Are you an effective leader? Here’s how to tell

Leader or boss? The difference is in the approach

There are countless comparisons between an effective leader and a mere manager. A common visual you’ll find splashed across the internet is a split image of a scenario handled by two different individuals: a ‘boss’ and a leader. The boss is typically seen barking orders at employees who are expected to lug the weight of the boss, while the leader is seen down on the ground with employees doing the grunt work and leading them on which way to go.

The image portrays how a leader gets involved in the work and stays focused on inspiring performance, while coaching the best out of the team. Additionally, leaders tackling today’s complex set of challenges are expected to embody a more human-centred model of ‘responsible leadership’, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) study. Instead of just generating results for the business bottom line, leaders are required to showcase capabilities across five attributes:

• Stakeholder inclusion – Leaders need to ‘safeguard’ trust, showcase accountability, and create positive impact for all. This requires considering diverse stakeholders when making decisions and fostering an inclusive environment where diverse individuals have a voice and feel they belong.
• Emotion & intuition – Unlock commitment and creativity by being truly human, showing compassion, humility, and openness.
• Mission & purpose – Advance common goals by inspiring a shared vision of sustainable prosperity for the organisation and its stakeholders.
• Technology & innovation – Create new organisational and societal value by innovating responsibly with emerging technology.
• Intellect & insight – Find better paths to success by embracing continuous learning and knowledge exchange.

Younger workers especially believe that leadership decisions in the coming decade will require a balanced approach that cuts across all five areas. All this doesn’t mean that financial performance is no longer vital to business success. In fact, the study found that responsible leadership is linked with higher financial performance. Companies that showcase higher levels of innovation and trust outperform competitors financially, research showed. HRD finds out what it really takes to be a great leader in today’s disruptive world.

Able to manage change

In a study by Deloitte, about three in five executives said that leadership was important to prepare for unknown futures – the top-ranked priority for supporting preparedness in a crazy, uncertain world. “And while much of leadership has historically been about setting direction and ensuring compliance, now effective leadership is shifting to preparing for the unpredictable by coaching, teaming, and fostering workers’ ability to learn and adapt,” wrote the study on global human capital trends.

According to Deloitte, effective leaders are the ones who consider the following:

• Job evolution: How often are jobs changing, which ones, and to what degree?
• Future workforce readiness: How ready is the team for the future of work? How do you close any capability or skills gaps?
• Change ability: Are you and the team able to quickly adapt to change?
• ‘Future leader’ readiness: Do your leaders have what it takes to succeed in the future?

As disruption becomes the norm, leaders who showcase the potential to succeed in their roles are the ones who can collect real-time information, reassess the company’s and employee needs, and translate it into ‘meaningful action’.

A good communicator

And with constant change, leaders need to be adept at developing trust. The best way to do it? Through clear and effective communication. Unfortunately, Edelman’s annual trust barometer this year found that over half (56%) of employees mistrust business leaders. Regardless, companies have emerged the most trusted institution (61%), compared with governments, with employees citing communications from ‘my employer’ as their most reliable source of information.

Despite this, Adrian Warr, CEO of Edelman Hong Kong and Taiwan, market growth Thailand explained that it’s okay if a leader is not a ‘great communicator’. He said that many individuals get promoted into leadership roles because they’re brilliant at their jobs or simply “fantastic people”. “They don’t all have to be great communicators, but they have to have an authentic style of communication,” Warr told HRD. “Doing what’s right for that leader and the type of company is far more important than following some kind of formulaic approach.”

Good communication also needs to be relevant. “It’s about understanding,” he said. “It’s very basic communication stuff but it’s communicating in a way that’s relevant to your audience rather than the business.”

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