1. Leaders need to be authentic and transparent.
What does it mean to be an authentic leader? Authenticity is about building trust, being consistent and not hiding what's going on from different parts of the organization you lead. An authentic leader asks what will be best for the enterprise and enlists everyone's help. S/he is clear about expectations and can
communicate where an employee's role fits into the bigger picture, even in a changing environment.
Obviously, there are things that you can't always reveal about what's going on in the business; however, it's important to communicate as much as you can and talk about how it could impact your team, both positively and negatively. Authenticity and being transparent are always important, but particularly so when there's increased stress and anxiety in the workplace.
2. Leaders need to have systems in place to capture valuable knowledge so that the organization benefits from what it has learned and continues to do so in the future.
I've been involved in co-authoring an article about management guru Peter Drucker for what would have been his 100th birthday (in 2010). Drucker is known as the founder of modern management and was prolific in his writing until the end of his life at 95 years of age. It was Drucker who first wrote about the importance of the "knowledge worker" and the "knowledge economy" in a time when "command and control" management was the norm. An organization's knowledge is an asset to protect and leverage. Are you capturing valuable information and re-purposing it? Are you ensuring that employees feel valued and reinforcing them for establishing and sharing best practices?
As some organizations continue to have reductions in force, lost knowledge often goes out the door. Are you losing valuable knowledge as employees leave? What are some of the ways that you can capture it? The best companies make knowledge management and retention part of the way they do business. For example, one of the companies we work with has set up "communities of practice" where employees share what has worked and what hasn't on various projects, and employs the technology to capture that data for others to easily access.
3. Leaders need to keep Succession Planning on the Radar Screen and be willing to change how they lead.
It's easy to think in the short term when you feel your business is in crisis. This is very true of some of the entrepreneurial companies that we work with, even in the good times. One of our clients has built a successful service company and is now thinking about retirement. The CEO states that "We've hired key resources with specific technical knowledge, but an important next step we haven't yet taken is engaging these new team members in leading and managing the business."
Key Associates' Senior Partner Deb Esposito has been working extensively with this client. The initial step they took was to have the owners develop their mission and vision statement for the business. Next, the entire senior management team met to develop a 3-year strategy. The earlier mission statement was presented and upgraded. The vision was clarified and corporate values were created. The ensuing strategy workshop engaged everyone, for the first time, in thinking across disciplines and developing performance measures with accountabilities. With this common base of understanding and written documents, the management team now has a framework for making business decisions.
The role of the ownership team is changing and taking on the critical role of coaching the successors. For example, questioning how a decision was arrived at versus making the decisions in order to develop critical thinking. This framework may seem like a burden to some entrepreneurs; however, when you realize your "company" days may be numbered and you want the company you've built to be successful, having the new management group working in a way that is consistent with your long-term vision and values may make this change less painful. The biggest challenge for this company is continuing to link strategic direction with tactical choices and holding each other accountable for performance. Accountability, when it ties back to agreed-upon goals, is powerful and makes sense to employees at all levels when communicated effectively and often.
You can learn more about how your organization can develop its mission, vision, values and core focus in our
CEO Road Rules Workbook. To learn more about how to develop leaders and enhance performance during changing times, please contact us at
mary@keyassociatesinc.com or call 813-831-9500.
