What’s new with leadership

The acceleration of newness has intensified. Bear with me as I explain this.

Global terrorism has heightened uncertainty. Political landscapes have changed, especially when a young leader installed into power is threatening to fire their nuclear weapons on their neighbors. Global warming has caused scarcity of resources, and has forced the creation of more sustainable products and lifestyles. Global competition has propelled the business world into hyper-competition, and financial institutions, once bastions of stability and conservatism, have exploded, imploded, died and then risen from the dead as evidenced by the American recession in late 2008.

Let’s go closer to home. A new generation of tech-savvy young people is entering the work place. It’s now an “Always-On”, 24/7, social-networking people who are changing the way we shop and dine, and who are always threatening brick-and-mortar establishments with their click-away technologies which enable them to create stuff that one generation ago people couldn’t even imagine. There’s one thing they always want to know: “What’s new?”

A recent survey said that an average person spends around seven seconds in a typical Google search page, while the same person is now surveyed as spending hours – and sometimes, in young people’s case, as much as seven hours – in Facebook activities. Surely this will have an effect on us.

So what’s new? These implicate that the way the older generation leads the young will have to take all these factors into consideration.

“It’s either my way or the highway!”  “I can fire you any time!” “No man is indispensable!” These are all battle cries of leaders trapped in the old Industrial Age paradigm. These do more harm today than good.

In a glowing and growing economy, competition doesn’t only happen in the sales space; competition for talents is also heating up. When good talents leave and bring their knowledge to the competitor, not because the company is bad, not because of pay or benefits, but simply because their immediate bosses seriously lack leadership skills and have driven them away, this is unforgivable.

There are two reasons why good people leave. The most common is that they couldn’t stand their bosses who behave more like jerks rather than the inspiring leaders that they’re supposed to be. Not only do these unskilled leaders drive good people into the hands of the competition, but they actually fuel the passion of those people to perform better in order to “get back” at the leaders who drove them away. The other reason is the feeling that their contributions are unappreciated. What a waste!

Every person in the organization should be equipped with leadership skills. Because new technologies = new management style = new way of thinking. Beyond hard skills and soft skills are SMART SKILLS. Leaders who don’t have these skills, who are still banking on their titles and positions to feed their ego, and who continue to drive talents away should be sent to the freezer. They do more harm to the business than good.

Make a careful survey of your own organization. Find out why attrition is high in certain departments. Address the people and the issue.

Ken Blanchard said it right, “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” Everyone wants a leader who inspires, not a leader who intimidates. Even Scriptures say that in order to be a good leader, one has to be a servant. If your leaders are driving people away, they simply are not serving, are they?

(Spend two whole days with Francis Kong as he facilitates the well-acclaimed Dr. John C. Maxwell Program “Developing The Leader Within You.” on May 28-29 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. For further inquiries, contact Lylee at 09175482876, or call 632-6310912 for details.)