Leadership is in crisis the world over ~ 3
Your leadership matters now more than ever before.
The world today has all the hallmarks of living through an International Conflict, and when we emerge on the other side, we’ll not simply find a new normal, we will be living in a new era; never have leadership skills been in greater demand, and yet seemingly in such short supply.
Effective Leadership can be defined as seeing beyond the horizon, plotting a course to get there, and inspiring people to 'want-to' go there with you. So, what can we see as we start to look beyond the horizon? This is my third post exploring this topic, and here are some more thoughts.
Working patterns
In the new era, working patterns will change significantly. Since many people are working from home this will inevitably result in city centres becoming less populated, and thus cause much of the retail support industry such as shops and cafes to have to close. Public Transport which runs the transportation needs in and between many of our larger cities will equally have to be scaled back significantly.
Institutional change required
Many of the national institutions are finding that they are facing challenges that they were never designed to address. Now, I know that it’s easy to criticise and find fault and overlook the good that is caused, however, it’s clear to see the problems.
In her book Radical Help written in 2018, Hillary Cottam has written about the problems facing the welfare state, and how it is desperately in need of an overhaul in today’s world. For example, the National Health Service was set up during WW2 when the health problems it faced were largely solved by an operation or by medication - individual interventions with clearly defined actions and recovery like knee or hip replacements or pills and potions to fix a medical problem. Now that many of the things that caused the end of life have been addressed, some other, long-term health and wellbeing care needs have emerged, and these are creating an ongoing care need that the Health Service as it stands today was never designed to meet.
The problem is not confined to the health service alone though; many of our national institutions have a similar problem; they were designed to address yesterday’s needs and solve yesterday’s problems, not the needs and problems we have already started to face in today’s post-pandemic era.
Outcomes not Hours
Perhaps one of the biggest trends we will need to see is that we'll need to start rewarding and remunerating staff based on Outcomes, not Hours. The hourly wage idea is a recent phenomenon that came in with the industrial age starting with Industry 1.0 when people had to come into a building to operate machinery because that’s where it was installed. Now, however, with the advent of Industry 4.0 and the internet of things, people are increasingly knowledge workers where creativity is required, and the outcomes achieved (lag measures) are so much more important than the hours spent (lead measures).
See more in these six blog posts about how to make your business Pandemic Tolerant.
https://rogerfairhead.com/2020/09/pandemic-tolerant-1/
https://rogerfairhead.com/2020/09/pandemic-tolerant-2/
https://rogerfairhead.com/2020/10/pandemic-tolerant-3/
https://rogerfairhead.com/2020/10/pandemic-tolerant-4/
https://rogerfairhead.com/2020/11/pandemic-tolerant-5/
https://rogerfairhead.com/2020/11/how-to-make-your-business-pandemic-tolerant-6/
For me, I am most creative in the mornings, so I guard those times before 11 am for creative work. I can get at least twice as much done, and there are some things I could ONLY do in those creative hours in the morning. I wrote about that in a planner I published some years ago called "Personal Productivity Planner", and more recently Carey Nieuwhof talks about this too in his newly released book "At your Best".
Invitation to the Global Leadership Summit 2021
Here’s a link to find out more about the Global Leadership Summit events that are being held through October and November this year; please join me at one of these events; I’d love to see you there and say “hi”.
