Effective Leaders

The soft stuff is the hard stuff

It’s a common misconception that agile and self-organising models that de-emphasise the importance of directive management, also do away with the need for leadership. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In self-organising environments, the need for effective and intentional leaders becomes even greater because we can no longer rely on the traditional command and control elements inherent in a management heirarchy.

75 %

of employees who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of their managers, not the job itself

Gallup

Why it Matters

Research shows the single biggest determinant of team and individual performance is the climate they work in – determined by the style and behaviours of their leader. Leaders can either be a catalyst to greatness, or an obstacle to progress. Leaders are responsible for creating the conditions to enable people to contribute to their true personal potential.

While much of our consultancy is based around implementing the tools and frameworks essential for building a responsive organisation and empowering individuals to do their best work, making those tools live and establishing an objective for the team’s efforts will always come down to the leader’s ability to co-ordinate all the parts towards a common objective.

How we do it

We work with people in leadership and management positions, from first level leaders and their teams, to Chief Executives and Senior Leadership Teams, to develop the skills needed to lead their teams in this increasingly volatile environment.

Our driving focus is helping our clients achieve and sustain genuine breakthroughs in their own approaches as well as their teams’ capabilities.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT (CPM)

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The announcement is the easy part; it makes the manager look bold and decisive. Implementation is more difficult, because no matter how good and compelling the data, there will always be active and passive resistance, rationalizations, debates, and distractions – particularly when the changes require new ways of working or painful cuts. To get through this, managers have to get their hands dirty, engage their teams to make choices, and sometimes confront recalcitrant colleagues.

― Ron Ashkenas and Rizwan Khan

You Can’t Delegate Change Management – HBR, May 2014