You can lead by example by listening and learning
from others, as they share different perspectives and
new ways of thinking, and in doing so demonstrate
one of the most important skills of the future,
empathy.
Leaders as Generalists
Not only is today’s workforce more diverse than ever,
but the problems organizations face are also more
complex, cutting across global borders, intersecting
rapidly changing technology, and interconnecting
with important social and environmental issues.
Leaders will need to bring everyone together and
frame problems so they can be solved, incorporate
broad stakeholder perspectives, and will need a
broad understanding of issues and how work gets
done. That requires learning agility to develop a
basic understanding of different functional areas in
addition to topics where leaders may be specialists.
The other benefit is the ability to build trust with
a broad set of constituents. Competence is
foundational to trust and the ability to connect to
perspectives of people from diverse backgrounds
and fields will help bring people together. So, perhaps
the most important skills of future leaders will be
the ability to continuously learn and the humility to
realize that there’s something they can learn from
everyone.
Eric Strafel is the author of THE
FRONTLINE CEO and Founder of the
consulting firm SUMMi7, which
helps businesses grow profits and
scale innovation with mission-driven
purpose. He was the President and
CEO of Aviall, a global provider of
new aviation parts, supply chain
management, and other services
to the aerospace aftermarket,
which was acquired by Boeing.
Previously, he held leadership and
program management positions at
L3 Communications, Honeywell, and
Precision Conversions.
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5 Major Trends Shaping The Future Of Leadership
Guide with Purpose with Customer
Insights
The purpose of a business is to serve customers.
With digital platforms, access to global markets, and
restrictions on travel, we’ve had to create innovative
methods for staying connected with our customers
and keeping up with their changing needs. Like many
leaders, I used to develop a vision statement to align
teams towards a north star that incorporated what
we do as a business to serve customers. A vision
provides a destination but that’s no longer enough,
people also want to know why. The why comes out in
a purpose statement centered on your customers. It’s
the problem you solve for them, the reason why they
buy from you. The best way to bring your purpose
statement to life is through real customer narratives
that you’re continuously updating to keep current. If
you don’t have the same level of engagement with
customers or lose the direct insights through a digital
interface, you risk being disconnected from their true
needs.
To address that, you can leverage the data you have
around how customers interact with your business
and use that information to create feedback loops
that guide improvement. Whether that be a product
roadmap or customer service process, you need to
mine your digital connections and combine that with
personal interactions to create a complete picture
of how you can best serve them. As leaders look to
inspire, leveraging data, keeping the customer front
and center with a clear purpose, and developing
customer narratives around evolving customer
needs will be critical to keeping employees engaged
and aligned.
Create Room for Diversity
The workforce is more diverse than ever and all of
those different perspectives increase a company’s
ability to find innovative solutions and stay
competitive. To move from diversity to inclusion,
where people are bringing their best to work every
day, you need an environment that allows people to
be themselves and space to leverage their strengths.
The most effective leaders in the future will use
purpose and values as the guide, but allow flexibility
in how work gets done to achieve the best solutions.
Leadership Excellence presented by HR.com DECEMBER 2021 9 Submit Your Articles
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