Different Economic Realities Call for Different Leadership Skills

Leadership’s ability to renew the spirit, energy and focus of anxious, dis-spirited employees is the key to building a sustainable organization in the new global economy.  But yesterday’s leadership skills are no longer enough to achieve this.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman and Ed Rankin are combining their expertise to offer organizational leaders a program teaching how to apply corporate and team spirit as a hard-edged economic driver. When spirit goes up, operational costs go down and productivity and profitability go up. (see bottom of post for contact information)

Yesterday’s Leadership Skills

Yesterday’s leadership skills created this problem … (Gallup)      

• 27% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs.  (They are fired up and full of spirit)
• 54% of employees are not engaged in their jobs – (they are switched off- they have lost their  spirit).
• 19% are actively disengaged – (they are tuned out)        

 It costs the American economy $300 billion a year to employ these actively disengaged employees who do not behave in ways that grow the business.

Leaders Take Note:  Different times call for different leadership skills

The corporate world is in the midst of a great transformation in Leadership.  Thoughtful and courageous leaders are asking questions like ‘What leadership traits are necessary to be a great leader in this recession?    What kind of leadership behaviors is appropriate now?   What leadership qualities and skills will we need when we come out of this bad economy?’ 

Great questions!   This is the perfect moment to identify what the term ‘leadership’ means through the recession and going forward.  We need an understanding of what this next metamorphosis of leadership looks like so that we can begin to rebuild our crumbling economy.

As leaders now struggle with an intense demand for higher productivity, performance, innovation and profitability, they are beginning to realize that they need to focus on the leadership qualities that build powerful relationships, connections and networks.  This evolution of the concept of leadership is moving away from status power towards the power of human relationships and human connection.  And this means behaving and speaking differently!  Very differently!

But here’s the kicker.  These are not just enhanced traditional leadership behavior and communication skills – these are different, new and specific skills that will empower leaders to interact effectively and relevantly with employees and customers whose psyches have changed dramatically since the economic meltdown.  These are behavior and language skills that will renew and energize corporate spirit and as such these leadership skills are hard-edged economic drivers.  Leaders need to know…

•  The behavior and language styles that are a business liability because this switches employees off from the business goals.  (See Chapter 3 of my book, Who’s in the Driver’s Seat? )
•  The behaviors and ways of communicating that are an asset because this builds spirited, accountable teams who deliver exceptional performance – because they want to!  (See chapter 4 of my book)

And above all leaders need to reconnect with their own spirit and authenticity so that this shines through in such a way that the employees feel safe and ready to trust their leaders, themselves and each other again.

Contact Dr. Sandy Gluckman at 972-758-1246 for additional information regarding this new program or Ed Rankin at 214-803-6526