What modern leaders and organizations need to secure the future

What do leaders do to succeed in their role? What do modern leaders and organizations need in order to secure the future?

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients” – Richard Branson

New survey: brutal bill for bad managers

There is a difference between leaders. A study highlights the impact of a lack of leadership – the bill can be very high.

 

Linnea Bolter at Dagens Industri wrote an article¹ that “poor leaders cost Swedish companies billions. The nightmare managers can in fact cause a large loss of profitability, according to a study that has examined the effects of lack of leadership”.

 

In the survey with 31,000 respondents at 87 Swedish companies, the managers were rated in different areas. The evaluation of leadership was compared with the company’s profitability.

Organizations with modern leaders focus on what gives effect

One thing modern leaders need is to be responsive and empathetic. Just like their employees, leaders need to have good self-leadership. This has been particularly important during the pandemic which has now turned into the next crisis, the tragic war in Ukraine and all the uncertainty that entails.

Leadership is one of the biggest factors in a successful, prosperous and resilient organization. Regardless of what happens in your workplace or in the outside world, today or in the future, you as a leader need to be able to provide conditions for your employees to create a good working culture and reach your goals.

 

Ewa Hutmacher, CEO Snabbfoting: To lead sustainable improvement in your organization, how can you and your employees become more courageous, transparent and curious about the environment and world around you?

 

Ewa concludes: I use several techniques in my work and in my own leadership development. I see self-leadership as the foundation to build other crucial parts.

How responsive are you as a leader?

Responsiveness can mean listening to what the employee says verbally, or being attentive and examining a change in a behavior or the employee’s body language. Responsiveness can also be that you see things happening in a workgroup or with an individual employee. You need to be responsive to if there are things you need to address and act on.

As a leader, it is important that you are a role model who is responsive and ensure the employees’ competence. The organization needs to develop as the world changes and your employees’ skills need to be developed and expanded.

 

When you are responsive and curious about the world around you and its development, you can create the conditions for filling the skills and gaps that are missing in your organization.

 

When you meet the demands for skills and identify trends and skills gaps faster, you are an active and responsible leader, who can shape and secure a successful organization.

Empathic leadership

Nowadays, empathic ability as a leader is a prerequisite for modern leadership. Your ability to truly understand an employee’s need for achievement is part of being a modern leader. As Richard Branson said in the quote, taking care of your employees is a key to taking care of customers.

 

It is not really a difficult equation to understand, the person who feels seen, affirmed and appreciated will thrive wherever he is.

 

When you understand that an employee can not turn off their reality outside of working life and you are responsive to what they need to be able to perform, you will be able to optimize your leadership and your opportunities to achieve sustainable results in the organization.

Self-leadership

The modern leader needs to have well-developed skills in self-leadership and work with their self-awareness. The difficulty in being self-aware is that you need to be self-aware to know that you are not. There are different degrees of self-awareness; being self-aware is not an either-or proposition. Receiving or giving feedback to become self-aware is not always easy. You will have to confront some tough truths about yourself.

When you are going to lead yourself, you need to listen, investigate and understand your own thoughts and values. You need to process what you hear, see and experience before you make a decision on how to act. You need to ask yourself if your conclusion is correct.

It has been shown that when we humans make decisions, mental attitude is crucial for which decision you make. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman has written a book about how people make decisions, in which he describes that our decisions are often disturbed by noise, i.e. what condition you are in. Do you feel happy, angry, sad or could the rain on the way to work have affected you?

 

In your self-leadership, it is important to understand yourself and to be aware of what state of mind you are in when making the decision. Even when you are listening and leading other people, your state of mind is very important.

 

When you are aware that you are experiencing a feeling (e.g. I feel disappointed, I feel annoyed, I feel ashamed, or I feel guilt), then you may notice that you are experiencing your feelings, but you need to separate your feelings from your “Own self”, that the feeling is merely an experience, and does not necessarily have to influence your decision.

When you, for instance, are aware that you are feeling disappointed, you can accept that you perceive it that way, and then choose to show curiosity and explore whether you are working with or against your own values. You can go through your day with this insight, making decisions with the knowledge that what you are experiencing and feeling what you are feeling right now.

Self-leadership includes taking care of yourself and giving yourself love. It could be doing what you have a passion for outside of work, a hobby, or some other interests that you love. The foundation to feeling good in both body and mind are, of course, physical activity, a healthy diet, recovery and sleep.

 

Self-leadership means taking responsibility for yourself and how you see your thoughts and the world.

 

Once you do this, you will find it easier to lead with empathy and responsiveness. You will have more energy, be a role model for your employees, and contribute to modern leadership.

Review yourself regularly so that you are a leader who develops. Be curious and learn more about yourself, others and your world continuously. This enables you to develop and secure a modern leadership that contributes to the improvement of your employees and your organization.

What do modern leaders and organizations need to secure the future?

• EQ
• Curiosity
• Critical thinking
• Learning culture with growth mindset
• Digital competence and understanding
• Data analytics
• Ability to improve
• Communication
• Change agents
• Business Agility
• Code of ethics and compliance
• Transparency

In this analysis, I have listed how leaders and organizations can excel in the future, as technological developments will inevitably change the labour markets, workplaces, and the skills we need.

I would recommend you to perform a scenario analysis and start securing the future. The time for a scenario analysis and competency mapping depends on the size of your organization, the number of roles, competencies, and skills.

 

For more information, connect with me:

Feel free to contact me if you have questions or want to explore how you can develop your organization’s leaders and employees. Book a short consultation here. Feel free to follow me on LinkedIn.

 

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¹ Survey: Brutal bill for bad managers

 

About Snabbfoting

Snabbfoting is an edtech consulting company helping organizations digitize learning and reach their goals. Grounded in science, we apply a holistic approach of learning as a continuous journey rather than a single event. Our learning solutions increase engagement, improve the learning curve, and bridge the knowledge gap between training experience and work performance. We work with industry-leading partners and are a leader in the Nordics in continuous learning and platforms