Redefining Leadership

Leadership is often defined as the organization's ability to drive all employees and the entire system towards a particular goal or objective that leads to company success. In order to achieve this outcome, leaders play a major role and it is mainly their utmost responsibility to ensure that employee performance remains at peak while ensuring job satisfaction and motivation are maintained among all staff members. 

Having the right skill to become a good leader is not an easy task. Some have innate qualities that makes them good leaders while others have the opportunity to develop them via trainings. during the past few eras it was the responsibility of the HR professionals to identify people with the right talent and skill to make them fit them leader role. But the outlook of appointing leaders now needs a change with the highlighted matters in the previous articles. Leadership will no longer be only about driving the workforce towards achieving organizational goals, but a lot more than that. 

How should HR redefine leadership? What are new strategies that HR professionals can look at in order to create better leaders that can support the generational differences among employees in an organization. 

Rethink the Selection Process

For far too long we have selected leaders looking at their talent, experience in the organization and the ability to grow a business (Inc, 2021). It's time to move away from the mindset "I had to work for 10 years in the same position before I was given the promotion, so that should be the future strategy for selecting leaders" or "I had 8 years' experience in the travel field, so it's important for future leaders to have a similar experience before becoming a leader". The expectations from a leader has changed. Therefore, HR professionals need to understand how the selection process should alter to identify the right fit. 

Following are key skills that a leader would be required to showcase in order to handle a multigenerational team. 

• Ability to take person centered approaches when addressing matters with team members.
• Ability to communicate via multiple platforms.
• A knack to learn and get updated on changes within and outside the organization.
• Ability to identify skills and passion of each individual prior allocating work.
• Ability to Empathize.
• Flexibility
• Ability to keep the motivation and job satisfaction of all staff at a peak
• Acknowledging different opinions brought by team members.

So what is a good strategy to identify and bring out good leaders?

FMI'S Peak Succession Model

    

Figure 1 : Finding the Right Leader: How to Disrupt Your Leader Selection Process

(Appleman, 2016)

Successors/leaders cannot be appointed overnight. It needs proper planning and an effective strategy in place. FMI organization has launched a peak success model that reflects the steps to be taken when identifying and introducing successors (Appleman, 2016).

• Groundwork : As per the model, it is important to lay the groundwork well in advance which will give a proper understanding of personalities that are currently within the organization and also insight to any gaps. 

• Clarify your roles : Then comes the clarification of the role where HR needs to determine the actual requirement of the specific leader. Understanding to what degree each of the above soft skills are needed for the role in mind is the 2nd step of the model. 

• Assess your pipeline : Introducing an interview panel and developing a questionnaire that will further analyse the personality and skills of the person in question. Conducting psychometric tests is an additional step that can be utilized for a better evaluation. 

• Prepare your successors : Selection the right fit alone will not ensure that leadership will be successful. Preparation is the key. Providing the necessary training and opportunities for further development, filling in the identified gaps in the selected employee and conducting frequent 360 feedbacks surveys are few continuous responsibilities that needs to be overlooked by the HR professionals to ensure the success of the appointed leader.  

It is very likely that your potential leaders are already working in your organization. All you need to do is think strategically.

Reference

Appleman, J. (2016). Finding the Right Leader: How to Disrupt Your Leader Selection Process | FMI. [online] fmicorp.com. Available at: https://fmicorp.com/insights/quarterly-articles/finding-the-right-leader-how-to-disrupt-your-leader-selection-process [Accessed 5 Dec. 2023].

Inc, G. (2021). Create a Leadership Selection Strategy Based on Potential. [online] Gallup.com. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/323570/create-leadership-selection-strategy-based-potential.aspx [Accessed 5 Dec. 2023].