Leaders of tomorrow

As the world evolves and younger generations enter the workforce, leaders also need to stay relevant if they aim to inspire and attract the best talent.

It’s amazing to see today’s leaders starting to bring diversity to the table and start to apply different facets of what it means to be a leader.

When we think of the leadership in the past it you can almost stereotype it:

• White male in his 50’s, drinks whiskey, likes to play golf and smoke cigars
• It was all about power and power circles
• Controls the team by fear and authoritarianism
• They know best / arrogant
• Workaholic
• Loves micromanagement

I’m not saying they were not good examples of leadership in the past, there were. But, the world has moved on quite a lot, and if you have any hope to attract talent, authority alone won’t do. New generations care about the vision, what they are contributing for, and they need to feel they are trusted and their voice matters.

So let’s jump in into what I think are the most important skills of today’s / tomorrow’s leaders.

Agile

Yes I know I love agile, and I really do. But more than just a tool for project management I see it as a mindset. As a leader you need to adapt really fast and be ready to repivot again your ideas. Fail fast, learn even faster! And it’s not even just about failure, you might be doing well right now, but you need to think about what will work tomorrow, and sometimes you might need to take 1 step back to be able to move 3 steps forward. Like parents with young children, what worked today might not work tomorrow. You can’t ever be stuck into ways of working. I’m sorry Mandalorian, but there is “no way”. The way is many ways that you don’t even know are there. You have to be willing to try and see what works.

Communication

Not only you need to have a vision of where you want to be (yourself as a leader and how you see the team / company), but you need to be able to communicate it. I just can’t see how a leader with a good vision can be a great leader if he’s unable to communicate it down the chain. It’s the troops on the ground that will make it or break it unless you’re a company of one. I see so many great ideas dying at the beach because they can’t be articulated in a way that everyone understands what it means for them. It might be obvious to the C-suite, but is it clear what it means to every single employee? As I’ve said, younger generations need to buy into the vision, if they don’t, they will jump out to where they will. (I wrote about it here).

Empathy

I’ve said it again and again and I will say it once more. Empathy is key. For the time being at least, we are dealing with humans, people with lives outside work (yes I know, it’s possible), and unless you have the ability to walk in someone’s shoes and try to understand what your employees might be feeling or how they might perceive your ideas, you won’t go far. The “just do as I say because I say so” era is gone. Yes gone. You need to show to them you are human if you want them to follow you and help you with your vision. (I wrote about it here)

Seeks diversity

In the past the “boss” had to be perceived as the most clever person in the room, and they would unconsciously surround themselves of people who thought like them and said yes to every idea – without any challenge. This was linked to the leading by fear, so there was no incentive of calling out a bad idea. Nether less to say this will jeopardize any ideas of growth. You want to surround yourself of people who are smarter than you and bring a completely different angle to the table, a different idea. You also want do avoid any “yes-sir”. You want to seek different views to then measure them up and understand what could work. Also, you want the surrounding people to challenge you if your idea has any flaws. If there are better ways of doing things, you want to have people around you that will point you in the right direction. If everyone thinks like you, you will just get ideas that you can reach on your own.

Active listeners

For some reason there is the perception that leaders have to be extrovert and talk a lot. But if coms are important, being active listeners is even more so. You need to be aware of what’s going on around you, at all levels of the organization. But unless you’re an Alexa, you can’t be everywhere and know everything, so you need to be able to listen to those you interact with. Not just being able to listen to what they are saying, but on why they are saying and what’s between the lines. The ability to pause and actively listening is one of the most powerful tools a leader can possess, for only then he will be able to have a wider view on anything impacting the company both internally and externally. Don’t forget, it’s the troops on the ground that ultimately interact with clients, that see what’s working and what’s a total failure. Only by listening and observing without judgment you’ll be able to gather insights on any steps that need to be taken next and re-pivot as per my point 1.

From http://quietandstrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/introverted-leader.jpg

Always learning, always thinking

My final point is about keeping an open mind and constantly be willing to learn. This is achieved by listening to others, by seeking formal training in any new technology / processes or by reading books. But in order to consolidate all these insights and knowledge, I would say it’s critical to have some thinking time. Not because you did something wrong like we tell the kids, but because the brain needs time to consolidate all the information. Blocking time to just sit down and absorb all the information you’ve collected on a daily basis is fundamental. It’s very easy to just get stuck on the busy-wheel, but you must carve out time to think and define what you need to learn next.

Accountability

Ok, I lied, there’s one more point. Accountability. It’s very easy to take accountability for success, but it’s crucial to take accountability for any failure. Great leaders will recognize what went wrong – as opposed to blame someone else or some other team – and will learn from it. Everyone should incorporate accountability in their ways of working, as it is a powerful tool to build trust. In fact, it was accountability that made me start this blog all these years ago (the one to be blamed), so couldn’t finish the list without it.

4 days a week, what’s the hype?

If you are like me, you start your Thursday completely heartbroken because despite being Friday it still isn’t. Well, for some lucky ones in the UK, it can be. (Please don’t mess it up for the rest of us)

In the past, it was common that some people would work a reduced schedule (e.g. 4 days a week) but with less pay as well. From my side I never wanted a 4 days week until now precisely because of the point of the pay. I knew I would end up doing 5 days in 4 but getting the pay of 4 days only. Doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.

So the new deal is now that employees would work 4 days a week but with 100% of the pay. Yap, 100%. The principle being that if employees are given flexibility they will meet their goals without impacting company’s productivity despite having “less days” working.

I’m quite curious as this would work out, as for some people they might prefer to do the same 5 days, but stop earlier / or start later to meet their own personal demands at home (taking care of young children, take care of elderly parents, you name it), whereas for others they might just really want to have a day to deal with everything else which is impossible over the weekend (like dentist, doctor, or just purely decompress).

PROS

So let’s talk about the pros. Overall, it’s the flexibility. It’s about allowing people to get the work done and work around their own personal needs (yes we are not robots) and making everyone to rethink about the current ways of working. Not everyone’s productivity peak is the same, some prefer to start earlier in the morning (like me), others prefer to work after dinner (my brain is long dead by then). Also to fit multiple geographies teams have to cover already a multitude of timezones, so I can see this helping a lot in such cases.

Honestely it should be about meeting goals, how you get there individually or with your team shouldn’t have to matter as much, as long as you fulfill them. Time-boxing our work might even force employees to cut the fat even further – yeah useless meeting without an agenda I’m looking at you – and just prioritizing anything which indeed drives value.

We’ve all been students, we know the hype, if you know you have a few days you won’t stress about it until it’s Friday afternoon and you have a deadline to meet. With less days you are telling your brain this needs to get done now or else you won’t meet your goals. That can be quite powerful.

The main pro for me really is flexibility works both ways. The employee gets flexibility and the companies will end up with more productivity per hour.

CONS

If the working from home has shown anything is that people will end up overworking and reaching burn out. The 4 days might end up becoming really long and 3 days might not feel enough to recover. Still I would be willing to try, anyway I’m pretty sure by the end of day 4 I have already done way more than 5 days, so at least cutting a full day of any useless meetings and emails would feel like holiday.

If not all employees take it, the ones that are “more visible” might end up getting better opportunities that those that don’t. And here’s the word might, as I know some people didn’t had such issues with a compressed work-week.

Additional idea

No meetings during certain times – We had this over summer period and I wish it could be kept forever. A rule of no meetings during at least 1 day to enable employees to focus on productive work. I would say other than a quick 15m scrum meeting in the morning there should be no meetings until after lunch.

Other good article here

Are you still relevant tomorrow?

When we were growing up, most of us wanted to have known jobs like doctor, lawyer, fireman, vet, you name it. But then as we grew up and started to work (and pay taxes), quite a lot of us found it difficult to explain to our parents what we do. I can’t explain to the kids nor my parents what I do. I think my daughter would define it as “my mum works on her computer.”

Even from when I started working until now there’s a lot of new roles that have popped up, namely in AI, data scientists, etc. I even have a friend who works with drones, not for playing (and those are fun too), but that’s his job and a few others that do “social media content”.

This week my husband called the insurance company and it took them a while to figure out which of the options allowed would describe his job.

The roles are moving faster than we do, we might need things we didn’t even know we needed – mobile phone and Alexa I’m looking at you – but now we can’t live without them.

So how do you stay relevant?

• Always learning – There’s no way around it, you have to keep an open mind and continuous learning. If in the past it was all about continuous improvement (and that remains relevant), continuous learning is even more relevant. You need to think not just on the skills required for your role and how to develop in your role, but any skills you might need tomorrow. How to find what’s relevant for you? Well look around to the new hires, which skills are they bringing? What do you think it’s missing in your company, in your industry? Allow time to dedicate to learning and it can be anything from getting a certification from just reading a book or shadowing a colleague that does a different role than yours
• Skills, Skills, Skills – As I wrote here in this space, it’s all about skills. Forget job titles and see yourself as a walking basket of skills. Some you already have and might be an expert at it, others you need to improve (part of the learning bucket), others you might want to drop because they might not be as relevant anymore or you simply might not like them at all. You need to continuously assess what’s relevant for you and which skills you should develop. With the relevant skills you can flex around what’s next for you role wise. The more skills you have, the more flexible you can be. It will always be a dancing game of being an expert at something – which in some specific areas you really need to be – versus being very flexible.

• Be open minded – I have worked with people in the past that believe just because they have more experience they know it all. If you are not willing to listen to those around you and accept new ideas, no matter how radical they seem – you won’t evolve and stay relevant. A new grad will give you a brand new perspective on the world, same as someone from a completely different industry than yours. Be open to different views.
• Surround yourself with people that inspire you – Most people think that they have to search for really senior people because they will help them grow in their careers. Whereas that might indeed work, I would say it’s even more relevant to surround yourself of people that inspire you for whatever reason, could be the receptionist that is an amazing painter in her free time, to someone who is really good at seeing patterns in data, anything that pushes your boundaries and inspires you to think differently and improve yourself. Diversity is the key to it all. If you only mingle with those that think the same way you do, you will never learn anything new.
• Be authentic – In a world full of automation and where most people end up trying to be the same as someone who is successful, are to be authentic and bring your true self in everything that you do.

Some relevant articles

• Careers of the future
• Cool future jobs
• Jobs on the rise
• Forbes: How automation will impact future job markets