When individuals demonstrate a pattern of sustained positive impact on themselves, others and businesses, that produces tangible and targeted outcomes, that’s leadership success.
In the business environment, it’s the impressive leader, whose calm, yet competitive energy, drives superlative business momentum. In everyday life, it’s the unsung, yet steady heroes, without the fancy titles, who inspire everyone around them to strive for greatness. These two styles tell the story of undeniable leadership, in its most all-encompassing form.
In business, leadership success often looks effortless. That’s because the individuals leading the charge are clear on the qualities, traits and skills that lie at the epicentre of their styles.
For many of these leaders, the human side of leadership creates their moorings. They have dedicated a large chunk of effort to becoming better and better versions of themselves and in the process, have cracked the code of mastering positive skills of influence. Because they are not at war with themselves, they have the infrastructure that instructs the choreography needed to build harmonious orbits.
Everyone is drawn to them.
The evidence of leadership success in business, shows up in an elevated culture. People flourish, values training becomes unnecessary and mediocrity yields to excellence. Greatness is codified into the people performance and business operating systems.
The leaders of these businesses that flourish, have pushed way past vision, strategy, mission, values and balanced scorecards. They are preoccupied with creating businesses that are fit for rapid change and populated by people who weather the turbulence of life with ease.
These leaders are no longer interested in simply meeting revenue targets, they have an intention that goes beyond the numbers. They are consumed with improving the lives of employees, customers and stakeholders, in a radical way. They aim for an extraordinary leadership blueprint that’s far too advanced for the ordinary leader, who is satisfied with simply meeting, or exceeding revenue and profitability targets.
Leaders who excel in the human side of leadership, would have discovered the compounding value of positive human impact. While low influence leaders are busy unleashing textbook methodologies on employee populations, leaders who focus on the human side of the mission, are wielding influence beyond authority.
It’s time to reset the era of leadership that celebrates workplace impairment, under the guise of employee “commitment to work.” These impairment practices celebrate and reward employees who demonstrate patterns of long workdays, managing excessive workloads and constant availability.
There is a quiet revolution happening. Modern-day leadership pipelines are now placing value on championing the psychological safety of employees, workplace wellness and high productivity, minus the chronic burnout.
Leaders in this emerging cohort, are course correcting on the human side of leadership. Counterproductive practices like micromanagement, fire-fighting and task overloading, are being replaced by more favourable human-centred practices.
Businesses that are serious about sustaining their competitiveness, are no longer using revenue and profitability metrics as the holy grail of leadership success. These businesses understand that superlative business results is not a justification to turn a blind eye to systemic internal dysfunction.
The starting point for these businesses that are redefining the human side of leadership, has included firstly, auditing their leadership pipelines for default thinking.
Secondly, pushing for leadership beyond the numbers. It’s developing leaders who are prepared to go beneath the hood of a business to discover the root of dysregulation, issues, dysfunctions and chaos.
Thirdly, by becoming businesses that are committed to preparing their leaders prior to ascendancy, so that they do not carry forward destructive habits.
