The old leadership model is dead: here’s how to lead now

It’s not easy to share power but it’s essential for modern leaders.

Leadership is changing and bosses need a new approach. Picture: iStock

Executives have always been – and always will be – expected to produce results. But today they’re expected to produce them in a fundamentally different way. Gone are the days of the heroic individual leading from the front.

Instead, in most corporations, decision-making has become decentralised; leaders are now supposed to empower and enable their people. Because of that, they’ve had to give up considerable control. People skills – often described as “soft skills” – are now especially critical for leaders. Yet reliable information about how to acquire people skills is scant.

To find out more about what skills executives struggle to learn and what learning strategies pay off, we analysed assessment, development and interview data gathered by Spencer Stuart, one of the world’s top leadership advisory firms. In this article, we’ll outline our findings.

A THREE-STAGE JOURNEY

How can leaders who fall short on soft skills develop a more enabling style?

The first stage is the departure, during which the leader recognises the need for a change and deliberately starts to leave behind familiar ways of working.

The second is the voyage, a time of transition during which the leader encounters obstacles and trials that teach important lessons and open the path to transformation.

Finally, there’s the return, during which leaders arrive at a new understanding of who they are and what kind of leader they want to be, and start to transfer what they’ve learned to others.

Now, let’s explore each of these stages.

THE DEPARTURE

Leaders alter their habitual – and successful – ways of doing things only when they become aware of a gap between where they are and where they want to be. The catalyst might be a particular event or feedback from colleagues or coaches. But usually people embark on a concerted effort to change only after multiple experiences and conversations make them realise that their behaviour is impeding outcomes they care about.

In our experience, many leaders underestimate the extent of change required and need the help and perspective of a trusted partner – an adviser, a mentor or a coach. Not all of them reach the departure stage. And the ones who embark on a genuine voyage of discovery will need humility, self-awareness, patience and resilience to complete it.

THE VOYAGE

Having watched many leaders move through this stage, we’ve found that those who succeed engage in three key practices.

●Creating a new context for learning: Executives tend to pursue two main kinds of learning as they work on changing their behaviour. One involves putting themselves in situations where they have no direct authority and are compelled to develop a more indirect, empowering style. We call this outside-in learning.

Leaders can also transform their style by taking skills they’ve developed within their teams (or in their personal lives) and using them more broadly. We call this inside-out learning.

●Enlisting helpers: At every stage in the development journey, you need partners who can hold you accountable, provide honest feedback, help you connect the dots and hold up mirrors revealing your true nature.

● Persisting through (and learning from) setbacks: The line to the finish is rarely straight. As the stakes get higher and performance anxiety flares up, executives often fall back into the old style that made them successful for years. Alternatively, they demonstrate only a naive understanding of their new skills, which produces less-than-optimal results. Two steps forward, one step back. The adaptation journey almost invariably involves backsliding and overshooting. To keep going, you need to focus on small wins.

THE RETURN

The moment of return arrives when leaders – at last – internalise a more empowering leadership style, see it as a genuine reflection of their new selves and employ it across the board in their professional lives. Their learning is far from finished at this point, but it has become self-sustaining. Remember, there’s no “best” style. Leaders must always exercise judgment about when to be more directive or more enabling. We’ve seen several instances of executives veering too far in an inclusive direction when a more commanding one was called for. But when leaders are equipped with a broader repertoire and hard-won insights about the impact of their behaviour, they’re better able to flex in response to what’s needed.

A second marker of having entered the return stage is a desire to share and amplify your learning. This is critical because it increases your organisation’s capacity for developing its workforce.

STARTING YOUR OWN JOURNEY

Most high-performing executives today intellectually get the case for better people skills and know that their well-honed directive styles have significant downsides. But learning and sticking to new habits and skills – especially under pressure – demands commitment and effort. Here are a few tips to help you get on your way.

●Know what you’re in for: It’s important to develop a realistic sense of the time and effort required to genuinely adapt your style. Knowing what milestones to look out for – such as early wins and recovery from a setback – can help.

●MAP OUT YOUR LEARNING AGENDA: Remember that you might need to work on your skills in particular settings. You might excel at listening and fostering psychological safety with your team but find yourself unable to leverage those interpersonal skills to get things done with your peers across the organisation.

Once you’ve identified a strength you want to develop, experiment with using it in different contexts.

●Create space for learning: Carving out regular time for reflection is a simple way to speed your progress, capitalise on small wins and learn more from your inevitable setbacks. But this sort of daily exercise works best if you periodically pause to contemplate the big picture. As Ron Heifetz of Harvard’s Kennedy School has put it, it’s important to spend time “down on the dance floor” and “up in the balcony”.

●DON’T GO IT ALONE: Coaches and mentors outside your normal reporting lines can be very helpful, but you’ll also need to rely on close colleagues and, in some instances, even your family or friends – people who can hold you to account and offer in-the-moment feedback in ways that nobody else can.

Herminia Ibarra is the Charles Handy professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School and the author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader and Working Identity. Claudius A. Hildebrand is a member of Spencer Stuart’s leadership advisory services and chief executive practice, and a co-author of Passages of Leadership. Sabine Vinck leads Spencer Stuart’s leadership advisory services practice in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

The successful CEO candidates in our sample scored higher than the unsuccessful ones on three dimensions:

●DELIVERING RESULTS (the ability to meet or beat goals and personally improve performance)

●COLLABORATING AND INFLUENCING (the ability to work with and through others who are not under their direct control)

●SELF-EVALUATION AND ADJUSTMENT
(the capacity to update your point of view and behaviour on the basis of new information)

Once candidates took office, however, their past success at delivering results did not have any effect on their performance. Collaborating and influencing, on the other hand, were associated with higher total shareholder return, and self-evaluation and adjustment were associated with higher revenue growth and greater increases in operating margins

Leaders need to work effectively with people in small groups, across networks and across the organisation. Here are the skills most important in each situation.

●ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS, LISTENING, EMPATHISING AND EMPOWERING (in small groups and one-on-one interactions). These skills allow leaders to draw wisdom, insight and creativity out of their people, solve problems collectively and foster a sense of psychological safety.

●COLLABORATING AND INFLUENCING (across networks). Agility and innovation depend on co-operation among disciplines and units both inside and outside the organisation and the ability to build and work through informal relationships.

●CULTURE-SHAPING AND ALIGNING (across the organisation). To enable, motivate and inspire people on a large scale, leaders must be able to communicate a compelling direction or purpose, ensure that the organisation’s processes and culture support the stated objectives, and act as role models in the day-to-day.