How Business Leadership Must Change
Posted May 26th, 2011
The way of the business world has changed completely from what it was even just five years ago. The “new normal” is constantly in flux and a firm’s leadership must change the way stay flexible in order a company to thrive — if not survive — in today’s fast-paced, global economy.
No longer can a firm’s leaders take on the “top-down” style of management, where an executive barks orders to the minions below, expecting employees to carry them out without input. This type of organizational structure has gone the way of the dodo — to extinction.
And good riddance!
Instead, leaders today need to persuade (not coerce). Leaders need to be honest, not dictatorial. In addition, a companies leaders should come from all levels of an organization, of all ages so that leadership will be nimble and innovative and also wise and efficient.
Leadership best practices today call for a company culture where everyone has a say, where ideas are welcome. This will help spur employees to greater innovation.
In fact, leaders should come from everywhere in a company, not just from the executive suite. Workers need to be able to move up, down and sideways within an organization, depending on where their particular gifts are best utilized and where their aspirations take them.
Today’s leaders should be accessible to all employees. Leaders today should actively solicit input from the firm’s workers. Employees need to know they may speak their minds freely (within certain boundaries, of course), without worrying that they’ll be demoted, ostracized, ridiculed.
Company leadership today also must be completely honest with a firm’s workers. This is especially true with the prevalence of social networks, making it easy for workers to spread news, gossip or vent about bad management online. News of any sort, good, bad, indifferent, etc. can spread around a company — if not the world — in an instant. Since there’s no place “to hide” anymore, honesty from a firm’s leaders is ever more imperative.
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