I only post what I agree with in the area of leadership and management. Enjoy the guest post below: More at: www.LeeCockerell.com
The changing role of leaders and managers today…are you keeping up?
By Seth Kahan
It is my pleasure to introduce guest blogger, Holly G. Green. Enjoy her post below.
Remember The One Minute Manager? The all time best selling management book was written more than twenty five years ago. Pause for a moment and think about the changes in the world in the past twenty five years. It is a bit mind boggling when you consider the depth and complexity of transformation to our everyday lives. The world has changed and the world of work has certainly changed with it.
If you are leading and managing the same way you were even 5 short years ago, people are talking bad about you in the breakroom! So, what is critical to be a great manager or leader in today’s world?
You have to have a more complete set of competencies, skills and traits. EQ (emotional intelligence) and IQ are critical – it is not an either/or proposition. Today it is clearly an and/both equation.
To keep up, a leader and manager today has to DO well at the following:
- Get back to basics when everything around you diverts you into complexity
- Make strategic planning a way of life in your organization
- Set clear expectations of what excellence looks like
- Communicate constantly about your strategies and excellence
- Build a high performing culture that supports your strategies and brings them to life
- Provide continuous feedback
- Constantly learn and unlearn
What Remains…What Evolves
Certain aspects and behaviors of leaders and managers that were important twenty five years ago are still critical today and will likely still be important 100 years from now. These include acting with integrity, leading by example, developing talent and ensuring customer satisfaction/loyalty.
However, there are vast differences between the old-style of administrating and directing and the new idea of guiding and inspiring. Today’s managers and leaders are faced with a whole new set of expectations in the way they motivate the people who work with or follow them, setting the tone for most other aspects of what they do. People today not only don’t want to be managed, in most cases, they simply won’t be managed. Today’s employee wants to be led. They want to participate and engage in every aspect of their job. Creating a two way relationship is critical especially considering that many knowledge workers today know more about what they are doing than their boss does.
Another significant shift for managers and leaders today is the necessity of thinking globally. The impact of globalization has affected all aspects of business. Appreciating and leveraging diversity is an additional shift that correlates to our world becoming smaller and smaller; the broad expansion of businesses spans seas, cultures, and religions. In addition to these actions and areas of focus, leaders and managers today must be more innovative and more proactive, anticipating problems and opportunities as well as entirely new markets and products.
The following chart captures the changes that are both occurring and necessary:
| Area | 25 Years Ago | Today |
|---|---|---|
| Environment | Stability | Constant change |
| Focus | Managing work | Managing results AND leading people |
| Thinking horizon | Short term | Short term AND Long term |
| Approach to work | Plans details, fine tuning what is transactional | Sets direction and monitors, creating entirely new/what could be transformational |
| Decision making | Made them Reactive |
Facilitates them Proactive |
| Energy | Controlling others | Passion for the work, the company, the industry and the people |
| Risk taking | Avoided it | Takes it and enables others to take it |
| Rules | Made them and measured to them | Breaks them and encourages others to do the same |
| Conflict | Avoided it | Uses it |
| Concerned with | Being right | Doing what is right |
Change is only going to get faster. Work is only going to get more complex, with more opportunities. Make sure you are adjusting your leadership and management style at a pace to keep up with everything else going on around you and your team.