When leadership is exerted in this form, organisations become increasingly accountable, agile, and autonomous — all the while operating at scale. At this point, an organisation can truly be described as 'purpose-driven' — a genuinely awesome competitive advantage.
Once the capability gap is closed, instead of feeling fear and frustration about not knowing how to perform a role or achieve an outcome, staff are empowered to deliver value and be rewarded for their achievement.
In an era of heightened employee mobility, hybrid work environments, and a skills shortage, the idea of matching great talent with critical roles may not be new, but it is more essential than ever.
The challenge for managers is that we are no longer comparing apples with apples. Instead, we must leverage the power of personas to better understand the individuals that make up our teams.
While the overall numbers of people affected by mental health issues is a cause for concern, perhaps as alarming are the number of firms or individual managers who engaging in well-being washing.
By tackling some of the common problems, teams and organisations will be well placed to achieve aspirational efficiency objectives. When this happens, we can get one of those virtuous circles in which the approach sticks and compounds over the years.
This approach yields good, if imperfect, OKRs while advancing real management: pushing teams beyond comfort to learn, improve, and explore—driving meaningful transformation and unlocking organisational value.
No fixed set of actions can define, measure, or achieve success. Thus, trying to make transformation a tick box affair is to setup an organisation for failure. This is because successful transformation is as much about the process as it is about the outcome.
Providing more structure, not less, in both the daily tasks of employees and their perceptions about career pathways, offers the strongest viable path to improved staff retention and higher team performance.
Given the obvious dichotomy in this approach to work generations, the practical implications for management are that the leadership theories many have encountered will struggle to provide solutions when it comes to developing coherent teams.
