In my previous post 'innoveren door te leren' I have already taken a stand against thinking that the world is makeable. And because the world is not makeable, we will also have to deal with our leadership.
The world can not be made
Demand and control is over. Leaders need to reduce control. Employees need status and autonomy to grow and take responsibility themselves. Due to the status, the employee will feel safe, in a safe environment. Autonomy gives the feeling of having choices. This reduces stress to a very high extent. The most important role of a leader is thus to minimize the hazards and risks to his employees and to optimize the sense of reward. Think about it: Anxiety is many times stronger than motivation!
What does this mean for the current leaders?
They must realize that the working environment today is primarily a social environment and not a contract where work is being done in exchange for a payroll. Commitment, involvement between the various layers in the organization is directly influenced by the social context of the work environment.
So what can we do as a leader in practice?
It all starts with the creation of shared goals. Ensure connections between people and focus on the growth people make. Be transparent and communicate too much rather than too little. Emphasize with the employees that they are appreciated and part of the team. Make sure that they always have choices and that your expectations are very clear.
From the neuroscience, we get more and more information about how our brain works. With this knowledge, we can build more and more certainty about how our employees will respond to our leadership and how we can ensure that they will embrace and even carry change.
By working together towards a clearly formulated goal, we can remove uncertainty and threat from our people. We can help our people to gain insight into the social aspect of the group. Continuous focus on attention to (customer) solutions and (customer-oriented) behavior ensures peace between employees' ears and self-awareness of what is expected.
Effective leaders are, therefore, actually relationship builders and provide a social context for employees. They are builders of trust!
Telling our people what to do and how they should do it, is definitely over. We will have to learn to let go of the ropes to grow the responsibility and trust of our employees. Only then can we respond quickly and firmly to the rapidly changing world around us.
