Leadership received a lot of lip service in 2011, but if employee attitudes and job satisfaction are any measure, there’s been precious little leadership in action. We have more work to do. Perhaps, because so many businesses were in survival mode, people who were running organizations believed that simply keeping their office door open was leadership enough and sufficient to retain their best talent. In reality, though, this attitude is more about strong management and employee engagement and retention, and less about just leading and inspiring.
There is no one style of leadership that is most effective; people vary tremendously in their personality styles, passions and skill sets. There are as many styles of leadership as there are leadership attributes. Every workplace is as multi-dimenional as is every leader. Pretty complex stuff we are dealing with, so it’s important to keep talking about where we can improve and grow. I believe the most effective leaders are the ones with an innate ability to pivot and simply accept and drive transformation. Can we say Gumby?
While it’s vital to run a profitable, growing business, leaders always have much broader responsibilities: planning for the future, building an adaptable workplace, employee retention, recruiting and grooming the next generation of leaders, motivating employees at all levels of the organization and fostering a workplace culture of results and innovation. Let’s face it – the Social Workplace is here to stay – your employees are simply a Tweet or Facebook update away from you. 2012 could well be the year leadership moves back to center stage, so we’re taking the topic on for this week’s TChat World of Work topic. (We rotate our topics weekly so we keep ideas fresh and fun)
Please join us as we talk about leadership skills. Not what we’ve seen in recent years, but what we’re striving for – things like emotional intelligence, strategic and passionate vision, decisiveness, empathy, creativity and openness to something different. We’ll also talk about technology – talent management platforms, recruiting and HR technology and employee training. And we’ll dive a bit into the ways in which social media and on-line communities such as Twitter and LinkedIn can become leadership tools.
If you’re an aspiring/experienced leader, an HR executive charged with retention, an employee engagement devotee, a recruiting and workplace culture development professional, or simply a fan of adopting social media, we invite you to join us on Twitter – and challenge you to share your views on the most important leadership skills for 2012 and beyond. We’ll cover as much as we can in the hour on such a big topic – how to select and nurture new talent, where innovation fits into established organizations, the essential steps to building a competitive company, and more. Join us Wednesday night on #tchat The World of Work January 12, from 7-8 pm ET (4-5 pm PT), when leadership topics are in the hot seat. Join me, Kevin Grossman, Maren Hogan, Sean Charles and Kyle Lagunas for a very special Leadership #TChat.
Here are the questions for this week’s chat: See you there!
Q1: Now that the economy is a bit better, what are the primary skills leaders need for business growth in 2012?
Q2: How should companies best screen for leadership potential at hire and during tenure?
Q3: What different types of leaders are there in the workplace today?
Q4: In a world where business efficiencies are king and queen, how do leaders best motivate doing more with less?
Q5: Does having an innovative and adaptable leadership style give business leaders a competitive edge?
Q6: When it comes to change management vs. today’s “now” world of personal tech, what should a conflicted leader do?
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