Leadership Trends 2020

Workers’ rights, workforce development and climate innovation

Derek Alexander, the protagonist in our soon-to-be-released book, isn’t alone. Perhaps you know someone like Derek. Perhaps you worked for someone like Derek in the past – may be even now. 

Like Derek, many people who excel in their jobs, and want more autonomy and opportunity for advancement, accept leadership positions only to be chewed up and spit out by the organizations they serve.
 

Perhaps Derek is lucky this time. At least he is given the opportunity to explain how he plans to turn himself around. This is after he’s handed a written performance review stating that people are quitting his team because he is a lousy manager. How does he turn himself around? You will have to wait and see. 

That said ... 

I have written in the past about the importance of empathy from leaders for their employees and the financial benefit of building greater workplace cooperation, respect and civility. However, before writing this new book, I received a press release in August 2019 from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. The release announced that 181 well-known CEO’s signed a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. 

This statement debunked theories by the late conservative economist Milton Friedman who asserted that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to profit and paying stockholders. Friedman’s theories lead to flat wages, high employee turnover, employee disengagement and the shifting of wealth to the top 1%. It also resulted in no pay-for-performance oversight by corporate Boards of Directors for their CEOs who received record level salaries and bonuses while their organizations underperformed. 

Instead, the Forum’s statement asserts that corporations exist to serve all their stakeholders. These include employees, customers, suppliers, and the community as well as shareholders. These statements, in my view, represent a step in the right direction for workplace rights, workforce development and innovation that addresses the climate crisis. These are the major trends I see going forward from 2020 onward. 

It also dawned on me how little empathy goes into preparing people like Derek for their leadership roles. The common practice tends to select managers because they get their jobs done and not enough emphasis on their proven ability to lead people. 

What is the outcome? Unprepared leaders struggle. Some are hated. Frequently employees quit once a better job shows up. This leaves you with higher than normal turnover and corporate underperformance. 

Since our last book, TIGERS Among Us – Winning Business Team Cultures and Why They Thrive, was published ten years ago, not much has changed for emerging leaders. However, excellent leaders inspire loyalty. They motivate belonging and inclusion. They induce excellence. 

On the other hand, profit at all costs work environments cripple organizations. So why do we still offer unprepared managers a potential outcome that perpetuates the problem? Perhaps with the new statements on corporate responsibility, this question will be addressed. 

In a recent study produced by the Society for Human Resource Management, profit at all cost work cultures damage morale, injure productivity and erode bottom lines. For example, employee turnover caused by Friedman’s debunked theories cost employers more than $223 billion over the past five years. That is lost revenue that does not end up in the pockets of employees, in new innovation or in your communities. It is lose-lose all the way around. 

Ultimately, it is poor leadership that perpetuates poor cultures. And, managers can only perform as well as they have been trained. It is now time to break this cycle for a couple of reasons. 

First, from the perspective of workforce development, leadership development is still a challenge. Without the benefit of micro-training platforms, it takes time and often time away from the workplace to train leaders. Yet many executives continue the sink or swim approach to leadership advancement and still select people because they get things done and not because they have a demonstrated ability to lead. 

Leaders in the 21st Century must do both. If they are to improve workplace rights, workforce development and innovation they must get things done through people who they coach and develop. At the same time, they must improve their own skills – even during times of change. 

Second, from the perspective of workforce rights, too many managers now feel overwhelmed, confused and stressed. The rules they grew up with are changing. The goalposts are moving. They also realize it is nearly impossible to build from a shaky foundation and they don’t know where to start. 

All too often, we operate from the erroneous business belief about achieving goals and for taking action when the satisfaction people feel for what they are accomplishing is discounted. The mantra is “get things done”. The bottom line is that when we exclude worker rights and employee satisfaction for getting things done from the equation, we perpetuate the problem. It is short-sighted and one reason why engagement is such an issue among middle managers and employees. 

This means that the solution to this problem rests on the shoulders of your Stockholders, Boards of Directors and Senior Executives. Ultimately, that’s where the buck stops. 
Selecting managers and supervisors with the proven ability to lead people before they assume leadership positions is the solution. This means training all your people to see who actually steps forward to improve employee relationships, communication, planning and strategy. 

Contrary to popular belief, a hard-headed, tenacious mindset isn’t mental toughness. Mental toughness is the ability to manage emotions, which helps you manage thoughts that result in successful behavior. So telling an untrained manager to toughen up rather than training them in empathy skills that build their emotional intelligence runs counter to how people learn, what they feel and how they respond in frustrating or tense situations. 

The bottom line is that the human condition is emotional. “Humanity is ‘hard-wired’ for an emotional response!” according to an article posted by HRD Press. This means that when something happens and we think we are operating from self-control, the first response is always emotional and this response is not gender-specific. 

Many people are taught at an early age to ignore their emotions or submerge them. This results in knee jerk reactions that lash out and attack rather than respond to situations in a way that is more effective when dealing with people. People who learn to integrate their thoughts and emotions to respond with curiosity to understand the person in front of them are much more successful leaders. And, this skill can be developed whether they agree with the person in front of them or not. 

To sum it up, now is the time to plan for 2020 and the years ahead. Take a day or two and think about how you hire and promote people in your organization. How does what you do impact workplace rights, workplace development and innovation? Is it working? What is your turnover? How engaged are your employees? If you have higher turnover in one department, why is that? What are you willing to do to help your current leaders succeed? Will you end up paying high carbon taxes going forward? If so, what needs to be done? 

Yes, you can lead a horse to water and the reality is that some of your managers in Derek’s position may choose not to change. At least you know. Then you can make the right decision for your company and employees as you take strides to improve your work culture and leadership team behavior while advancing workplace rights, workplace development and innovation. 

Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc. by Dianne Crampton

Dianne Crampton is the Founder of TIGERS Success Series Inc. She licenses Operational Project Managers and Organizational Development personnel to use TIGERS® methods and strategies to build high-performance teams and organizations. She provides on-line group assessment, staff micro-training and customized change consulting services for work culture refinement that transforms adequate organizations into exceptional ones in measurable ways.   Visit https://tigerssuccessseries.com/ Connect Dianne Crampton Follow @Diannecrampton Book TIGERS Among Us - Winning Business Team Cultures and Why They Thrive