13 Jun Leading 21st Century Teams
I recently attended the Pivot Summit and heard the Andrew Harvey, CFO from Microsoft Sydney, speaking about managing people being one of the hardest things he has experienced. Being a techie he was really savvy with creating and managing technology, but as his leadership role grew he soon discovered that when he started managing people it was a whole new ball game.
Harnessing Diversity
Today’s workforce is more diverse than at any time in the past. Organisations and businesses today have greater diversity in their teams than ever before. We now find ourselves working with four very different generational demographic groups––Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millennials) and Generation Z who have entered the workforce in recent years.
Generational Savvy
Are you generational savvy? You need to be! Understanding the diversity in your teams will help you unleash talent, creativity and collective genius.
I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to foster rich learning communities in our workplaces by employing people from different walks of life, and reaching out to create global connections to deepen their international and intercultural understanding.
Embracing and valuing generational and cultural diversity is a huge advantage allowing us to understand others and know how we can unleash strengths and talents to create awesome teams.
Culture Matters
As a leader, I have always focused on creating a culture where everyone is valued and everyone has a contribution to make. I’ve lived and shared the vision and invited all my team along with me highlighting the amazing purpose of what we can achieve together. By capturing their hearts and minds, we can create a culture of trust and creativity, thus promoting shared perspectives and positive problem solving.
Here are my five top strategies to help you create a culture that has everyone on board.
- Alignment
Aligning people around your organization’s vision and shared values is crucial. People today are searching for genuine satisfaction and meaning from their work and the most successful leaders know this and use their advanced strategic thinking and emotional intelligence skills to align their people. People commit to the vision and values of the organization because they want to be part of something greater than themselves.
- Empowerment
Successful leaders empower more leaders at all levels and develop sophisticated accountability systems to ensure commitments are met. Empowered leaders set standards of excellence for others and contribute to a positive and proactive organizational culture.
- Service
Successful leaders know that their first obligation is offer superior value to satisfy customers’ needs and desires. They motivate and empower their teams to ensure high levels of service at all times.
- Collaboration
Successful leaders foster a collaborative spirit and develop a culture of trust, eliminating internal politics and focusing on internal cooperation, growth, and development. They promote diversity whilst actively and collectively breaking down the silos that keep people from collaborating and creating.
- Innovation, Disruption, and Change
Successful leaders know that organisations, businesses, schools and universities must recreate themselves to meet the needs of the future. They embrace disruption, innovation, and change by unlocking the collective genius and talent in their teams to generate new ideas and innovations. They are knowledgeable about and understand the drivers of change and major disruptions in their industry or field. They are future-focused and set the scene to create the conditions for ongoing innovation and change in their organisations.
Awesome Teams
Leading teams for 20+ years, I’ve learnt that awesome teams integrate generations and international mindsets to gain the best insights. They are positive rather than negative and proactive rather than reactive. Awesome teams focus on results and action. They get things done! They encourage and empower creative problem solvers and above all develop a culture of trust and confidence so that all members willingly contribute and take a shared responsibility to find solutions. They always adopt a growth mindset are resilient and persistent.
Asking, trusting, empowering, and letting go are critical 21st century leadership skills that help you to create awesome teams.
How can you unleash these characteristics and attributes in your team?
Whenever I have started as a leader in a new role or new organisation I have always given myself an initial period to get to know the team/s. Then I hone in on developing more leaders. I observe and select aspirational leaders who are exceptional in their existing role, have a spark of genius and are always enthusiastic, positive, proactive, and prepared to take a chance. Then I develop new leaders and innovation teams. Looking back I can see there is a direct relationship between leadership, innovation, and change.
Leaders of today DO NOT have to do everything single-handedly; they surround themselves with amazing teams and grow more leaders.
And that’s a great plan for success!
So, how are you going to unleash the talent and potential of your teams? If you would like some help contact me. I would love to help you out.
Maxine xx
