Catching up on a backlog of reading, I came across an article from May 2019 that I had wanted to share, but it all got away from me. Authors Navi Radjou and Prasad Kaipa in their article ‘6 Ways to Recognize a Wise Leader’ (read it here) have developed a model of leadership based on six capabilities that differentiate between a smart leader and a wise leader.
The authors argue that it is time to move beyond smartness towards wisdom. What does that mean? It means incorporating ethical clarity and discernment, amongst other things. Radjou and Kaipa have developed the WISDOM framework, which is summarised below. I would encourage you to read the full article as it is packed with really interesting examples and illustrations.
W: Work and act with authenticity and appropriateness
I: Insightful and flexible fortitude
S: Shift your perspective towards a noble purpose
D: Decision logic with discernment and intuition
O: Openness to lead from any position
M: Motivated by enlightened self-interest
After 10 years of research, the authors note that no one leader has all 6 traits, usually two or three at best. But the goal is to become wiser every day.
“The design of opportunity marketplaces [is] perhaps the key leadership challenge for most organisations seeing to ethically maximize human capital returns”. This big statement comes for the just released report ‘Opportunity Marketplaces’ authored by MITSloan Management Review and Deloitte Insights (access it here). Time spent reading the full report will be time very well spent, but following is a brief summary and series of extracts from the report.
The report describes an opportunity marketplace as “systems, digital platforms, and virtual places where organisations provide – and workers find – the opportunities most relevant to their mutual benefit and success.
Essentially this is where organisations can offer their employees options for professional development, mentorship, project participation, and networking, among others. This gives the worker the choice to pursue those opportunities they most value. This in turn increases the chances of the individual and enterprise aspirations being aligned, thus creating additional value for both.
The report notes that most leaders and workers are not satisfied with corporate investments in their development, with 74% of respondents believing that developing worker skills and capabilities is important to the organisations strategy, yet only 34% are happy with the organisations investment in them. An outcome of this is that workers are more likely to leave the organisation. Many workers reported that they feel undervalues as assets and as potential contributors to future value creation. One very surprising and worrying finding is that more than twice as many respondents say it is easier to get a new job outside their organisation (40%) the within it (17%).
Three key factors are identified in the report that can enable an opportunity-centric enterprise to succeed:
A clear message from the report is that “one of the surest ways for leaders to create better opportunities for their organisations is to create better opportunities for their people”. That is, advancing opportunities that empower and align workers can help their leaders achieve new levels of strategic value.
If you haven’t yet heard of design thinking then you really need to get out more! Design thinking is a creative process made famous by design and consulting firm IDEO. The ideas and concepts behind design thinking can be applied to all form of problems, including products, services, systems and people. A recent article in the Kellogg Insight online journal (find it here) explains design thinking in very easy to understand terms. We summarise this article for you below, but encourage you to click on the link and read the full story.
The basics behind design-thinking is a four-step process as follows:
Assuming that the end goal of your problem-solving is to create a solution that people can appreciate, then this process is a proven winner and something to be put into your problem-solving toolbox.
2020 has been a challenging year for HR professionals. Uncertainty and volatility in Australian workplaces has seen unprecedented workplace changes, and HR has been at the forefront of much of that. The Australian Human Resource Institute (AHRI) recently released the results of ‘The Wellbeing Lab 2020 Workplace Report’, (Access it here) which outlines survey findings on the state of wellbeing in Australian workplaces.
There were a number of key findings. Over 80% of employees surveyed identified that their struggle increased during the early months of 2020 when bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic set in. In 2019 almost 15% (14.7%) of employees felt they were consistently thriving in their work roles – a figure that was almost halved in 202 at just 7.4%. One notable finding identified that, even in a time of increased uncertainty, only 37.6% of respondents reported that their managers often expressed care for them. It was noted that, while the COVID-19 pandemic has had such immense impact on the entire Australian community, only 32.1% of Australian workers feel safe sharing their struggles at work, yet 90% of respondents identified worry about the state of the economy, and 82% reported feeling anxious about coronavirus.
The report notes that such feelings of struggle and stress don’t have to undermine workers’ wellbeing or work performance. However, they do highlight the role HR have to play in considering how they can support employee wellbeing during a time of considerable change and uncertainty. What is clear, however, is that as employees continue to return to their workplaces in the coming months, HR must further consider the importance of workplace wellbeing.
“Like the growth rings of a tree, our lives occasionally experience seasons of extraordinary flourishing. We have found three catalysts for such growth: significant adversity, extreme dissatisfaction, or exposure to an exceptional leader.” Such is the conclusion from extensive research by Mark McCrindle and Ashley Fell in their 2020 book “Work Well Being: Leading thriving teams in rapidly changing times” (Rockpool Publishing).
Mark McCrindle is recognised as one of Australia’s leading social researchers, and founder of the internationally recognised company McCrindle Research. Ashley Fell is a social researcher, TEDx speaker and Communications Director at McCrindle Research.
The main contention of the book is that workplaces, coupled with good leadership, can create thriving teams and thriving organisations. It draws on a massive amount of research undertaken by their own organisation, as well as referencing work throughout the world. It is very difficult to argue against their points, given such a depth of data to draw from, which is communicated in such easy to understand way. It is very simple to see the progression of ideas and to build on each chapter. The currency of this book is excellent, as it even draws on the initial impacts of Covid-19.
Chapter titles include:
This is an excellent book very professionally presented and written, which would appeal to anyone in a leadership position, or aspiring to one.
I very highly recommended this book and note that the ideas and conclusion are already finding their way into the course material I teach.
Organisational culture can be notoriously difficult to create and change. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has served as a unique catalyst for organisational culture change, but do organisations feel this change has been positive or negative, and why?
To find the answer, the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) surveyed 233 human resources practitioners from around Australia asking what impact COVID-19 had on the culture of their workplace. While the results varied, almost 85 per cent of respondents agreed COVID-19 forced their organisations to “see, think, feel, plan and act differently.”
While it would be natural to expect a crisis to make a significant negative impact, there was an even split among respondents on whether the effect on organisational culture was positive (42%) or negative (38%). It is clear employee wellbeing took a hit, with social isolation (64%) then job insecurity (47%) being the largest contributors. Not surprisingly, more than half of the respondents also agreed that morale had been negatively impacted.
What is interesting is the key influencers of organisational culture—organisational courage, values and purpose—were the least impacted. The theme of the comments from respondents indicates that although this has been an incredibly challenging time, it has also required people to band together, be more in tune with each other, examine their purposes, adapt, and live the organisation’s values in a way they previously had not. Additionally, while it is a challenge to maintain and build culture remotely, more than half of respondents noted employees were connecting in a “more genuine way” than pre-pandemic.
The other key theme emerging from the survey is that the care and empathy of the organisation’s leadership makes an impact on the extent and type of impact COVID-19 has on the organisation. Where leaders live the values and demonstrate flexibility through their own actions, employees feel empowered to follow.
One thing we can learn from this survey is that despite isolation and insecurity we have opportunities to strengthen or mould our company culture. Opportunities to be creative with our flexible working practices and to form more genuine relationships with each other. Yes, COVID-19 has brought multiple setbacks but as organisations we can also choose to use this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for growth.
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Photo by fauxels from Pexels.
Resilience, or rather lack thereof, has increasingly become an easy target on which to blame all manner of employee issues. So theoretically, if we can just train our employees in how to be more resilient we should encounter less issues. If only it were that simple! Not only is this a problem in that it could mean you gloss over genuine complaints, but individual resilience is a highly subjective concept and often misinterpreted.
An article that expands well upon the complexities of resilience can be found here, which uses the following hypothetical as an example:
“Who is more resilient, the paramedic who faces trauma and does not experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or the paramedic who experiences PTSD but overcomes it?”
Suddenly it doesn’t feel quite so black and white!
While individual resilience takes many forms, it is commonly shaped by context. Examining the circumstances surrounding and supporting that resilience is what organizations will truly benefit from. Rather than focusing on changing individuals, focus on replicating the culture and environment that supports resilience. The article uses the work of Micahel Ungar (in this paper) to summarize the concept as individual resilience is helping people beat the odds, whereas organizational resilience works to change the odds.
A recent HBR article (find it here) provides a framework for where to start in building organizational resilience, including:
Trying to control the resilience levels of every employee will likely only result in wasted time and money. Creating an organizational environment conducive to collective resilience is an investment that will ensure the people and the business have the support needed to survive and thrive.
Why is board diversity important? This question is answered in part by the most recent Watermark Search International and Governance Institute of Australia Board Diversity Survey 2020 (read it here). This comprehensive survey of Australian companies explores the diversity issues in Australian companies in relation to gender, culture, skills, age, and tenure/independence. A major conclusion of the survey is that where diversity exists in the boards of companies there is significant evidence of improved business performance. The full report is a very interesting read, but a few highlights include:
Of particular interest in the report was noting that in August 2019 the Business Roundtable (181 CEOS of the world’s largest companies) publicly moved away for the established view that the purpose of companies is to increase profits, to the view that each stakeholder is essential, and to commit to deliver value to all of them. That is, profit is no longer the only responsibility of business.
In summary, the report concluded that “more diverse boards have a richer opportunity to meet the expectations of these multiple stakeholders.” Such diversity will allow “different contributions, a range of ideas, vast questioning of the status quo, robust debate and the willingness to think about things differently.” Why not read that report and see how the board of your entity compares, and meets this new imperative of business.
“[T]he Bible is not a handbook on leadership…[but] the Bible speaks a great deal about leadership”. With this framework, the authors provide a very compelling discussion on leadership in a Christian perspective in their book Leadership in Christian Perspective: Biblical foundations and contemporary practices for servant leaders (2019, Baker Academic).
The authors, Justin Irving (a professor of ministry leadership) and Mark Strauss (a professor of New Testament) use solid research of their own, and reference to established leadership research and practices to provide a clear and comprehensive overview of Christian leadership.
They acknowledge the various ways leadership has been studied, and while this book touches on many of these, it looks at leadership practices in light of the Bible and leadership theory. It is a very convincing proposition and approach, and is a really well organised book that is logical and sequential, with great summaries and anecdotes throughout.
I found it to be very well written and easy to read which will appeal to anyone in a leadership position, or aspiring to one. I very highly recommended it , and this book will contribute significantly to the curriculum of the leadership programs I coordinate.
Why are we afraid of asking questions? There is a perception that we may appear less competent, but recent research has proven this to not always be the case. In a recent article in INSEAD Knowledge (read it here), Natalia Karelaia reports on her research into this very issue.
In fact, the research indicates that leaders who routinely ask questions become more credible in their roles. They are rated as more trustworthy and were more likely to receive the assistance they need. When leaders can reframe their knowledge gaps into curiosity it develops a relational humility that translates into increased leader effectiveness.
Additionally, leaders who ask questions on a regular basis before they make a decision can “strengthen their interpersonal relationships while simultaneously improving problem-solving as well as leadership performance.”
There are some caveats identified in the article, including noting that not all questions are worth asking, especially self-serving types of questions. But overall, Karelaia advocates that leaders should consider question-asking as a solid interpersonal investment that also allows for better decision making.
