Posted: Wed 09 Dec 2009
As a performance development professional, I have always been passionate about leadership. Equally, I am a great believer in sharing ideas and expertise in order to solve business challenges. Whatever the economic backdrop in 2010, our leaders and managers are tasked with some major challenges ahead. The sector is experiencing change at a speed never witnessed before. So what will the main challenges be and where should leaders put their focus?
Cue the inaugural Lander Leadership Symposium which brought together a number of business leaders from the world of recruitment, HR and academia to share their knowledge and expertise.
Alan Dickinson who spent 20 years at Michael Page culminating in his role as UK Managing Director felt that one of the key challenges was not just change to the economic landscape – but also the pace of change. “Defining objectives against a backdrop of constant change is a difficult task in itself – but once that’s done you then need to inspire your followers and that’s down to communication. Followers need to share and believe in business objectives – and see what’s in it for them – the leaders vision needs to touch the individual. “
David Leyshon, Managing Director of CBSbutler agreed: “Too many recruiters focus on rewarding recruiters for short term results – rather than looking at more holistic skills such as long term relationships, team building, problem solving and customer service. Sometimes leadership is about being brave. Our new performance management system which allocates 40% of bonus to behaviours meant that I had to let go a big biller - but the rest of the team made up for that with increased billings – it’s about seeing the bigger picture.”
An interesting theme which came out of our discussions was that leaders needed to learn to give permission for innovation – and forgiveness for failure. “Emotional intelligence is very important in a leader”, commented Gerry Payton, an HR consultant with law firm Hammonds. “Often, leaders are more interested in solutions rather than why something went wrong. But change allows the possibility of experimentation and innovation – and if you want people innovate then you have to accept that it won’t always work – and that the failure is a ‘team’ failure – not an individual one.”
This was a theme echoed by Paul Jacobs who spent many years on the board of Adecco and was Managing Director of Office Angels. “People need to know that their voice is important – and where they feel empowered- and so that means trusting them and letting them make mistakes – because it is trust that brings belief.”
And what about social conscience – is altruism part of the leadership challenge? There’s certainly lots of research to suggest that what generation Y, the new millennials want out of their leaders is a commitment to giving something back – and many want to see their workplace as a community. Tony Goodwin Chief Executive of Antal certainly thinks so: “Success isn’t god given and it’s not your product to keep – if you have reaped all the advantages of success then you have an absolute obligation to put something back.”
What became clear throughout our day was that the challenges facing our leaders centre around three main themes – change, innovation and engagement. Change management is not a new theme to leaders – but the pace of that change is - and that means looking at structures that are flexible enough to react to swiftly evolving market conditions. And what of innovation? With tighter budgets, increasing competition and reduced resources, it is imperative to be more creative – but that means taking risks and being brave enough to allow experimentation.
But challenges can also be an opportunity because it is change that will drive innovation just as innovation will lead change. But in order for leaders to realise those opportunities we have to engage the hearts and minds of, not just our existing talent but also, our future talent. And with workforces that can now comprise of five generations – that could be the toughest challenge of all.
Watch this space for upcoming whitepaper from the Lander Associates leadership symposium