Leadership in disruptive times

In the era of digital transformation, companies are expected to have the latest technology to stay on top of the current trend. Leaders are expected to have a much quicker sense to embrace technological changes.

Leadership is the essential part of any organization in any industry. The best leaders are constantly under pressure to adapt new technology better and faster than their competitors. According to a report from Redefining Leadership for a Digital Age, a global survey was conducted with a group of executives from 20 different industries. The survey revealed that only 15% of leaders said they are “very prepared” to lead their companies through digital storm, while 92% of leaders said “they are feeling the full force of digital disruption”. How can we be the best leaders in this digital era?

HR Consultancy metaBeratung suggested four key competencies and behaviours for leaders to thrive, succeed and be effective amidst any situations:

1. Humble leaders are the best leaders — Humility is a virtue. In disruptive times, humble leaders gain influence, attract better people, earn respect and loyalty. They put others before themselves as they lead from within. Characteristics of humble leaders are:

• Open-mindedness: Effective leaders are those that are honest and open to learning new things and abilities to acknowledge inputs of others, Satya Nadella CEO of Microsoft and author said: “It’s time to move from being know-it-alls, to learn-it-alls”
• Collaborative: Able to bring people together amidst the diversity of beliefs, attitudes and behaviours
• Listener: Humble leaders listen. They also acknowledge their contributors’ suggestions and needs, trust and confidence are built

2. Adaptive leaders turn challenges into opportunities — The business world is constantly changing and leaders must use every disruptive situation as an opportunity to prepare themselves for more challenges to come. Being flexible in difficult situations opens up window of possibilities to be better. Characteristics of adaptive leaders are:

• Strong Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Leaders must possess strong EQ in order to function well in any situations, it is the ability to regulate one’s own emotional and regulate how to react to other’s emotion, allowing the intelligence of being emphatic, calm, fair and a team player.
• Development: Always thinking for ways to continually improve and innovate methods to achieve a desired result, Adaptive leader seeks new learning to move business forward
• Open and Just: Effective leadership listens to others and have an open door policy, keeping communication transparent and open.

3. Communicate Your Vision — Leadership communicates their vision clearly and passionately amidst difficultly whether it’s for a short or long term, this not only engages their employees but motivates and boosts morale. Without a clear vision achievement suffers, and are likely to set inconsistent results, the organization will act as silos. “In order to take the organization to the highest possible level, leaders must engage their people with a compelling and tangible vision,” Warren Bennis, University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

4. Always Engage — Everything is at the top of the speed in today’s organization, faced with many changes and most of the time really fast, and far too often employees are the ones being affected becoming unmotivated and disengaged. The leaders’ job is to inspire their employees not to just doing their job, but to find purpose and meaning of what they do on their role, Effective leadership creates a framework for engagement that provides clear goals and values for each employee, it builds trust and loyalty therefore will make employees feel involved and connected.

Those are the behaviours and key competencies. Agile leaders are impactful and have the ability to change the culture, working environment and deliver a powerful value for the business and the team to thrive, survive and succeed even during disruptive times.

Strategies for leadership development

There is absolutely no doubt that leadership can make a work environment better or worse, especially during a disruptive times. Strong Leadership is essential for growth and success of each company amidst the never ending fast-pace and quickly evolving work environment, in fact, according to the study of Corporate Executive Board, “Effective leadership is the 2nd top driver of employee satisfaction”, similar to the common saying people leave managers, not companies thus, a continuous improvement on leadership is not an option but rather a must for any industry.

To groom effective leaders, there has to be an effective leadership development strategy. Below are the ways suggested to effectively improve leadership:

Leadership Identity

It all begins with knowing the leadership identity is how a leader views him/herself as a leader. It is a form of action of what we do and how we do it, leadership identity can either be a self-goal and it varies in different individuals.

Leadership identity drives the decisions toward big picture of organization goals, therefore developing identity is a major and critical part of leadership.

Leadership are Learners

“There is something to be learned every day, both by looking in the mirror at yourself and by looking at the people around you.” Antoni Cimolino, artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival said. The best leaders are thirsty to new knowledge everyday thus this gives them a new vision and perspective and be able to decide effectively and gains trust of their team.

Leadership in Corporate Context

A great leader may not be experienced in any type of situation, but they are able to handle tough situations in the best way. “Organizational learning has to become less about the kind of learning done in a training session or online tutorial and more about continuous learning on the job” Harvard Business Review suggested. Making the leadership development more practical and situational facilitates a continuous learning and leads them to implement the best strategy in different situations.

Leadership focuses on behavior

The most important character to employees. Leadership with good behavior not only benefits leaders, it benefits everyone in an organization. In disruptive times, the key is a continuous effort to develop leadership behaviors, by enhancing abilities and effectiveness of those who are in the position to lead.

Leadership competencies embrace uncertainty in today’s world where ambiguity and disruptive changes in the work environment has now become a social norm. Great leaders in disruptive times are those who stand strong in the storms–when the wind did not blow them away, they adjust their sails.