Imagineering 2015 (4) : In a time of disruption & change, leaders need to reinvent themselves
Hugh
J Arnold and Rose M Patten
Major forces have shifted the landscape. Company growth is more volatile. The global, borderless marketplace has rendered old corporate models obsolete. A new mix of generations and cultures has created more diverse teams and perspectives. Technology races at a new pace. Investor trust is fragile. Everywhere, there are new demands for accountability, transparency and disclosure.
Leadership has never been more important, and it's never been harder. To survive - and create long-term success - in such an unpredictable climate, leaders in all areas of the company need new models and new capabilities. The pendulum has swung, and generic approaches won't cut it anymore.
A key mark of the leaders who succeed in this demanding new environment will be how well they identify, develop and utilize top talent. Integration and alignment of strategies will be critical.
Organisations
need to mesh their strategy and performance targets with their human
resources (HR) strategy, with a clear, two-way street between them.
This is not the norm at many companies (at least not yet). Take, for
example, the case of leadership development activities.
Companies often make large investments in this, given the shortage of great leaders. But their efforts fall short when programs are delivered in a generic context and are not linked to the environment and specific challenges the organization faces. This sort of misfire is not just a HR problem.
For HR to have true impact in advancing the organisation's agenda, all leaders - including C-suite executives - need to come together to create and endorse a "people" strategy that is aligned with organizational needs and reinforced into the warp and weft of daily management. Several organizational enablers will be critical for sustained success in this new environment.
For all leaders, we see a big shift in the degree of ownership, engagement with, and commitment to what have traditionally been considered "HR activities". C-suite executives must now have a firmer handle on how their organization builds and develops talent, in the same way that they understand finance or how to raise capital.
With human resources as navigator, the responsibility for instigating and implementing talent activities needs to be shared across the businesses. We see CEOs, and the boards they report to, championing talent and leadership development through increased rigour and review at Board meetings. This engagement is vital to each company's long-term success and all leaders across the company, not just CEOs, need to get the message out that this is a non-negotiable.
Successful organizations must create a talent pipeline to meet current and emerging business needs. Strong talent management practices will be essential to building these pipelines, starting with comprehensive assessments of potential based onmultiple-source inputscombined withtimely action plans to move and promote future leaders.
All leaders - from the CEO to managers at every level of the company - need to take personal accountability for making great talent management happen. We've all heard the regret of leaders who didn't act soon enough and left employees in roles for too long, causing frustration for them and for those working with them.
Inadequate assessment practices also contribute to the loss of great talent when high-potential leaders are inadvertentlyoverlooked. Leadership development and succession planning is often inadequate.
Development plans should target senior and not just middle-level leaders and be linked to business needs. Too often, the supply of well-developed leaders falls below demands. This is usually not for lack of programs, but because of the false assumption that senior leaders - once accomplished - don't need formal development.
With ever-changing business contexts, everyone's leadership skills need to be fine-tuned to help them stay relevant and effective. The ability to lead change lies at the core of how companies will assess and promote leaders.
The diverse mix in our workplaces - both culturally and generationally - make change leadership much harder than in the past. All of this calls for leaders to be resilient. When we're asked to single out today's most important leadership skill, we answer "adaptive capacity".
Leaders need to find a way to embrace disruption, handle uncertainty and translate complexity to mobilize others and work through change. Great leadership is all about successfully moving from a place of comfort to embrace the unfamiliar.
(The authors are co-directors of Rotman Schoolof Management's Strategic Human Resource Management Program.)
Companies often make large investments in this, given the shortage of great leaders. But their efforts fall short when programs are delivered in a generic context and are not linked to the environment and specific challenges the organization faces. This sort of misfire is not just a HR problem.
For HR to have true impact in advancing the organisation's agenda, all leaders - including C-suite executives - need to come together to create and endorse a "people" strategy that is aligned with organizational needs and reinforced into the warp and weft of daily management. Several organizational enablers will be critical for sustained success in this new environment.
For all leaders, we see a big shift in the degree of ownership, engagement with, and commitment to what have traditionally been considered "HR activities". C-suite executives must now have a firmer handle on how their organization builds and develops talent, in the same way that they understand finance or how to raise capital.
With human resources as navigator, the responsibility for instigating and implementing talent activities needs to be shared across the businesses. We see CEOs, and the boards they report to, championing talent and leadership development through increased rigour and review at Board meetings. This engagement is vital to each company's long-term success and all leaders across the company, not just CEOs, need to get the message out that this is a non-negotiable.
Successful organizations must create a talent pipeline to meet current and emerging business needs. Strong talent management practices will be essential to building these pipelines, starting with comprehensive assessments of potential based onmultiple-source inputscombined withtimely action plans to move and promote future leaders.
All leaders - from the CEO to managers at every level of the company - need to take personal accountability for making great talent management happen. We've all heard the regret of leaders who didn't act soon enough and left employees in roles for too long, causing frustration for them and for those working with them.
Inadequate assessment practices also contribute to the loss of great talent when high-potential leaders are inadvertentlyoverlooked. Leadership development and succession planning is often inadequate.
Development plans should target senior and not just middle-level leaders and be linked to business needs. Too often, the supply of well-developed leaders falls below demands. This is usually not for lack of programs, but because of the false assumption that senior leaders - once accomplished - don't need formal development.
With ever-changing business contexts, everyone's leadership skills need to be fine-tuned to help them stay relevant and effective. The ability to lead change lies at the core of how companies will assess and promote leaders.
The diverse mix in our workplaces - both culturally and generationally - make change leadership much harder than in the past. All of this calls for leaders to be resilient. When we're asked to single out today's most important leadership skill, we answer "adaptive capacity".
Leaders need to find a way to embrace disruption, handle uncertainty and translate complexity to mobilize others and work through change. Great leadership is all about successfully moving from a place of comfort to embrace the unfamiliar.
(The authors are co-directors of Rotman Schoolof Management's Strategic Human Resource Management Program.)
By
Hugh J Arnold and Rose M Patten CDET2
Jan, 2015
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