New Work = New Leadership?
In the last blog article we have introduced you to the trend “New Work” and why it is important to shift your organizational development towards new work – which means that the daily work of your employees needs to be meaningful and progressive to achieve results. We also concluded that the cultural shift in your organization can only be achieved with a new skill – and mindset on leadership level. In this article we would like to introduce you to the terminology of New Leadership.
What is New Leadership?
The terminology of New Leadership derives from New Work, which means New Leadership leaders apply New Work principles in their teams and organizations, and they have the principles below:
MINDSET
- Values: They are deeply anchored to their own positive values and have a strong self-reflection to grow consistently on a personal level
- Purpose: They bring purpose and meaning to their teams: They define a higher purpose for themselves and their teams why they work together and what is the purpose beyond making money
- Beliefs: They believe in human beings — that everyone has a valid opinion, strengths to bring into the team and follow strong inclusion principles
BEHAVIOR
- Goals setting: They set goals and objectives with their teams to allow a long-term strategic view combined with peak performances
- Resilient: They constantly adapt to changes — they know only changes allow us to grow and to become innovative
- Inspiring: They communicate with openness and interest and act as a role model in their team. Hence, they become a central inspiration source that shapes the culture and DNA in the team
- Situational Leadership Style: They are very good at leading situationally different since they understand the needs of clients, employees and stakeholders
OUTCOME
- Goal Achievement: They develop highly productive teams that reach all kind of objectives they have set for themselves
- Relatedness: They build up teams with strong relationships and the feeling of belonging to motivate each team member to fully integrate themselves into the team
- Employee satisfaction: They achieve high employee satisfaction levels with low employee turnover since they motivate their employees to develop high intrinsic motivation
What skills do New Leaders have?
It is clear that New Leaders apply a much more participative leadership style in comparison to traditional leaders. But what skills do New Leaders need to apply?
New Leaders have strong self-leadership skills. This means that they can apply the following six skills:
- Self-Conception: They know themselves and understand their strengths and weaknesses and apply deep self-reflection to become their own coach and corrector.
- Purpose & Vision: They develop a higher purpose and vision for their leadership role and for their team
- Planning & Time Management: They are strong in planning their time to work, both strategically and operationally
- Habit Building & target achievement: They are very good at developing strong habits to achieve their set targets and objectives
- Stress Mgmt. & Resilience: They know how to perform on peak performance while being balanced to build-down stress and to become stronger in every challenges
- Problem-Solving: They are excellent in solving problems and in finding solutions when things are not going smooth
Additionally, new leaders are also very adept at leading individuals – either as direct reports or in project team setups, with the following skills:
- Leadership Understanding: They develop a good understanding of what other stakeholders such as direct reports, clients and employees want from them and of what their responsibility is
- Motivation and Commitment: They can easily motivate their employees intrinsically to get the maximum buy-in from everyone
- Recruiting: They understand the dynamics in their teams and know how new individuals fit into their team
- Onboarding: They are very good at structuring the processes, routines and learning fields in their team to allow new employees to learn fast and to get up to speed up
- Delegation: They are good at delegating tasks and teaching new skills to employees while delegating tasks to allow a balanced skill development in their teams
- Effective communication and feedback: They know all the principles of violent-free communication and apply a good feedback culture in their teams
- Difficult conversations: They are skilled in tackling difficult conversations
- Employee development and recognition: They are great people developers and know how to appraise employees for great results
New Leaders are also excellent in leading teams, since they apply these skills:
- Team Culture & Dynamics: They are good facilitators to grow a team culture and to manage team dynamics
- Situational Leadership: They lead individuals individually and need based, and they can adjust their leadership style respectively.
- Conflict Management: They are excellent mediators in team conflicts and know how to solve conflicts
- Team Coaching & Development: They have a coach mindset, and develop their teams with the right questioning techniques and coaching methods
- Team Performance & OKRs: They are excellent in defining long term goals and to allow their teams to implement OKRs on frequent level
- Diversity & Inclusion: They foster diversity and inclusion and allow the maximum innovation outcome with a heterogeneous skill and mindset
- Decision-making: They are excellent in making decisions for themselves and together with the team
- Learning Culture: They foster a strong learning environment in their team and build-up an exemplary learning culture
What are the benefits of New Leadership Skills?
Organizationally speaking, the biggest benefit of New Leadership is increased employee retention. According to Jens Altleben over 80% of all job terminations are direct supervisor, which means high employee turnover means low leadership performance. But with this main goal there comes also other benefits such as:
- Increased Productivity
- Increased Agility
- Increased Innovation
Many leaders want to transform to New Leaders due to important personal benefits:
- Increased well-being: Applying these new leadership skills will not only benefit your team but will support you as a leader to feel overall more positive in your role irrespective of the stress levels you may have
- Increased personal growth: We learn many leadership skills just by observing other leaders around us, but without learning them ourselves. Learning New Leadership skills means allowing more reflection and methods in your daily work to make a difference as a leader
- Increased performance level: Learning and applying our leadership skills will help you to become more focused and productive in your daily work, which helps you to use your free time for recharging your batteries
- Applying mindfulness: Instead of just doing as someone has done, it with us is not very mindful. Learning the leadership skills on a cognitive level will help you to become more mindful in your leadership responsibilities
Are you interested in learning more about how to learn New Leadership skills? We frequently offer group coaching sessions – see here, or coach and consult individuals. We are delighted to hear from you!
You can watch our short video on New Work = New Leadership? below:
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See you next Sunday!
Your Amaze Growth Team
