Leadership Training for the Real World

If our businesses are to be successful, we need to move from an era of command and control to a system of “leadership by consent.” Here are ten things great leaders do to make that shift.

Today’s post is by Debra Corey, author of Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement.

The role of leaders is changing. More than ever, our employees are demanding visible, accountable and valuable leadership. We’ve moved from an era of command and control to a system of “leadership by consent.”

The voice of our employees has never been more powerful, with social media, open communication and public reviews leaving nowhere for leaders to hide if they don’t meet their employees’ demands. Sites like Glassdoor, which has 41 million people visiting each month, allow employees, past and present, to easily leave anonymous reviews of a company and its leadership. And with 80 percent of candidates reading Glassdoor reviews before applying for a job, as well as customers and even external investors visiting the site, we can no longer ignore the influence and power of employee reviews.

In Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement, co-authored with Glenn Elliott, we address this new world of leaders, as well as other critical engagement elements, through our engagement model called The Engagement Bridge™. Using this model as a framework, we talk about the urgency for businesses to start treating employees differently in all areas in order to improve employee engagement and get better business results.

As part of our research, we conducted a study of 350 millennials, asking them what they wanted and expected of their leaders, and had them prioritize leadership traits. The result is what we call “Ten things great leaders do,” and they are:

1. Own and live company values
2. Communicate openly and early
3. Inspire people to reach higher
4. Own their mistakes
5. Recognize big wins, small wins and hard work
6. Trust people
7. Make the right decision not the popular decision
8. Add value to their teams, helping them to succeed
9. Have the courage to be transparent and visible
10. Take care of people

These results show that what employees are looking for in a leader has changed drastically in the last 20 years — and not just for millennials, but for our entire workforce. They expect leaders to be different in the following ways:

Be Human

One of our values at Reward Gateway is to “be human,” which talks about the importance of taking responsibility and being brave enough to show your human side, “warts and all,” as the expression goes. This is seen in many of the ten leadership traits, with leaders expected to show empathy as well as overall care, concern and commitment to their teams. It also involves being honest, saying you’re sorry and admitting when you’ve made a mistake.

Be Aware

Being aware, of both oneself and of others, also encompasses many of the ten leadership traits. This includes the need for leaders to understand the impact they’re having on their team by role modeling company values, communicating in an open and honest way, trusting employees to do the right thing and recognizing them for their efforts. It also involves understanding what happens when these aren’t done in the right way or are neglected.

Be a Coach

As is apparent in the ten leadership traits, the role of a leader has changed from a one-dimensional “lead and control” role to that of a more multi-dimensional role common in a coach. Like a coach, business leaders are expected to help employees develop their full potential by guiding, instructing and providing encouragement.

What this all means is that if our businesses are to be successful, we need to throw out our old ways of managing and accept and address the new role of leaders. We need to hire the right ones, develop them to have these new skills and behaviors, and reward and recognize them for delivering in this way. Without this, our leaders will quickly lose the confidence of their teams and not be able to deliver the results our businesses need.

Debra Corey is global head of employee engagement at Reward Gateway, and is co-author of the new book, Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-Class Employee Engagement (CLICK HERE to get your copy). This book has been called “Your all-things-necessary guide to employee engagement” by Daniel Pink, author of When, and said to “Give you ideas, debates, great arguments and, most of all, hope” by Margaret Heffernan, author of Willful Blindness. Learn more at www.RebelPlaybook.com.

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