Why You Can't Lead the Way You Used To

Some great perspective on Leadership was written by Justin Foster in a recent blog post at www.ttisuccessinsights.com titled “Modern Business Requires Leaders to Connect with People at Emotional Level”.  Here is an excerpt:

The role of a leader has shifted from moving the numbers to moving the people. While financial and operational acumen are certainly valuable executive traits, modern business requires leaders who can connect with people at an emotional level.

The role of leaders throughout history has always evolved based on circumstances.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the role of leaders in business was largely influenced by the Industrial Revolution, which produced leaders who could "manage the machines." These leaders understood how to maximize productivity and profits — unfortunately, often at the expense of people.

This 20th century "cubicle farm" thinking is still pervasive in large corporations, as evidenced by data showing an alarmingly high number of employees who feel disengaged at work (67 percent according to a 2013 Gallup survey).

The massive influx of Millennials into the workforce — and now into leadership roles — is forcing senior leaders to shift from being machine-centric organizations to people-centric. This required a massive change in how employees are viewed.

It first started in compensation plans and workplace environments, but is now starting to slowly permeate how new leaders are identified and developed. 

Rather than focus solely on operational and financial skills, senior leaders are recognizing the No. 1 role of a modern leader is to inspire people.

In my past role of leading a heavy-asset-based manufacturer, this shift was apparent in many conversations with the retired patriarch of the family-owned business.  His clear paradigm was that the company made money “when the presses were going up and down”.  And he was right!  But that was based on the days when the machines were the highest cost element of the business.  Today, although heavy machinery is still costly, the top expense of most companies is labor.  Thus my side of the debate we often had was that the company made money when “the people were going up and down”.  Thus our efforts at improving labor efficiency proved to be the key element in profit improvement.

But as suggested in the Justin Foster blog, it takes more than just efficiency improvement efforts alone.  Those have to come with leadership that inspires workers to be engaged, involved, and developed.  Thus, in order to significantly improve your business today, you have to first and foremost look into the mirror and assess what leadership skills you have that are helping or hurting your efforts.  It is hard to be objective about that, however, and often it takes third party viewpoint of a coach, mentor or advisor to candidly assess the traits and skills you have, and help develop better ways for you to lead and motivate your people to the performance levels that will achieve your company’s goals.