New Paradigms of Leadership .
Brigadier (Retd.) K. Harikumar, Head of Operations, Keane India Limited. Hyderabad
“The Real voyage of Discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes “
The art of leadership is eternal and acts of leadership are evident in all walks of life. In one of my workshops on Leadership skills, I asked the young participants from the software industry to name their leadership role models stating the reason why they chose that person as a role model. The responses included Prophet Mohammed for compassion and courage, Chanakya for statecraft, Swami Vivekananda for philosophical acumen, Gandhiji for honesty and selfless service, Mother Teresa for social service, Indira Gandhi for boldness and personal charisma, Bill Gates for global outlook and vision, Steve Waugh for team leadership, someone’s college professor for knowledge and expertise, a project manager for technical competence and a participant’s father as a mentor .These examples amply underscores the universality of leadership .
The old paradigms of leadership centered on positions and cult figures. Leadership folklore illustrate the great leadership feats in the face of great adversity and challenges. Even in the old economy in the business world, positional leadership with all its exalted status and visible embellishments represented this phenomenon. The new economy with its attended technological revolution and the advent of information technology changed all the rules of the game of leadership. Some of the significant paradigm shifts are: –
A shift from organizational strength embedded in hierarchy to leveraging of core competencies to achieve desired growth and results.
From planning for future to creating own future .
A strategy of growth on a beaten path giving way to the concept of seizing fleeting opportunities through visioneering .
Limited options transforming into a portfolio of many options .
From a span of control to a span of communication.
From a stereotyped mission statement to a great sense of mission.
From the technical/business specialists telling others what to do to a set of business-aware specialists learning from others with information available on a want-to-know basis instead of a need-to-know basis.
From boundary making to boundary breaking global transactions.
From external controls to self regulations.
From ‘ time to market’ to ‘ speed of positioning ‘ and from meeting customer requirements to creating new needs in customers.
From a culture of compliance to an era of empowerment .
From competition to benchmarking .
From dependence to interdependence.
From individual brilliance to team effectiveness.
From job and employment to career and employability
From personal management to people focus.
The new paradigm of leadership shifts the focus from ‘ position ‘ to process and breaks all the barriers associated with hierarchy .Today , in the new global economy , new sets of leadership competencies are necessary to achieve enduring success.Some of these are listed below – :
Modeling the Real World:
The future is not an extension of the past. Roles of business change constantly and the new leader is called upon to model the real world creatively and visualize the future. Success goes to those who are brave and seize the opportunities. This calls for great conceptual skills and visionary abilities.
Customer Focus:
In today’s volatile and competitive business environment, customer is king and customer delight along with creating new needs in customers is the golden key for growth and wealth creation. Effective Relationship Management both for external and internal customers assume great significance. Leaders who walk the talk, and who display great innovation and creativity carry the day.
Communication :
Intense communication using multiple channels and empathetic listening is a critical leadership skill to maintain connections , to link business processes, to maintain transparency and also to build credibility and trust . Enthusiastic leaders who are persuasive communicators are respected and revered by all employees even when things go wrong .
Talent Management :
Employees bring in unique talents to the workplace . Effective leadership lies in shaping , deploying and leveraging such talents within one’s organization to harness human capital.The leadership capabilities connected with human capital entails employee development , training and education , coaching, mentoring and knowledge management . Teaching Leaders and Mentors is the ‘order of the day’ in the highly knowledge intensive and technology savvy world of global business.
Team Leadership :
The most critical workplace entity in the new economy is the ‘ team ‘ and team leadership to create the desired synergy and high performance repeatedly and consistently is a great winning ingredient for success.
Empowerment :
Empowerment is a cutting edge “ human technology “ that provides both the strategic advantage that companies are seeking and the opportunity that people are seeking .It is the means for involving team members as business partners in determining company’s success or failure . Empowerment can assist any willing leader to tap the knowledge ,skills , experience and motivation of every person in the company .The real essence of empowerment comes from releasing the knowledge , experience , and motivational power that is already in people but is being severely under utilized .
Emotional Intelligence :
The competency of understanding and mastering one’s emotions and recognising the emotions of others instills confidence , motivates , inspires and enhances group effectiveness .Leaders need to understand the psychological and emotional needs of people and should be able to read the emotions and thoughts of team members through the use of insight , empathy and observational skills . Perception and Emotional Maturity are the two key attributes of Emotional Intelligence .
Leading Change:
The skill of adapting to change and thriving in times of internal or external change by successfully providing a visible anchor for others in times of change helps detect and resolve team breakdowns resulting from change. Leaders should also become effective change agents.
Managing Executive Stress:
Leaders in the high pressure global business arena, which many a times includes the virtual mode of working at multiple time zones and cultures will have to learn to retain their balance and composure even under very stressful business situations. They need to institutionalize “self management” techniques not only for themselves but als for their team members. Besides this, a very harmonious work-life balance is also desirable to promote organizational and occupational health.
Leaders of the future have to transcend positional leadership and leverage creative leadership processes and techniques with a passion for collaborative and self-less collective achievements and results. Such leaders should display a very high degree of personal will and humility, with a clear purpose, embodying a vision, staying on course focusing on results and fostering personal leadership in others. Personal leadership is the ability to effectively impact the world around you in a way that is valued by others. Jim Collins in his famous and well researched book “Good to Great” illustrates a “Level 5 Leadership” as one where leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger Goal of building a great company. Indeed, Level 5 Leaders are incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first for the institution, not themselves. Noel M Tichy, the well-known author and leadership trainer stated “winning leaders recognize that the challenge is to move dynamically along the continuum of power from authoritarian to empowering and through a variety of roles-teacher, learner and coach-rather than to maintain a singular static position”. There lies the true essence of new leadership paradigm.