What Shifting From Conventional Into Modern Leadership Means?

Written by: Ilham N Musayev, Executive Contributor

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

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It is not a secret that we are transforming into a new era where organizational models, styles of working and digital transformation take precedence in our lives and that impact is growing exponentially every day. This is mostly dictated by the requirements and processes happening on the global level and need to something modern, smart and however non-complex.

This transformation is also prompted drastic change in the leadership approach and styles. Old and traditional ways of leading proved to be non-effective and nonproductive and from another hand not compatible with all the changes happening globally now.

In this article I would like to cover (and uncover) on how new leadership is seen and going to be evolving further. Growing new leaders or becoming one who embraces modern transformations will lead to development of new generation of empathetic leaders who prompt catalysis of human potential, non-violent inter and intrapersonal communication, understand everchanging environment and responding to it accordingly.

Being a great leader nowadays requires an understanding of who you are leading. Workforce these days comprises of multiple generations, each with its own preferences in how they like to be managed. And of course, millennials are the largest contributors to this generation bucket. They have challenged the traditional style of leadership by having different values and expectations from their leaders. Communication, relationship-building and empowerment are some of the key components in millennials' preferred leadership styles.

Ingenious leaders must be able to look at each individual from all perspectives.The needs and concerns of employees outside of work directly impact their performance at work.

So, what are key focus areas which new leaders must embrace in order to becomes a successful generation of leaders?

I recently came across a post at business.com which is very close to this conversation. I completely agree with these points and therefore used some key moments to convey my message (which overlap). The ideas below demonstrate how new leadership styles will change culture and employee approach in organizations and remove traditional barriers and mindset:

Progressive style

These leaders don't just think outside of the box, but also hire outside of it – and expect the same unconventional thinking from their recruits. Progressive leaders focus on the big picture, understanding that significant risk-taking is necessary to achieve the next big thing.

Servant leaders

Servant leaders ensure the overall happiness and success of their employees. They invest both personally and professionally in their team members – getting to know them better, including their individual goals so the leader can help them achieve those goals. This comes across through mentorship programs, company training sessions, and continuous education, often on behalf of the company.

Servant leadership turns down the traditional leadership approach, placing the needs and priorities of employees front and center and giving company leaders the responsibility of supporting them. This strategy changes the traditional top-down concept of the corporate ladder and stresses the idea that a business's most valuable asset is its people.

Empathetic

For companies that strive for empathetic leadership, the ability to listen and understand employees ultimately improves the workplace culture for productivity and, in turn, success.

Transformative

With this style of leadership, managers try to encourage and inspire their employees to focus on the future success of the company through innovation and real change within the company. This creates a sense of autonomy among employees, since a main focus of this management style is to eliminate micromanaging. It also lets the employee know that they play a big part in the success of the company and their own future within it, which shows the employee that the relationship is mutually beneficial (or should be, at least).

New generation of employees want to be trusted to do the job they were hired to do, which contributes to the appeal of this leadership style.

Diversity Supporters

The leaders who are persistently on the lookout for diversity create big leaps forward for organizations. Those with the ability to look beyond the normal outlets for new hires, successfully recruiting people from all walks of life, understand that with diversity comes fresh perspectives. Typically, at the forefront of social justice movements for change, these leaders aren't willing to stray from their belief that welcoming everyone – regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity or sexuality – only enhances the culture and growth of the company.

There are, of course, other traits that are becoming mainstays in the business world. Companies are embracing flexible workforces in their efforts to offer a better work-life balance, emphasizing healthy communication, leading by example and employee empowerment.

It's exciting to see the changes coming from the most successful companies around the world. With more millennials continuing to enter the workforce, more transformations in leadership practices are undoubtedly coming our way.

Again, above leadership styles come from business.com (with my tiny modification), and as they overlap with my understanding of key leadership traits, qualities, and skills I have just used these for reference.

It worth mentioning that on top of all above an important role in growing modern leaders plays professional coaching. This is proposed to be done in 2 main directions:

1) Developing leaders as coaches and along with this seed to new leaders coaching skills like empathy, active listening, being present in conversations and observant, high profile feedback giving and receiving skills, catalysis of employee potential, emotional intelligence, getting from conversation all what is said and unsaid and many other high profile coaching skills.

2) Coaching leaders to bring out most out of them. Traditional trainings or workshops or other training solutions prove to be non-effective nowadays. There is a huge mindset change required to realize that coaching leaders can take them far away and unlock their true leadership potential. It eventually transforms leaders to become supportive, non-judgmental and non-assumption based, use their creative thinking and approach issues and impediments with curiosity and have a huge passion to serve their employees.

Just only being curious and asking good quality questions is enough to create psychologically safe space and trust environment, not mentioning about other benefits covered above.

I trust ideas above somehow helped to prompt our thinking that only by growing new leaders we can make huge changes. All traditional approaches are now redundant, and it is time now make the choice – is our organization grows or stays gross?

“Coaches and the people they coach know that for the future to be different, we need to change the way we do things in the present…. More often, changes involve shifts in attitudes, thinking, perceptions, and behavior.” Gary Collins, American actor

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Ilham N Musayev, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine

Ilham N Musayev is a mentor and coach (outside of the company he works for) who helps people unlock their potential in career and personal development. He also helps in the area of personal effectiveness, setting realistic goals, and becoming organized and structured. Ilham also helps to re-gain the [lost] confidence and look to issues and problems from a different perspective. Another area of his support is helping to cultivate servant leadership via coaching and mentoring technics.

Overall, he is an energy sector professional with 23 years of the practical experience obtained by working in one of the leader companies in this sector. Ilham’s experience is very multilayered. He worked and gained his experience from the following functions: Wells, PSCM, Operations, Global Projects, by mainly providing project controls support. For the last three years, he worked in Modernization and Transformation and Agile Design Teams and helped his company transform into new working ways. He currently is a part of the Agility team and, as an agile coach, supports the company by implementing agile ways of working.

Ilham holds the following professional certifications and accreditations: EMBA, PMP®, ICP-ATF; ICP-ACC; PSPO I; PAL I. He also is a Professional Life Coach and ICF Professional (Member).

Ilham’s position is that staying open for support, serving people as a leader, and helping people to grow is what wins hearts and minds and is the only answer to all questions.

His mission: “Aspire to inspire before we expire.