The Leadership Trends you need to know on 2020
Today the role of a business leader is becoming challenging and complex. Another year is yet to unfold, 2020 and it’s fast approaching which means leaders must be on the lookout for the upcoming trends to prepare themselves of demographic changes and evolving technologies that will make them competent and future oriented leaders.
These are the top 5 Leadership ‘trends’ that will undoubtedly help define and shape them on the coming year and beyond, as preparation is always the key to successfully adapt to whatever may come.
1. Lead a multi-gen workforce: Refers to Millennials employees born in the 1990s and early 2000s, members of Gen X (1960s-80s), and even Baby Boomers (1940s-60s), It’s not one-size fits all, each group is uniquely individuals, having a distinct set of values, attitudes and behaviors and each having their own expectations, priorities, approaches, work and communication styles. When Effective leaders come in to play they will discover each individuals competitive edge and to utilize their talents and essential skills to get the optimal performance from each group which will benefit the organization.
“Managers and employees have to understand that great ideas, creativity and innovation come in all shapes, sizes and ages. We have to have a greater respect across generations to understand that everyone comes to the workplace with a set of skills and contributions.” Dr. James Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship and national speaker with WeSpeakWorldwide.com
2. Learn Learn and Learn: “The only way for a leader of a team to create a safe environment for his team members to be vulnerable is by stepping up and doing something that feels unsafe and uncomfortable first.” Patrick Lencioni Author of The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business.
Want to keep up and stay on top of your game? With the increase of business demand and the pace of the change a leader must have an attitude of being a continuous learning always exploring new skills, knowledge and abilities, aside from that utilizing how to make use of the new learning to their advantage.
3. The insistent demand of flexibility: After Microsoft’s successful trial held a subsidiary in Japan, during which it closes it’s offices every Friday during the month of August, they found that doing flexible hours boost productivity of up to 40%, Because of this more employees are now seeking more flexibility and are dreaming of a shorter workweek, Leaders must be flexible themselves in order to lead and guide employees that are in flexible hours, keeping their communications open and utilizing technologies and applications to ensure productivity is being met.
4. Digital Transformation: If you haven’t noticed yet a lot of the routine tasks are being automated, thus organizations are keen to selecting employees with soft skills, such as critical thinking, planning and emotional intelligence as these are the skill set that will guide the organization forward amidst the change of the technology, on the other hand the rise of technology makes organization more people centric, the best example with this relationship is in recruitment, AI allows to make a better selection of applicants that will focus on skills over internal biases, this only shows AI and human interaction goes hand in hand with the process.
5. Lead with Accountability: With all the above-mentioned list, it only goes to say Leaders must expect way more accountability than ever. They are to carefully manage a multi-generation and Remote working and flexible hours employees, with this comes pressure in maintaining a well-balanced workplace, however it’s just as impossible for a Leader to keep an eye on each employee all the time, thus instead Leaders must focus on creating self-accountability value or ‘Ownership’ as the standard across the organization. Once this is established, employees can work by their own without a adequate supervision.
As the workplace continues to evolve and no one can plan for the future, but being prepared for what it is to come brings leaders a competitive edge.
“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.”-John Maxwell
