Reconsider Your Role as a Leader:
One of the big shifts for leaders is to disrupt their role. In the future, there might be new ways to run an organization. For instance, a home appliance company can change its workforce so it can efficiently track, and respond to, ever-changing trends. Consequently, the company can categorize itself into some 1,000 independent units, each with its own profit/losses while the salaries would be based on performance.
In such a scenario, people occupying leadership positions are required to change their roles. Instead of staying on the top of the hierarchy, the leadership should now handle several interdependent business units as they respond to market factors.
Being Emphatic:
Going through the changes is not easy. Even the most efficient among us have our own moments of struggle. When embracing disruption, you should keep this fact in mind. Consider the temperament and feelings of your stakeholders. Especially when the disruption is sudden or complicated, chances are their feeling include resentment, fear, anger and negativity. That’s why your role becomes important. Here you need to keep an open dialogue with them and bring your team along on your journey.
Embrace New Identities:
To lead your team through disruption efficiently, you need to embrace new some new roles such as catalyst, innovator and consumer. Here’s how…
Stay Connected:
Disruption also requires you to remain visible and accessible to your team. Remember how President George W. Bush got bad press for being absent on 9/11? Due to security reasons, he was kept in secrecy and only reappeared in the evening while he was supposed to stand with the nation.
That’s why leaders should be accessible and visible all the time, especially when their teams go through crises and disruptions. In the absence of your encouraging statements and assurance, your teams can assume the worse and might start believing or posting those baseless theories on social media.
Develop Strategic Awareness:
Disruption may force your team to stick to short-term issues and ignore anything that doesn’t exist in the present time. Your role as a leader is to encourage people to balance their short and long term considerations.
You can do this by determining the impact of disruption on your organization’s position. Besides, observe how your competitors are doing to go through disruption. Also, access the type of talent, leadership abilities and structures or systems in your organization you need to get ahead.
The Bottom Line:
Disruption is overwhelming. But by embracing adaptability, encouraging open dialogue, keeping empathy, and developing strategic awareness can help you lead your team through uncertain times. Best of luck!!!