The accelerated pace of technological change is posing significant challenges for businesses in the shape of digital transformation and digital disruption which demands new specific capabilities from leaders.
Yet research undertaken by Rialto for its Supercharge your leadership skills for the future report revealed that one quarter of executives surveyed didn’t feel confident in having the skills required to move their organisations forward in the complex operating environment that exists.
Follow our five tips to help ensure you have the leadership skills and capabilities necessary for today as well as the organisation of the future.
1 Benchmark your skills
Undertake a skills assessment on yourself and examine your strengths and weaknesses. Elicit input from peers for a more 360-degree approach. Make use of tools such as the Rialto Accelerated Leadership Index (RALI) which will enable you to benchmark yourself against others in a similar/comparable position. Based on these findings, analyse where the skills gaps exist or where you fall short in terms of experience in specific areas compared to others and devise a development plan to address these shortcomings.
2 Build agility and adaptability to change
A key capability required by leaders in the current climate is to be able to adapt and respond to ever-changing market conditions. It requires an agile mindset and the ability to identify where and why change might be required and then to drive that transformation forward. The Rialto research found that almost half of respondents ranked agility as a top capability as a transformational leader. Crucially, leaders must also be able to engage the workforce with that transformation and remove any fear factors associated with it.
3 Learn to manage complexity
While organisational structures have become flatter and less hierarchical internally, companies are having to form more strategic partnerships externally to help access new markets and create new business opportunities. They also find themselves having to play their part in ecosystems – sometimes alongside competitor companies – to advance their own or a new sector. This means leaders must be able to manage complex stakeholder relationships and ensure that these partnerships deliver value for the organisation.
4 Connect with customers
Half of those respondents in Rialto’s research ranked customer centricity as one of the top capabilities required for the future. In the past, some leadership teams have appeared remote from their customer base but this situation will not be tolerated in the future. Customer experience is being touted as the new battleground. Forward-thinking leaders are putting their customer’s needs and experience at the centre of their strategies and this is evidenced by the increasing number of companies which are appointing customer experience (CX) managers.
5 Become an innovation champion
Innovation has always been the lifeblood of any organisation but any company which doesn’t prioritise it in the future runs the risk of stagnation. Visionary leaders recognise that innovation can come from anywhere in an organisation and instil a culture that ensures it flows freely. They also recognise that innovation isn’t only about developing new products and services but devising new processes and methods of working, too.
Organisations are constantly seeking new ways to ensure their management and employees are more productive and their businesses are more profitable.
Key issues of a high performance team include: how well the team communicates, aligns itself around top initiatives, creates short term/long-term plans and holds themselves accountable to deliver the required results.
Leaders have a significant impact on employee engagement.
They know how important it is to keep a team focused and productive by setting clear expectations. However, more importantly to create a high level of engagement a successful leader will understand what drives and motivates each individual team member.
Here are 5 tips for effective employee engagement.
Leadership is required in every field. Leaders inspire and motivate their team to perform to the highest standard. It is a myth that all leaders are born with leadership qualities.
Many leadership skills are taught and practiced until they are perfected. An ideal leader is someone who doesn’t stand still, listens to the team and empowers all those around them. Here are 5 tips for enhancing leadership skills.
Not only are 70% of organisational changes failing, but that failure rate is increasing. According to research from IBM, the need to lead change is growing, but the ability to do it successfully is shrinking.
Change is getting harder. A single leadership team can be overwhelmed by workload pressures, stretched across different countries and time zones creating the risk of missing concerns and difficulties arising in separate teams. Additionally there is a trend for less investment in change management programmes. Read our 5 tips to ensure change management success.
Performance management discussions are one of the most frequently criticised talent management practices, with criticisms ranging from them being an enormous waste of time to them having a destructive impact on the relationship between managers and their subordinates.
The key to achieving an effective performance management discussion requires having a conceptually sound business framework that links and integrates strategy, management processes and comprehensive metrics to an effective process for continuous improvement and productive dialogue.
Performance management discussions are one of the most frequently criticised talent management practices, with criticisms ranging from their being an enormous waste of time to them having a destructive impact on the relationship between managers and their subordinates.
The key to achieving an effective performance management discussion requires having a conceptually sound business framework that links and integrates strategy, management processes, and comprehensive metrics to an effective process for continuous improvement.
