A new decade, a new year. So what are the leadership trends for 2020 and how should we be working them?
Flexible working is here to stay – and increase. We’ve seen the recent experiments with 4-day weeks by Microsoft Japan which improved performance by 40%, while an Australian company found that a 6-hour day reduced unnecessary emails, lengthy meetings and internet use. In the UK, the BBC reported just 6% of people work a traditional 9-5 week. There are plenty of financial advantages to working flexibly (productivity increases, office costs decrease, for example) and with 5G on the horizon (phones as powerful as computers), it can only get easier. And people want to work flexibly…
Leading remote workers A recent Remote.co study in the US reported 66% of companies allow remote working, of which 16% are fully remote. This trend can only continue. So how do lead remote workers? The need to build and maintain relationships built on trust is vital – even if you never meet in the flesh. Setting clear standards and constant communication helps, as does occasional face to face meetings if you can.
More women leaders 29% of senior roles globally are now filled by women (Catalyst 2019). The business case is there: companies with the highest number of women on the board of directors outperform those with the lowest by 26% ROIC (McKinsey 2016). There is also the incremental increase of women coming through management pipelines to the top. The main challenge to organisations is keeping women and promoting them by providing a work culture that works for both women and men.
Even more accountability or radical transparency as it’s becoming known. As fast as news travels (Twitter, Instagram), leaders cannot sit on critical information for all their stakeholders, especially employees. Likewise, the increase in flexible working means employees need to be more accountable…
Developing new skills in employees Jobs are changing or being lost for ever with the increase of A1 and Bots. We live in constant change – the only constant we have is that there will be change. Instead of laying off employees, developing new skills will become more important to keep the workplace human. Leaders need to influence and challenge employees to take the next steps.
HR will rise HR leaders and decisions will become even more important strategically for businesses. HR professionals will play a more important part around the Board table to keep organisations authentic and human.
And finally…
Build leaders According to author Simon Sinek, we know how to build managers with training and new experiences, but we don’t know how to build leaders. One of the few organisations in the world that has consistent leadership training is the Military. The new decade needs a revitalised view of how we develop our leaders in the corporate world.
Your softer leadership skills in 2020
Listen If there was a skill from the past decade that continues to be important, it has to be the skill of listening. Try ‘pure’ listening. That’s listening without judgement or thinking through an immediate solution to what you are being told.
Teams are everything Bring mission and purpose to your teams. People don’t care which company they work for, but they do care about their immediate team. How long people stay with an organisation and how productive they are depends on the team, not the company or the sector.
Leverage your best people Present your best people with the biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems. You want them to stay and some problems can be viewed as potentially massive opportunities…
Don’t isolate yourself If ever there was a way to deny innovation at work, it’s to remain in your office, head down. Get out, get uncomfortable, find ways to talk to competitors and customers. It it’s more than a week since you last felt uncomfortable, then you are isolated.
Change the way you view work We traditionally view work from a perspective of the late 1940s production line – that’s where our working 9-5 came from. According to author Marcus Buckingham, from a macroeconomic per person viewpoint, productivity hasn’t changed since 1983. Look to new ways of working to boost productivity. Flexible working is just one tool that has had excellent results…
Here’s to a successful 2020 – and new decade!
With thanks to Forbes, Harvard Business Review, John Eades, Gary Hamel, Simon Sinek and Marcus Buckingham