There’s
a slow acknowledgment of confusion in long tenured employees, due to
intermittent denials of change and a poverty of clarity regarding the content
of ongoing change. So, the significance of self-awareness
becomes paramount again. Moving from
mind blindness to mindsight is crucial content of transitions in leadership.
Strategic
Leadership Talent is the pool from which future stewards of organization are
nested in proximate, preparatory access for the top management to draw from.
Let us assume that the top management cadres are the current stewards of resilient
organizations.
Stewardship is the willingness to be accountable for the
well-being of the larger organization by operating in service, rather than in
control of, or dysfunctional dependence on, those around us. Stated differently, stewardship is accountability without control or compliance pressures
from external sources. It is an
inside-out state of being, and not an outside-in dynamic. This is not an
overnight transformation or a month or year of mindful sabbatical.
Organizations require leaders to
be both awesome at their work, and likeable too to acquire credible mindshare,
regardless of whether leaders assume stewardship accountability or not. In
order that the growth towards corporate stewardship is seen worthy of attention in leadership transitions, it is useful to see the significance of stewardship
markers too, as tabled below.
Stewardship Marker
|
Leadership
Significance
|
Ø Choosing
partnership over parenting –
|
Information is increasingly accessible in an
internet world, and the youngest are at greatest advantage and naturally
poised in entitlement to its benefits. It is a reputational differentiator
for leaders to partner with those with complementary knowledge, irrespective
of age or experience.
|
Ø People
at the margin acting as owners –
|
This is the contemporary avatar of initiative and
drive. It makes leaders more employable than also rans. Announcing one’s
conception of problems to be picked in strategic mould from near boundary
positions is the first gulp of stewardship challenges.
|
Ø Minimum
social distance between levels –
|
New generations of employees do not like to suffer
for their growth. They flock toward the more inclusive leaders, or the young
at heart at work.
|
Ø Pay
systems based on equity, transparency and common good –
|
With big-data analytics and corporate disclosures,
leaders who cannot establish pay equity, will lose talent to competition
faster. This dimension is a collective accountability of multiple stewards.
|
Ø A
purpose larger than the bottom line –
|
Increasing awareness of ecological impact and social
compact makes socially responsible leadership an obligation, not a choice. It
is however individual choice that aligns with one’s beliefs, values and
capabilities that one’s own Purpose fuels.
|
Ø Support
groups that educate rather than control –
|
The tipping point of leadership is differentiating
influence. Teaching or facilitating learning is a huge inimitable win that
stewards master over time.
|
Ø Learning
chosen rather than cascaded –
|
Legacies leaders leave behind are a consequence of
leadership focus. Among structures business leaders create is the content of
learning and its levels of application, despite standing on the shoulders of
other giant leaders.
|
Ø Care
for community over individualism –
|
This is the emerging circle of concern that
influence seeks to map. The more it coincides, the more the community
benefits from stewardship.
|
Ø Investing
in relationships –
|
Investing oneself in others is remarkably more about
impactful influence. It is in less judgmental connect with others, that
inspiring higher-self outcomes from others are born.
|
Ø Every
gathering an example of the above –
|
A self-aware steward knows how compassion empathy in
care for community differs from relational empathy in invested relationships.
Cognitive empathy or mere understanding of a current topic barely shifts the
influence needle.
|
