At a time when leaders have had to step up more than ever, whilst also showing their own vulnerability, the latest CIPD report suggests that to maintain cultures of Trust, leaders need to consider four key areas: Ability, Benevolence, Integrity and Predictability*. The pandemic has shaken the business world to the core and as a result, new ways of leading teams are key to the success of any organisation. Ask yourself, how do your leadership skills and actions fare against the bullet points below?
A copy of the full report can be seen here https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/responsible-business-crisis-2021_tcm18-102368.pdf
Ability
- Accept it’s not just a crisis but a transition
- Be ambidextrous: use existing competencies to keep the business profitable while creating new forms of organising and competing
- Be innovative and experimental: anticipate and prepare for both success and failure. Decide now how to generate confidence in the face of failure
- Invest in new cultures of trust. Understand work as a community, not just as a workspace.
- Address differences and divisions.
- Make yourself a champion for inclusion and diversity, purpose and sustainability. Challenge and hold leaders to account around these topics
- Systematically evaluate learning from the pandemic.
- Make healthy workplaces a strategic objective.
- Rethink talent streams, leadership development and your own leadership practice. New ways of leading are essential to success.
Benevolence
- Don’t be afraid to renegotiate the employment proposition. Ask what benevolence can be expected from both parties
- Avoid two-tier workforces; do not create more divisions
- Prioritise mental health and support, both for your teams and yourself.
Integrity
- Address the inequality of risk/reward ratio from 2020. Be fair; acknowledge sacrifice
- Stay true to your organisation’s purpose
- Don’t close your eyes to social issues such as climate change and social inequality.
Predictability
- Keep using technology to communicate visibly, widely and regularly
- Emphasise that this is a phase of experimentation, to manage expectations.
- Emphasise what’s staying stable: behaviours, routines and practices may change but purpose and values will remain strong.
A great place to start to review our skill set is by looking at our strengths. Our strengths are the qualities that energize us and enable us to perform at our best. By getting the balance right between developing employee strengths and reducing performance risks, leaders and employees will achieve higher levels of:
- Resilience
- Confidence
- Engagement
- Success
Strengthscope Assessment
At Fusion Education People Solutions, we believe it’s important for every leader and employee to be able to understand their strengths, how to harness their strengths and how if overplayed, their strengths can even become counterproductive. That’s where the Strengthscope Assessment comes in. It allows leaders to bring their best to work to life, every single day through the discovery and development of strengths. We define strengths as the underlying qualities that energize us and what we are “great at” (or have the potential to become great at). If you’d like further information about our Strenghscope Assessment package for your leaders, please contact us on by clicking here or call 01924 827869.
Source:
*https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/responsible-business-crisis-2021_tcm18-102368.pdf
