Leadership Innovators

Tag: Leadership 5.0

  • Redefining Leadership: Unlocking the Power of Leadership Development

    $166 Billion – spent on Leadership Development each year in the US alone – Forbes 

    70% – variance in employee engagement caused by managers – Gallup 

    1 in 2 – employees who have left their job to get away from their manager – Gallup 

    86% – of companies do not feel like they have a strong leadership bench – Global Leadership Forecast

    Why Leadership Matters

    With $166 billion spent annually on leadership development in the US alone, a key question arises: what is the return on this investment, and how is it measured? If companies are allocating such vast resources to leadership development, the implicit assumption is that leadership has a substantial impact on business success.

    But how exactly does strong leadership influence an organisation’s bottom line? The answer lies in the impact of effective leadership on profitability, employee engagement, innovation, and long-term business resilience.

    Organisations that strategically invest in leadership development can expect tangible benefits:

    • Enhanced profitability: Well-trained leaders drive business results by setting clear strategic goals, fostering innovation, and improving operational efficiency.
    • Improved employee engagement: A leader’s ability to inspire and empower employees is a critical factor in retention and performance.
    • Resilience in the face of change: As businesses adapt to post-pandemic realities, leaders must navigate uncertainty with agility and confidence.
    • A culture of continuous learning: Organisations that develop ‘learning cultures’ see increased innovation, risk-taking, and long-term growth. Research by Carol Dweck and Senn Delaney found that such cultures create greater trust and commitment to the company’s future.

    Google’s Project Oxygen

    Google’s data-driven approach to leadership development underscores the value of strong leadership. Through Project Oxygen, Google analysed what makes an effective manager and used those insights to reshape leadership training. The study identified key traits of high-performing leaders, such as coaching ability, empowerment, and communication skills. As a result, teams led by trained managers showed significant improvements in engagement, performance, and retention.

    Manchester United & Sir Alex Ferguson

    In the world of sports, Sir Alex Ferguson’s leadership at Manchester United serves as an exemplary model. Ferguson transformed the club into a global powerhouse by developing young talent, fostering a culture of discipline, and emphasising long-term vision over short-term success. His ability to adapt, motivate, and create a winning mindset within his team ensured sustained success over decades.

    Developing the Right Leadership Development Strategy

    A well-thought-out leadership development strategy must align with business objectives. Many organisations fall into the trap of reacting to external pressures, hastily implementing leadership programs without clear goals or alignment to strategy. Instead, businesses should:

    1. Define leadership expectations: Clearly articulate what good leadership looks like within the organisation.
    2. Foster inclusivity: Involve key leadership influencers and change champions across the organisation.
    3. Use data-driven decision-making: Leverage insights from employee feedback, business performance metrics, and leadership assessments.
    4. Balance scientific analysis with intuition: While data provides critical insights, understanding cultural and organisational nuances is equally essential.
    5. Clarify values, behaviors, and competencies: Avoid confusion by clearly distinguishing these elements to set proper expectations for leadership.

    The Leadership Imperative

    Whether an organisation has had success in leadership development or is just beginning the journey, it is crucial to periodically assess its direction. Instead of overhauling the entire leadership strategy, minor adjustments may be all that’s required to align with the evolving business landscape.

    “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organisation that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders, and continually develops them.” – John Maxwell

    As businesses navigate an era of rapid change, the question remains: What kind of leadership will drive organisations forward? How can companies cultivate the leaders the world now wants to see?

    The challenge is not just to train leaders but to redefine leadership itself—making it more inclusive, adaptive, and visionary. Only then can organisations truly maximise their investment and create lasting impact.

  • Evolving Leadership in the Age of AI

    Evolving Leadership in the Age of AI

    In describing leadership…

    Leadership is a set of mindsets and behaviours that aligns people in a collective direction, enables them to work together and accomplish shared goals, and helps them adjust to changing environments.

    How then has leadership evolved in this new age of being human?

    When we think about all the change in the world we have experienced in the last 20 years, and the advances in the fields of technology, AI and automation we are on the cusp of living in a new era: the AI Age, along with meeting the demands of future generations expectations in the workplace. But from a leadership perspective this will be the time for human centred leadership.

    And when we think of all the change that has happened and is happening round us has leadership evolved at the same pace? What is leadership now? Has it kept up with the advances in the world, the recent pandemic, the onset of AI and developed across global organisations? Are the same leadership qualities required?

    Eddie Obeng describes in the ‘World after Midnight’ at some point around 15-20 years ago there has been a reset point (Midnight) where the rate of human learning is no longer keeping up with technological change. So is leadership part of this or has leadership evolved in the last 20 years?

    When we go back in time to the industrial era we would have seen in general coercive command and control leadership which developed slowly over time to develop a boss worker relationship. This became more progressive with the advent of office working and the discovery of emotional intelligence. EQ brought a new wave of thinking about leadership. The situational leadership model described the way a leader should use different styles dependent upon the situation in simple terms along a spectrum from directive to coaching. Then the advent of the coaching revolution to empower people along with the use of psychometrics was the spark to develop a leaders self-awareness aligned to EQ. More recently in an excellent article by Korn Ferry called the Third Wave the shift has been moving to one of Agency, Authenticity and Agility. And there has been some amazing strategic and innovative leadership especially in the big tech companies like Apple, Amazon and Facebook to name a few but when we look at political leadership have we gone backwards in time? 

    Recently I read an article on Leadership in the Future where the writer was challenged on where they currently see leadership. The challenger’s point was “I’m not sure what industries you have been working in but I’m still seeing hierarchical, political, command and control leadership across the organisations I partner with.”  

    The Spectrum of Leadership

    I guess in some respects we could create a spectrum of leadership and then place organisations across the spectrum as to where their leadership is right now. But then in any business there will be pockets of leaders who inspire, empower and motivate when others use coercive control and power. In a recent Gallup study it is claimed that 50% of employees are not engaged and 25% are disengaged so this in itself provides possible evidence that Leadership is not keeping up with new generational demands of our current workforce. Although I do appreciate there are many factors that can lead to employee dissatisfaction but what we do know is that most people will become disengaged and leave their job due to their manager. I’m pretty sure that if you have an employee survey that each year there will be leadership actions and development that comes from the survey if your workforce feel they can freely speak their mind. Do they have psychological safety?

    In any medium to large organisation there will be an inertia and level of organisational conditioning which means there will be certain expectations of how to lead in the organisation. These expectations at times become so deeply embedded in the leaders subconscious so much so that no-one has actually made the rule people but believe there to be a rule they need to follow. No one challenges the rule and everyone continues to conform. Action or lack of action is then in direct proportion to conditioning. The senior leadership team role model either exemplary or dysfunctional behaviours which shape the company culture and the by product is the need to lead and manage in the same way to conform to acceptable standards. We are creatures of habit and comfort so rather than choosing to swim upstream most will conform and not challenge dysfunctional behaviours or the culture. 

    Leaders can at times treat their people like children instead of adults and although they know they should not do this if the rules of work state something different they can execute this against what would be their own personal beliefs. Power and conformity overcomes common sense. Organisational conditioning takes a hold when leaders are not willing to challenge the norm. At a higher level in some board rooms the Exec’s play out a power struggle and some may display more dysfunctional behaviour than the people they have working for them. Sometimes the badge of hierarchy dictates when it should listen. So has leadership progressed now we live in a digital world?

    Assessing your Organisations on the Leadership Spectrum

    If you were to rate your organisation on the spectrum of leadership where would it be…

    1.0 Leaders are in control and dictate (Hierarchical command and control Leadership).

    2.0 Leaders transact with their people (Transactional leadership – I give you something i.e. incentive and you give me something in return).

    3.0 Leaders inspire and create followers (Transformational leadership – people follow you because they are inspired and want to follow you).

    4.0 Leaders create leaders (Creational Leadership – Leaders give their people the confidence and autonomy to be the leader they are).

    5.0 Leaders empower their people to be the leader they choose to be (Autonomous Leadership – the starting point is people are leaders and have the freedom to lead with autonomy and ideas – it is better to seek forgiveness rather than permission is the set point).

    For the day and age that we live in the expectation would be we should be playing at the Transformational, Creational and Autonomous Leadership levels where employees are empowered and treated like leaders in their own right. If that is the case then your organisation is possibly keeping up with the rate of change in the world and will be ready to meet the expectations of the generations to come. Because generations in the future will be doing more sophisticated work as AI and automation takes over the manual processes their expectation set point will be to be treated as a leader and given freedom to express themselves. Work in the future is more likely to be episodic so one may move from one organisation to the next more frequently but one’s expectation will be to be treated as a leader not as an employee. Josh Bersin from Deloitte talked recently about how the employee and organisation relationship will completely change due to expectations of the generations to come and with impact like the recent pandemic completely changing the landscape. And HR faces an inflection point around becoming career and people focused as oppose to performance and company focused. But then I don’t want to move too far in to the future because this is about leadership now and understanding if it has evolved to keep up with the rate of change in the present.

    So what keeps leaders up at night? Lack of talent, the digital tech space, lack of critical skills, employees lack of digital experience, automation at work, the onset of AI and an aging workforce according to Mercer’s Global Talent Trends so we have to accept that leadership is far more complex than 20 years ago. Especially when leadership was probably face to face line management whereas in this day an age you are a leader as an individual contributor and when responsible for people remote leadership across the globe is now the expectation along with agile working practices. In Mercers trends 96% of executives are planning structural changes and unique human skills are most in demand i.e. innovation, digital competence, global mindset, data analysis, complex problem solving, change and inclusive leadership. We also now see a greater talent vacuum where desirable skills in specific niche areas are not readily available and organisations therefore embracing exponential learning to upskill, upgrade and provide development experiences to their employees.

    The requirements and expectations of a leader have definitely changed considerably in recent years, the landscape changed when we faced the burning platform that the pandemic created and now a new burning platform approaches with the onset of AI, but the question has to be ‘Are your leaders equipped and ready for the future? Are they capable? Do you have the right leadership support mechanisms in place to be able to support your leaders for now and in the future?’ 

    The future is changing everyday.

    So what are your thoughts on leadership now and has it evolved in the last 20 years?