have to rest well to be able to listen well, converse meaningfully and inspire their teams.

However, given the social norms that seem to govern most communities in the world today, most people in leadership roles consciously try building an image of being dynamic, quick-on-the-feet and versatile. So they tend to work extra hours, keep communicating with the crew using all possible channels of communication. They tend to squeeze in an hour or two each day. Long flights, packed agendas, quick turnarounds and obsession with emails and various other social channels keep one busy for sure.

One must take a hard look at this and ask if one could be equally effective by appropriate delegation, solid planning, and rigorous performance management. We know that the world here is a lot of volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous than ever before; hence the leader has to keep his or her eyes on the ball all the time. Hence it’s all the more important for the leader to stay alert, anticipate events, connect the dots quickly and act decisively. A leader must sleep well!

Don’t infect the others!

Some leaders brag about their work timings, the stretch goals of getting things done and being lightning fast in their responses. Their team pays for such misadventures.

Everyone in the team feels obliged to follow the footsteps of the boss so that they do not get branded as slowpokes and their commitment towards the organization and the boss do not get questioned. If most people in the team sleep less and get to work with deficits inattentiveness, energy and drive, the service quality suffers and the organization runs into a vicious circle. Nobody wants that to happen!

Maybe, the boss stumbled upon an interesting thought, so he or she gets up in the middle of the night and starts working on it immediately so that the thought gets its due attention and energy; the idea could blossom forth into something very big. So, that’s a midnight lamp burning and an exception. But this can’t be expected to happen each day.

Some bosses expect their subordinates to be active on their smartphones and stay connected until late in the night. That becomes a culture in the team. Most often the long work hours don’t accompany high levels of productivity in the organisation. So, it’s no point dragging everyone in the team to sacrifice their time outside the usual work hours in tasks which don’t yield business results.

Can we not plan better?

Some organisations do better than the others in planning their way up the hill. The people in leadership roles across the levels learn to work accordingly. Countries like Japan encourage their workers to take a nap in the afternoon so that they are better prepared to take up the next set of tasks. This is an example of how some plan for high productivity.

Coworkers, subordinates and bosses have to play their role in dealing with isolated cases of sleep-deprived managers. They need to be counseled and given feedback about their actions. Sometimes they may not know the amount of stress they create on their team members by firing long emails before the bedtime or holding periodic meetings on a holiday and so on.

Sleep well to repair the damages done during the day to the mental fabric and boost morale in the team!

You may also like to read: Leadership at the Foundation of Company’s Success

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Technology has been disrupting a number of things in our day to day lives including each day at work. Cloud technologies, mobility, social platforms, big data and artificial intelligence transformed many activities in HR function of an organization, right from the way talent is attracted, and assessed to the way it is developed and retained. Behaviours and habits of employees have changed significantly over time. Hence, employer organizations are evolving their practices to adapt to these developments around us.

Let us focus on one cog in the wheel – interviews. This is one of the most common tools to assess talent while recruiting for a role. Traditionally, organizations held face to face discussion with a potential hire to check if the person has the competency, attitude and interest to do the job, has adequate depth of experience and demonstrates alignment with organizational values. We know, this is a herculean task to assess all of these in an interview. Interviewers should have experience and competence to carry out this assessment. Even if they are, research shows that reliability of interview as a tool of assessment is less than 35%. Yet organizations follow this as the common practice. Needless to say, with the advent of new technologies and changing norms in our society, we should introduce new methods.

Multi-Stage Assessment

Talent is a competitive advantage for any organization. It is extremely critical that an organization must choose the best and not settle for anything which is lesser. We have access assessment tools that can reduce human bias, increase reliability of the findings and are easy to administer. Companies also outsource the HR process to companies that have various specializations.

In our current times, instantaneity is a virtue. Assessment methods which give report immediately after the session are great to attract candidates to take up the challenge. IT industry and some Government programmes have started using hackathons, codefests or similar such sprint-like events which bring out the best in people working in a competitive game-like environment. However, all interviews does not require to be in a sprint-like environment. The strategy is to deploy a multi-stage process, each focusing on evaluation of a few aspects in adequate detail.

Instantaneous results and preferably a detailed feedback of the interview process are attractive to the aspirants. Considering the logistics of travel and busy schedule that each of us endure, we have to find technology to make such a multi-stage process a reality.

Leverage Technology

Video Interviews allow a candidate to take an interview at his or her convenience and Interviewers can evaluate the responses when they are free. There is no need to sync-up the schedule of both for this method of assessment which can be very efficient for screening applicants. This is very useful for recruiting junior level roles in an organization where the number of applicants for a job could be 20x of the number of open roles to fill.

Online mobile-based tests, case studies, hackathons, gamified assessment tests, analysis of simulated cases, virtual reality based interviews are new tools that are making recruitment easy to administer and test multiple parameters at the same time. Traditional methods of interviewing have to be preceded by some of these tech-based interventions. The organization will strengthen its employer brand and pick up candidates who are more likely to be successful.

Build a Roadmap and Execute

It is easy to say that technology tools and multi-stage assessment methods should be deployed. However, it is very hard to put them into practice. Several organizations have not yet brought this onto their anvil, let alone planning and execution. Furthermore, it is a missed opportunity unless we bring this into action. When the leadership team is committed to the cause of boosting employer brand and making the selection process more reliable, planning can be kicked off.

The first step will be to list down evaluation parameters, agree on a benchmark and translate them into objective measures. Next, design a battery of tests that fit the purpose and add value to the candidate and the employer organization. The choice of tests come next, keeping in mind the ease of administering them and the acceptance of the potential candidate. A lot of work, exciting and value-adding!

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Workplaces have people in their 20’s and 30’s who are led by managers in their late 30’s to 50’s. Given the economic and social changes in the 1990’s, people born in that period grew up in the digital era. Using technology and internet is their second nature. The way they interact among themselves and their seniors is very different from those who were born a decade before. They have grown up with smartphones and social media unlike their older counterparts who learnt it well later in life. They relate to quick responses, snappy chats, upvotes and downvotes, emojis, transparency and a deep sense of privacy.

Build a Positive Confluence

These behaviours are in a realm which is very different from the older social norms of demonstrating respect while interacting with elders, taking initiatives when asked, operating within set boundaries, fearful consciousness about hierarchy and authority. Our workplace today has people who have grown up in two distinctive realms which are way apart. How can the people born in 1960’s and 70’s and in senior leadership roles align with the thoughts and actions of their direct reports who are in  the crucial mid-level leadership roles having grown up in a different era? Similarly how can these mid-level managers lead the millennials who have a very different way of life? In a way, it’s the clash of three distinct ways of doing things. Can we convert clashing ways to a positive confluence?

The senior leaders have to adapt and drive adaptability throughout the organization. The unspoken and unwritten value for all companies must be adaptability, mutual respect, openness to change and humility to learn. These do not need to be specified. These are the basics of workplace etiquette. Our colleges and families have to teach these to our children.

Diversity at work

Understanding one another and learning from one another are key to building harmony. Simple things such as using chats, videos, abbreviations, quick comments are a way of life for the young. Seniors have to learn and adapt their content, frequency and style while communicating to the others. Similarly, the traditional approach of face to face meetings, discussions and presentations are to be done for specific occasions and events. Everyone in the workplace should learn multiple methods and tools to get things done.

This is easier said than done unless there is mutual respect and flexibility. We have to discover the goodness in traditional methods and the value of grey hair; similarly we have to appreciate the value of new methods and learn how to deploy them to raise efficiency and speed. We have to value the energy and enthusiasm of our younger colleagues and leverage them appropriately. Leaders have to compose diverse teams to carry out various tasks and activities of a business so that there are enough opportunities to appreciate one another and the confluence starts delivering positive outcomes.

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Respect is earned

There are cases where someone in his or her 20’s leads a team having many elder people in there. While the organization and senior leaders have to position the young leader well in the team and clearly vest the authority in the person, this does not ensure that everyone in the team accepts him or her as the boss.

Foundational principles of humanity have not changed. Our workplaces are not led by autocrats and hence, we cannot force others to respect their boss. Respect has to be earned by the person by his or her contribution to the success of others. Our younger generation is more comfortable than the older colleagues to recognize the boss for his or her competence and contribution. They do not worry much about the seniority, age, power and authority of the person. However, the older colleagues are habituated with reporting to someone who is senior by age and bestowed with power.

As more and more millennials are entering the workforce, it is likely that the boss is younger than many in the team. In such situations, the manager needs to be sensitive towards the mindset of the older colleagues while directing them and earn their respect.

We live in exciting times – we have to work overtime to build a confluence of ideas and positive energy, deploy diversity in work situations and demonstrate sensitivity towards the diverse norms at play.

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Introvert or Extrovert – it doesn’t matter

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All workplaces want their employees to be at their productive-best. They invest energies on creating the right environment to perform, setting norms and values, organizing work in a manner that facilitates value creation, incentivising employees, adopting the right tools and technology, educating and developing employees and so on. Can someone stack-rank these factors so that efforts and investments can be accordingly channelized?

Training is good, What’s new?

Common wisdom says, most human beings are keen to learn new things. Given a fear-free environment and adequate sense of independence, they would apply the acquired knowledge on their work. They would practice newly acquired skills and sharpen the saw over time. They will need lesser efforts of guidance and supervision from their bosses. They feel cared for and valued.

Sometimes, such initiatives enable employees discover interest in new areas of work; they move out of their comfort zone and take up new kind of work within the organization. It allows the employer to move their employees across various roles in the organization. And at the same time, it helps employees acquire knowledge on various areas of work and be future-ready.

The moot question here, “Is training and Education a feel-good factor for the organization and the employees equally or do they directly contribute in revenues and profits of a business?”

Who misses the Training Programs?

Is it the manager who wants the program to happen or the employee who wants the program? All of us know, it is the ideal scenario when the manager as well as the employee want training, are keen on acquiring new knowledge and sharpening their existing skills. Most organizational contexts are far from this ideal.

When a manager believes that continuing investments in training keeps his troop ahead of the curve and motivate them to do more, the manager drives the initiative. He or she finds ways and means of designing and organizing appropriate reinforcements.

However, in many situations, managers believe, time on such activities is wastage of work hours; they see many lacunae in the program and believe, it isn’t good enough for their context. Some of them profess that employees must learn on-the-job and self-develop by observing others at work, drawing upon the resources on the internet. They exonerate themselves from the responsibility of developing their people and ask the employees to figure out a way of staying relevant to deliver what the job demands. The leaders have a problem here with their managerial talent! Before any further investment is made on training, they have to invest on the managers across levels in the organization to own up and drive the learning initiative in the company; and use it as a driver of performance.

When the HR team drops the beat on training, the Managers across the hierarchy of an organization must see this drop and put efforts to bring it back. That’s the goal of a high-performing organization.

It takes two to tango!

Organizations can facilitate learning, encourage acquiring new skills and create opportunities to learn. However, the onus lies on the learner. That is why they say, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

There are employees who tend to consider a training initiative to be a torture; they fail to concentrate on the learning objective, stay distracted, look for the comforts of a classroom and do not value the efforts put by their bosses and colleagues in creating the opportunity for him or her to learn. Hence, it is important that participation in continuing education, training and development is voluntary. There are industry sectors and certain roles which need the employee to upgrade his or her skills and knowledge on a continuous basis. In this context, an employee has to stay hungry for more knowledge and new skills. When someone shows a contra-behaviour, it’s time to bring in someone amenable to learn and develop rather than struggling to change someone’s motives.

Training and education is valuable only when the manager uses it to drive performance and when the employee craves for it!

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Our world has seen vigorous development in technology in the last couple of decades. New methods of doing work have evolved; Gen Y and Z have been ahead of the senior managers in any organization in terms of their understanding and application of these new practices. At home, the youth have taken charge of putting in place new devices and on-boarding the seniors onto the new devices such as computers, laptops, Smart TV, emails, facebook, WhatsApp, video files, Snapchat, Instagram, alarms, camera, smartphones, gaming, reminders, calendars, and so on. Families have started e-shopping, booking hotels, taxis and tickets, paying bills online, e-gaming, sharing updates via the phone and so on. Why do organizations face challenges in getting the youth to similar things there? Why don’t senior folks learn from the freshers or the younger colleagues?

Progressive organizations came up with an idea called Reverse Mentoring to promote learning among seniors from the junior colleagues. One wonders why the organization has to create a specific program to make this happen when it’s commonplace at home.

Build the right environment

People enter the workplace each day with a mindset very different from what they normally wear at home. If at all the top leaders can build a home-like environment at work, ego of seniors won’t come on the way of seeking knowledge, inputs, guidance and help from the juniors; and similarly, ego of the junior folks won’t spring up on the way of staying humble and grounded while coaching and helping the seniors. The first key to success of such program is to build the right environment within an organisation.

Organisations at times struggle to make this work because the seniors do not see the reason for learning from the juniors. They fear, their authority will be compromised and their directions on issues of organisation effectiveness will be treated casually by their direct reports. Similarly, the juniors might suddenly start misinterpreting the situation of coaching seniors to be that of incapable managers. Such misgivings can be eliminated only when the basic premises of learning are clear in the organisation.

It’s not a one-way street

Reverse Mentoring is a two-way process. The coach and the coachee both have to learn in this unique process. The juniors coaching the seniors need to learn about the business, the external environment, perspectives about the business, best practices and historical events. They could rethink about these to imagine possible alternatives of dealing with the challenges and opportunities if they were to reappear.

And similarly, the seniors need to not only learn new technologies but also imagine how these learnings can be applied to solve business challenges. They could join hands with these young Turks to run special projects to innovate new solutions or products.

This two-way street needs to be built and again it’s a cultural element to be built by the Top Leadership.

Choose the right combination

Choosing the right pair or triad is critical keeping in mind the objective of the program, learning opportunities that can be created by forming the combination and compatibility of the personalities. Since adult Learning is a matter of individual’s interest and commitment, it can’t be effective by forcing the individuals to a Mentoring program. Hence it’s important that the participants make their own decisions while the HR department could restrict its role to that of a facilitator and an observer.

Periodic reports from the HR team could help the managers track how well the program is getting executed. As a program gets executed, there are needs of course-corrections such as rebranding, communication, choice of the partners in the coaching process, redefining the objectives, clarifying the expectations of the participants and recognition of the efforts by the participants.

Reverse Mentoring is hyped. This is like any other learning process which calls for setting the right environment, setting the right expectations and forming the right teams.

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We associate autocracy, dictatorship, authoritarian styles to tyrant leaders like Hitler, Stalin and Fidel Castro. But, there is a bright side of this unique style. Think of Henry Ford who created a great impact in the auto industry. He is known to have followed the autocratic style of leadership with his belief in economies of scale and assembly line manufacturing. Ford Motors created thousands of jobs and a solid history. Leaders who consider themselves as experts and have a huge conviction.  In a cause, do not consider it essential to seek opinions of others, build alignment of thoughts and so on. They are action-oriented; expect their flock to carry out the instructions perfectly with the same conviction without questioning the purpose behind the efforts.

It works well in some situations!

Across the world, this style works well in the military because they do not have the time to build consensus and alignments with the troops. The leader is expected to make the right decisions given the support system that is working elsewhere. The members of the troop are expected to stay battle-ready and wait to receive the instructions from their leader. The trust is implicit and a foundational principle here.

Similarly, in a factory or in a construction site, the work processes are so complex that the workers have neither the knowledge nor the wherewithal to decide if the tasks carried out by them are worthwhile for the business or not. They just carry out the assigned tasks in the manner they are told to do. In return, they expect a secure job and fair wages. The leader assumes great responsibility in such cases and is obliged to do the best to ensure that the team reaches the goal.

Autocratic leaders are hyper-criticized!

The common belief is that autocratic leaders are control-freaks, keep a close watch on the tasks being performed, do not trust the people in their team, do not recognize the efforts being put by the individuals, reap hugely lucrative rewards vis-a-vis the earnings of their teams and are short-term focused. However, this is a bit of over-generalization and hence, unfair to paint the canvass with a single stroke.

Like we say, horses for courses, leadership style demonstrated by the leader must match the need of the hour and the context in which the team has to perform. To lead highly skilled scientists in an R&D laboratory is a task very different from leading highly skilled commandos in a counter-insurgency strike. Similarly, leading a team of factory workers in an assembly line is very different from leading a team of engineers ensuring consistent performance of a data-centre.

One size doesn’t fit all. So, a leader has to bring the right mix of leadership behaviours to the team. She or he has to communicate, delegate, build trust, receive feedback, inspire the team to pursue lofty goals, show the bigger picture and deal with reactions of the team-mates. While an autocratic style is closely identified with instructing the team, monitoring progress and pushing them to achieve bigger targets, a successful leader shows the other facets of leadership behaviors at the right time.

Do not lose control over your intentions!

In the military organizations, the leader makes his intentions clear to the troop and the soldiers become clear about the goal. While the broad strategy is known to the troop, it is impossible that the leader can tell them what to do at each step of combating the enemy. They apply the principles that they have learned and do their best to realize the goals defined by the leader. This works all over the world. However, we see business enterprises struggle to achieve this level of maturity.

At times, a leader invests a lot of energy in alignment and consensus-building. In the process of give and take, often the intentions agreed jointly become an octopus, hard to manage and often invisible! We can well imagine, the organization fails in these situations in spite of the best efforts of the leader to co-create the intentions and goals.

There are situations when a leader tries to have a close oversight. The team perceives that the leader doesn’t trust anyone; doesn’t value the ability of anybody in his team. The energy drops, momentum declines and commitment falls. Naturally, the organization fails to deliver.

Ideally, the leader has to keep a good control on the intentions and evolve the principles for the play. He must communicate with his team in such a way that the players in his side are clear about these. They have the freedom to apply the principles in their respective tasks. Leadership, I think, is about a good balance in multiple dimensions. One must draw upon these dimensions of energy in the right proportion to make the ideal mixture that paves a strong path to success.

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Every leader wishes to leave his mark behind in the minds of the people he works with and the journey of the institution decades after he has stepped down. This is not only applicable in an organization but also for a teacher, a parent, a doctor, a caretaker, a gardener, practically everybody. A teacher imparts knowledge, builds skills and shapes thinking of the student not only to be measured at the end of the academic term rather the impact on the life of the student through the years after he or she has graduated from the class. Do we not remember such teachers? Similarly, don’t we recall having been deeply impacted by the words and behaviours of a babysitter, an office assistant, the security guard in the parking lot? We certainly do. That is because these individuals transformed our thinking on a subject and our way of life. They demonstrate the qualities of the celebrated transformation leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and so on. What do they do differently? Can we learn and practice them?

They had a dream which grew vivid each day!

These transformation leaders dreamt big and saw what others did not dare explore. Steve Jobs looked at the music players differently from the others; Akio Morita saw the need to listen to music outdoors; Bill Gates saw the need to simplify the interface of a computer so that millions can use the computer; Bindeshwar Pathak reformed the way people in India answered the call of nature while travelling for a long time; Dr. Devi Shetty delivered world-class cardiac-care at affordable prices by several innovations in the work processes. We can see many more such as mobile phone camera, cab aggregation, e-commerce, social networks, advances in healthcare, agriculture, education and so on. All these leaders saw an opportunity to simplify life, serve humanity or fortify our planet. For a manager, a parent, a teacher or whatever role one might have taken, the question is, “Do I have a dream and see the possible ways to reach there?”

Mahatma Gandhi saw the picture of independent India in his head; Mother Teresa saw a world free from suffering and full of compassion. They kept thinking of the ways and means of reaching the goal. History tells us how these leaders undertook various experiments, some of which worked and some did not. The point to note here is that these leaders did not give up, kept altering the course with the same vigor and determination. Possibly, the picture grew vivid in their mind by the day and the passion took them closer to the goal. They talked about it and the others followed.

They care for the others!

The Transformation Leaders communicate their vision with their followers and inspire them to follow the path. They listen to them with interest; take personal interest in fulfillment of individual needs and aspirations to the best possible extent. They build an environment of mutual trust, respect and sharing with their team members. They care for bonding among the members of the team.  They listen to the concerns of their team members and act upon them transparently. They don’t brush issues under the carpet, rather discuss them openly and seek solutions. They mentor their team deeply, inspire them to co-create the path and co-own the achievements. It calls for high degree of sacrifice and mental energy to embrace the diversity of thoughts and energies. Do we practice it daily?

They stretch their intellectual bandwidth!

An intellectual capability is not about the academic qualifications and honours one earns in life. It is about one’s ability to empathise with others, think deeply about a situation and connect the dots to decide the course of action. They challenge the sense of purpose, evolve the course of action and do not hesitate to change the course. They recognize their strengths, limitations and egos. They balance rationality with gut-feel and use them judiciously in taking risks and making decisions. The external world which is used to a high degree of order and structure will find it difficult to relate to the internal environment of such a team. The members of the team being highly aligned with their leader, have complete faith in the path and a great degree of association with the purpose, do not find the continuous change to be chaotic and disturbing; rather, they find it invigorating and encouraging. Do we deep-dive and at the same time learn from the others with humility?

It is easier said than done to transform a situation. It takes humility to learn and the focus to practice the art each day of our lives. Our actions of today will not only transform lives in the near term but also many more in the long term.

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In our world today, a significant part of our workforce values freedom, demonstrates self-confidence and sets high ambitions. This phenomenon is not restricted to the white-collar workforce, rather all-pervasive. Leaders having the experience of directed people and having seen their managers directing teams in a certain way, find the changing environment discomforting. They are trying to readjust their styles and adapt to the new situation. It is common knowledge for a leader to practice clear communication while delegating tasks, but the trick lies in the manner of delegation, the tasks are organized and distributed.

Micro-managing or Hands-on Leadership?

Leaders in their quest to be clear, get highly task-focused at times. They tend to break down the goals into miniature steps, direct their team members in carrying out each of those steps, measure the results and tell them what to do when the results differ from the desired goals. Is this micro-managing or leading the team hands-on?

It depends upon the context in which the leader operates, the experience and the maturity level of the team members. Let us say, the team is highly skilled and the members have a good level of understanding and co-operation. This is a good situation to adopt a laissez-faire leadership where you need the team to know the end-goal, the near-term milestones, the purpose behind achieving the milestones and the timelines. Since they know the ‘how’ and ‘what’, the leader does not need to tell them the break-down. It is good enough for the leader to keep an eye on a few parameters at an appropriate interval of time. The team needs a pat on the back at the right time; a few insights and suggestions as and when needed. However, at times, leaders in their quest of ‘being in control’ get anxious and micro-manage. They hurt the team dynamics by over-monitoring, nit-picking and meddling too much. One must know what kind of delegation works the best in the given context!

A team which is newly formed or has many freshers or relatively inexperienced members needs support and direction. Managing them by setting a high-level goal, defining the objectives and a process might not sound wrong. However, the team could potentially feel lost, un-cared for and dull given this style of delegation. They need a style of hands-on leadership where the leader is always eager and available to help the members on-demand, coaching real time, enthusing the team when a task is done well and course-correcting when needed. In this context, the leader isn’t micro-managing, rather showing hands-on leadership.

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Are you abdicating your responsibility by Laissez-faire style?

One argues that the laissez-faire style of leadership could create a lot of free time for the leader if the primary responsibility of delivering the results is passed on to the Direct Reports.

Experienced people look for independence in decision-making and a certain amount of latitude in going about achieving their goals. Hence, the top boss has to provide the space for them to function and steer their respective teams towards the predefined goals.

Given this context, the top boss has to find a way of adding value by providing the necessary encouragement to his team crafting a space to support them and continuously evolving it in tune with the challenges that they face. This is easier said than done since this space that we are talking about, is fuzzy and more often than not, determined by the dynamics in external environment.

A leader fails miserably when he passes on all his responsibilities in the name of delegation and takes on the administrative role of aggregating information and presenting them to the others. The team stops looking up to him and relating to the larger purpose behind the goals. It loses momentum and often looks forward to holidays, breaks and off-sites. This is worst that can happen to any team.

The Leader has to be playing alongside his team.

Every game has multiple stakeholders and there are umpteen challenges. The leader has to be playing alongside his team or the concerned member in the team solving the tough issues rather than merely being an observer.

It is easy to divide a target into a few parts and assign each part to a member in the team. However, the leader’s job doesn’t end with it. Rather, it starts right there. The critical contributions of the leader must be in creating an environment for the team to succeed, providing the right strokes of rewards and reprimands, getting hands-on to solve an issue or create a process or a system. The energy levels, confidence and the determination of the team must be held up by the leader.

Laissez-faire works well. But, there is no one particular style that works for all the situations. While the leader delegates, one must know what to delegate, how to monitor and what to get one’s hands dirty with.

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Every leader is invested with some authority, given the command over a set of resources and asked upon to deliver predefined results. Leaders make decisions each day how to marshal their resources. Some of them arrive at the decisions themselves and make announcements to their team. Some of them involve others in the team and arrive at an action plan by consultation with them. And some of them empower the others in their team to take the decisions required to achieve the results. Which style is better than the other? Does one style work most of the time?

Adapt to the market!

Today’s time has heightened economic uncertainty. Customers are increasingly discerning and in constant need of speedy action; they are looking for maximizing the value that they derive from the supplier. The environment is highly competitive and the boundaries in the world are getting highly complex due to socio-political changes all over. Technology has been changing fast and disrupting not only the internal environment of a firm but also the marketplace. Given this context, it is near impossible for any leader to be able to comprehend all relevant information, arrive at the insights and conclude the action plan. The erstwhile leader was considered a superhero who had all the wisdom and prowess to decide the course of the journey; the team followed him. However, the macho style of leadership which was commonplace a decade ago does not work now. One has to necessarily discuss the state of affairs with the others in the team and co-create the path to the destination.

Telling style or directive style is not going to work any more unless the situation is simply a task-based decision. It has limited risk on the ultimate results. Rather the leader of today needs to show empathy, trust and respect the members of the team; be listening deeply. That is facilitating the team.

One size doesn’t fit all!

There are situations in the team which are unique to an organization and the leader of the team. For example, many members in the team could be new and the team could be establishing the practices and norms for their performance. Another situation could be that the person is a first-time leader or a young manager; most members of the team could be inexperienced. The organization could be a start-up. In each of these situations, the demands on the leader are not only to get a set of tasks done but also to build the team. Hence, one needs to balance between directive style to complete the tasks and democratic style to build ownership.

On the other hand, if the organization is established, the leader is experienced. The members of the team have a track record of performing well.The leader’s style should be largely delegation and empowerment to the others in the team. The leader largely should be happy with information coming in at regular intervals rather than intervening every now and then to take stock and direct next course of action.

It is impossible to prescribe a leadership style without taking into consideration the internal dynamics of the team and the extent of risk posed by the situation towards achieving the ultimate goal. However, irrespective of the style, any situational leadership these days has to be that of facilitation.

The leader has to facilitate in such a way that the members in the team have to be clear about the end goal. This processes to follow and the rationale for doing what they are expected to do. They value freedom and independence but do not expect to be left alone to learn swimming by themselves. They expect an appropriate amount of coaching and guidance along the way to reach their full potential. The leader has to facilitate all of these along the way!

Facilitating Course-Corrections:

One of the important roles that the leader performs is to keep the ship steady and safe on the course. Given the context of our times, the leader has to move fast, negotiate sharp turns and create alternate paths creatively. Driving these change programs is one of the most challenging aspects of leadership. This gets exciting when the pace of change is fast in the external environment as well as internally.

The leader constantly looks at the results and the process if everything ran as expected. More often than not, things have to change. They may be the metrics, the benchmarks, the process, the equipment or the raw materials. When there are changes in the external environment such as government policies, technology. The approach of the business partners or the competition, the need for change becomes all the more complex.

It is critical that the others in the team get involved in observing such trends, analyzing them and making course corrections. Such programs are critical for the leader to initiate so that the changes are co-created, co-owned and hence, implementation on the ground gets better. While the top boss cannot abdicate his responsibility of delivering the results, it is important to facilitate these change initiatives across the entire spectrum of leadership in the firm rather than the mere announcement of change measures and asking the team to implement them.

The leader’s authority in the current times do not mean much unless there is active facilitation. Let’s take these on

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Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Charles Darwin, Lord Buddha, Prophet Muhammad and some more such people challenged the status quo, traversed the uncharted path and created history. I am sure, there are million others who tried to emulate a similar path, had the ambition to drive such major changes, were passionate but did not make the cut. Why?

Do you keep an eye on what is coming?

In the business world, we have seen challenges faced by organizations like Kodak, Blackberry and Nokia. Their Boards had learned and capable leaders; had access to the best advisors and experts that one can think of. Still, they did not see what was coming. Their bets did not work in their favour. They were slow to disrupt the status quo and missed the bus. Reports say that Fortune 500 list in 2010 does not have 40% of those listed in Fortune 500 in the year 2000. So, 40% lost their way in a matter of just one decade. And at the same time, there are leading institutions like GE, Coca Cola, Exxon Mobil, 3M, Citigroup, Ford Motors, Kellogg, Xerox and many more who have lived more than 100 years already! There must be something right that the Boards of these companies have done to weather various storms that came their way.

Leadership in these organizations have continuously challenged the status quo and examined what lays ahead. They did not fear to chart new paths. They watched the developments in various industry sectors closely and connected the dots to come up with new possibilities. They listened to various stakeholders. They were not scared to try various new initiatives and fail in some of them. They kept discovering new formulations.

If we have to talk about the current times, we see new technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, robotics; social changes such as rise of self-centricity, right-of-center approach, radicalisation and so on. It does not matter if you are in the field of education, transport, food, health, chemicals, machinery, energy, infrastructure or technology. Any of these changes staring at us is likely to challenge the business model. If we see this ahead of the others, we can win!

Does your team care about it?

In an organization, it is not enough if the leader sees or suspects what is coming. People at all the levels of leadership need to believe that status quo has to be challenged and they have to open their minds to new vistas of doing things. The top boss has to be communicating across the rank and file in the organization about the need of being unassuming and looking at the external world. It has to be in the DNA of the organization.

Some leaders love stability, believe in making small course corrections along the journey and accordingly drive those behaviours in their teams. There is nothing wrong in this approach if the ship is sailing in a calm sea. However, given the fact that our business environment has been dynamic, it is impossible that an organization will not encounter choppy waters every now and then. A bit of chaos is the order of the day. The leaders must learn how to stay calm in the midst of a chaos and at the same time, they must be enthusiastic and dynamic to look through the window and spot opportunities as well as challenges.

What matters is Execution!

It is not enough to have the top boss keeping an eye on what is coming and aligning the leadership at all levels about the need to look at the external world. While those are the first two essentials, the most critical aspect in the jigsaw is execution.

The leaders have to determine what needs to be done and how it will be done. They need to agree on the results to expect and define the timeline. Responsibilities have to be fixed and the team driving the disruption has to be in the direct visibility of the top boss of the organization. Frequent communication on the progress of the project has to be all over the place to increase visibility and drive the message home that the organization cares for innovation and is taking to uncharted territories.

It is equally important that the leaders know when to abandon the project for there are several possibilities to disrupt. It is not easy to let go of initiatives created with a lot of efforts, emotion and fanfare. However, a significantly large number of disruptive steps do not bear fruit, but all of them teach valuable lessons. It is important that the leaders have the courage to wind down projects, announce the closure transparently and protect the people who worked hands-on.

So Let’s do it!

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