Best Leadership Lessons of 2015
fm Forbes.com Zine 12/30/15 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz
From leadership fiascos to unprecedented benefits policies to buzzwords that are on their way out, 2015 has been a year for leadership shifts & changes. The one thing that’s for sure – there’s a lot to be learned from this year’s leadership headlines. Here are the top insights we’ve compiled to round up 2015 and prepare you for success in ‘16.
1. “Open” organizations are the future. Re-imagine leadership structures, and re-engage employees throughout your organization. The most forward-thinking leaders of 2015 have delivered the message that “open” organizations are the future.
An Open Organization is defined as the sharing of ideas, knowledge, resources, & skills across organizational, generational & cultural boundaries within, and in some cases outside, a flat hierarchical, agile, self-led organizational system for the purpose of achieving a stated outcome
As the CEO of Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst, explained in a keynote presentation at this year’s HR Tech Conference, “If there’s more honesty at the water cooler than in conference rooms, your organization has a problem.”
2. Advantages of Open organizations. That’s why open organizations—companies that provide and encourage feedback between employees and leadership—are the future. In an Open organization, employees feel engaged with the company’s core purpose, because they can communicate concerns & ideas. Instead of top-down management, leadership is crowd-sourced from employees & customers alike. And that’s what empowers teams to deliver their best every day.
3. Female leaders are on the rise. This year has been monumental for female leaders. A 2015 Pew Research article shows that the number of female leaders worldwide this year doubled the amount in the last 10 years. Forbes’ list of the most powerful women included leaders in politics, music, technology, & more. Women in leadership positions are a steadily growing sector of our workforce, and have provided insight, direction, & strategy to companies around the globe. Expect female leaders like Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook & Mary Barra of General Motors to continue gaining momentum & shaping the business world in the year to come. And browse their top quotes for 2015 for inspiration on leadership, achieving greatness, & more.
4. Focus on delivering Benefits – that fit your Customers. Netflix & General Motors made headlines in 2015 for delivering unlimited paid vacation, while other companies promised extended parental leave. But, as we’ve written before, “unlimited” policies often have strings attached, or even negative consequences, when employees feel pressured to not take advantage of these policies.
5. Advantage of the most “effective” Benefits. Sarah Lecuna, Benefits Manager at Intuit, has the right perspective on employee benefits. She says: “At Intuit, we think about: how do we make our employees’ lives easier, or better, or both? That means we offer programs that enable them to be present while they’re at work. We want them to bring their whole selves to work, and not have to worry about things we can solve for them.” Delivering effective benefits comes down to understanding your workforce. Use employee surveys and feedback to gauge what your employee base needs are. Delivering benefits that fit, will make your company stand out from the pack and empower employee engagement & retention.
6. Metrics don’t tell the whole story. You probably remember the scathing reports about Amazon’s terrible treatment of employees earlier this year. Amazon’s system of measuring, reporting, & deducing employee performance – based on number measurements – got them into a mess. And while it’s good to have a system in place that allows co-workers to give feedback on one another, author and speaker Marcus Buckingham said earlier this year, that “61% of a performance rating is a reflection of the rater, not the rate, which is not objective at all.”
7. New Approach. That’s why numbers don’t reveal the whole picture on employee performance or engagement. Next year, look forward to more companies utilizing Holistic Performance Reviews & Self-Assessments—a more effective method of determining a person’s intentions and character than what we use today.
8. What are Holistic Performance Reviews?
a) Holistic approach means that you are interested in engaging & developing the whole person. You can think of this as different levels, physical, emotional, mental & spiritual – a concept that the humans are multi-dimensional beings.
b) Performance Review is an analysis of an employee’s work habits undertaken periodically, to determine the degree to which stated objectives & expectations have been reached.
c) Results: Everybody who works for you needs to know where they stand and how they are doing compared to your expectations of them. It will enable you to know whether to consider them for more responsible positions or if they need additional Training to meet your organization’s needs.
Comments: Are their any Leadership Lessons you’d like to share?