New Leadership – People in focus

Guest contribution by | 08.08.2022

Why successful leadership puts people in the centre of attention

New Work is on everyone’s lips right now.

We want to work differently. We want to work more independently, more self-determined, with a sense of purpose and from anywhere.

It is often forgotten that managers and decision-makers set the parameters and thus influence whether New Work can succeed in an organisation at all. We then speak of New Leadership.

Already during the first pandemic weeks with home offices, many managers had to realise that the “old” way of leading was reaching its limits.

So what is behind New Leadership? And is it really all so new?

Background and facts

According to the Gallup study from 20201

  • 69% of workers are only doing their job by the book.
  • 16% have mentally resigned.
  • only 33% would recommend their employer to their friends.

The estimated economic damage amounts to up to EUR 122 billion. Per year.

What are the reasons for these devastating facts?

Even before the Corona pandemic, a rethinking of the working world was taking place. More and more employees want

  • more meaning,
  • more freedom,
  • more trust from their superiors.

Keyword: New Work.

Without constant controls, detailed guidelines, dress code announcements, etc.

Employees want to be inspired and developed by their organisation and especially by their managers, and they demand this consistently. It is to be expected that this demand will become even more intense in the following generations. Organisations cannot ignore this demand – even if they want to – because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good professionals.

These changes leave many managers perplexed, sometimes even helpless.

In addition, markets are moving and changing faster and faster, and the future is becoming increasingly difficult to plan for. Most companies are already finding that they can no longer get far with their annual planning and budgets because the time-consuming deliberations and coordination processes are outdated after only a few months.

So it’s no wonder that more than half of all managers in Germany currently feel completely overwhelmed and dissatisfied with their job. Mental illnesses such as burnout have been on the rise for years.

Advanced training on leadership and stress management is often just a drop in the ocean because there is no time in everyday life to implement what has been learned. The effect is then like a one-time visit to the gym: you see how you could look, feel that it feels good at the moment. The next day, however, all that remains is a severe muscle ache, which, like the visit to the gym, you will soon forget.

Why classic leadership is reaching its limits

The topic of leadership is not new. We should know how to lead successfully by now, shouldn’t we?

If we look at the age of the industrial revolution, we see that there was more and more standardisation in processes and procedures. Machines took a lot of heavy work off our hands and made it easier to plan production. Of course, there were also many negative effects here, but on the whole the industrial revolution is a building block of today’s (Western) prosperity.

In corporate management, the hierarchical pyramid structure has predominantly established itself. A few at the top of the pyramid are responsible for thinking and making decisions, while the many at the bottom do the work they have been told to do. And even if this black-and-white picture has been softened in practice in most cases – employees at the bottom of the pyramid are now also allowed to think and make suggestions – the basic structure is still there. The responsibility is borne by the people “at the top” and the important decisions are made by them.

Now the fact is that we have long left the age of the industrial revolution behind us and have arrived in the digital age. Technologies are developing faster and faster. New opportunities are emerging where we would never have suspected them. It is no longer so important for successful organisations to be as large and financially strong as possible, but rather to be able to adapt quickly and ideally to gain a competitive advantage through innovation every now and then themselves.

In addition, there are the social changes already described above and the demands and needs of employees.
This leads to three main problems with traditional leadership:

1. Decision-making paths are far too long – especially in corporate groups, the pyramid structure (many hierarchical levels) ensures that strategic decisions in particular often take months. Today’s markets are simply too fast for that.

2. The complexity is too great for just a few decision-makers. A few top decision-makers can no longer keep track of the multitude of issues and their interdependencies. This also leads to slow and yet poor decisions or, in the worst case, no decisions at all.

3. Professionals no longer just want to carry out work – work must be meaningful. We need work that we really really want as Frithjof Bergmann, one of the founders of the New Work movement, said. The question that arises here is: do we really have a shortage of skilled workers or do we simply have work environments that nobody wants?

Changes as opportunities

But can these rapid technological and cultural changes not also be an opportunity for companies to evolve?

Can these challenges even lead to managers being relieved of more of the burden, as responsibility and decisions are distributed across many shoulders?

Not just since Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations2, more and more companies are transforming into network organisations in which there are few or no hierarchies. This does not mean that leadership disappears, but that leadership tasks are distributed among many more people. This automatically leads to more individual responsibility and much faster decision-making processes.

Of course, this kind of organisation is not right for everyone. Many employees who were used to being told exactly how to do what for years are suddenly overwhelmed.

I like to compare the situation with the tiger that has grown up in the zoo and is used to having food put in front of it every day. This tiger is safe and cared for and at the same time not free and has never been able to realise its full potential. If this tiger were now released into the wild without further ado, its chances of survival would be slim and it might even starve to death.

Therefore, it is enormously important to accompany and support people in developing skills to realise their potential. Many people succeed in this despite years of conditioning, because we carry this intrinsic motivation to make a positive contribution to society. We don’t just want to lie lazily on the couch, we want to make a difference. The best example of this natural behaviour is children. When I watch my little daughter, I see endless motivation to learn and try things.

What does New Leadership mean?

In essence, New Leadership means moving away from the classic, Taylorist “command and control” approach (the manager says how it is done and then controls the work and the results of the employees). In our times of exponential change, an approach where everyone waits for a superior to tell them what to do can only fail. The higher authority or person is overwhelmed and those who could help are not asked.

In New Leadership, the leader acts as a coach. Their core task is to raise the existing potentials in the best possible way, to promote teamwork and to develop and strengthen effective self-organisation (in the team as well as by each individual).

The focus moves from the content to the people who take care of the content. In my opinion, the quote by Simon Sinek3 captures the essence very well:

“Leaders are not responsible for the results, leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.”

By shifting responsibility from one person to many, and by enabling decisions to be made independently at the grassroots level, we achieve an agility that enables us to react much more quickly to changes. In doing so, we put people at the centre and, in addition to appealing work environments, create space for ideal and individual potential development.

New Leadership is not all that new

If we now turn our gaze to the past, we will realise that the approaches and principles of New Leadership are not that new. In the 1960s, Douglas McGregor developed his XY theory4, in which he describes two images of people that we find in our working environments.

Theory X sees people negatively, Theory Y positively. Applied to the topic of leadership, this could be described as follows:

Theory X: The assumption is that the average person is indolent and avoids work as much as possible. Tight leadership and frequent control are essential because of human inertia. A controlling and authoritarian style of leadership is the solution (command-and-control).

Theory Y: Here the assumption is based on the fact that human beings are intrinsically motivated by nature and want to add value to society. Leadership in Theory Y takes on the role of a framework provider or enabler. A cooperative leadership style is the solution (servant leadership).

The interesting thing about McGregor’s theory is that he himself says that there are no X people, only X environments. This means that we are naturally eager to contribute and intrinsically motivated. This is consistent with the observation of children. But a negative environment ensures that we adapt and behave accordingly. Brain researcher Gerald HĂĽther also repeatedly talks about our conditioning in society; his focus is on education and the school system, which leads to us not being able to develop our potential.5

This underlines the relevance of leaders who create a framework in which potential unfolding and development are possible. In this way, the manager automatically becomes the coach and companion of the employees.

In the past, there were already very different, almost contradictory leadership styles that were successful.

In today’s world with its challenges, however, we find that human-centred leadership, New Leadership, is clearly more successful than task-oriented leadership. It also creates friendlier and more pleasant work environments, which is important because people do not want to work in negative work environments.

How do I become a New Leader?

In addition to knowledge and skills in agile methods, it is above all the attitude with which we approach our employees that is important.

One of the masterminds of the New Work movement, Frederic Laloux, even says that an organisation cannot develop further in terms of culture than the responsible management has developed. For this reason, it is enormously important to honestly reflect on one’s own attitude and values and to invest time in “Inner Work”. I can still remember the regular check-up calls from my former boss at the beginning of the pandemic, shortly after we had all moved to the home office and were no longer as physically present, at least.

So what values are particularly important in practising New Leadership?

Trust plays a central role. Only when I can let go and agree to someone solving a task differently than I would, will I succeed in mastering complex changes. In the process, it may well be that I cannot even evaluate the result, because either I have no idea about the contents, the staff:in knows significantly more than I do, or an evaluation is simply not possible because there are no empirical values from the past.

In order to minimise uncertainties, transparency and openness are crucial factors. We learn by sharing experiences and building on the knowledge of others. If there is a problem, we share it with as many others as possible, as this significantly increases the likelihood of a quick and sustainable solution. This can be managers at times, but also any other person in my environment.

An appreciative error culture is also enormously important. How much does someone who was reprimanded by their boss the last time they failed dare to get out of their comfort zone and try something new? The point is not to take maximum risk, but to acknowledge that we make mistakes when we dare to try something new. We then learn from these mistakes for the future. And not only we as employees, but also as leaders.

Because it is also OK if we as leaders make mistakes and talk openly about them. This strengthens the new culture and makes us human and authentic.

Change is very rarely linear. Even as new leaders, we sometimes slip back into old patterns of behaviour. We try things out and find out which style suits us well and also feels right. And then we continue to develop.

For a long time, I accompanied an executive who decided that he no longer wanted to be the sole ruler, but wanted to hand over responsibility in order to gain more freedom himself and also to secure the future of his own company. The transformation took time and even today there are still relapses into old patterns. That is normal and human. What is important here is open and transparent communication. This executive likes to say that when he receives direct feedback for his behaviour from his employees, this is the best proof that he has managed his personal transformation on the whole, because he can no longer get away with his “old” behaviour.

Conclusion

We can no longer avoid new leadership, and that is a good thing. If we manage to transform and develop ourselves as leaders, this will not only benefit our employees, who will be happier and more fulfilled, but also our organisations, which will benefit significantly from the uncovering of unused potential.

In addition, we ourselves as leaders will become freer, feel less stressed, work fewer hours, be more satisfied and balanced, and even achieve better results with our teams in the process.

So it is very worthwhile to look into the topic of New Leadership and thus the people-centred approach to leadership.

 

Notes (partly in German):

Contact Christoph Homeier if you are about to start a new leadership role, would like to transform your company or simply fancy an exchange on the topics of New Work, Leadership & Digital Transformation. How? Simply via https://christophhomeier.com.

[1] Gallup: Engagement Index Deutschland
[2] Frederic Laloux: Reinventing Organizations
[3] Simon Sinek: Start with Why
[4] Douglas McGregor: XY-Theory
[5] Gerald Hüther: Was wir sind und was wir sein könnten

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Christoph Homeier

Christoph Homeier

Christoph Homeier is Founder, Leadership Coach, and New Work & Digital Transformation Enthusiast. In over 10 years of leadership experience with very different teams, he has learned that success as a leader cannot only be systematically planned, but can also make people satisfied and happy.

From this experience, he has developed a programme for leaders who want to achieve top results safely and easily in their new role. Of course, New Leadership plays an important role here.

In addition, Christoph Homeier accompanies companies in successfully transforming themselves for the future. Culture and organisational development are the focus here.