Communication Archives -

Introduction

Covid slammed into the world like a hurricane, wreaking havoc on all areas of the economy and forcing businesses to make split-second decisions owing to the lockdown’s negative consequences.

It accelerated digital transformation, automation and normalized hybrid/remote work, putting businesses at the edge of a precipice tipping into a new future that demands employees to reskill and change core skills.

Aside from that, business leaders have had to cope with this new generation of workers (GEN-Zs) constantly battling with their value-driven approach towards their careers and tendency to challenge the status quo in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The Gen-Z attitude toward work has made it difficult to maneuver and solve problems using traditional means because of the pandemic, the riskiness associated with climate crises, and natural resource depletion, which have also become a source of concern for investors.

As a result of these challenges, business leaders in charge of making decisions that will either propel or stifle their companies’ growth must equip themselves with the essential qualities required to stay afloat in the future of work in this volatile, complex, and uncertain environment.

What are the top 4 qualities of leaders in the future of work?

While there is a bucket list of qualities leaders in the future of work should possess to thrive and increase employee retention, these four qualities mentioned below are the most essential:

• Adaptability 
• Humility
• Communication 
• Nurturing skills.

Leaders who lack these qualities will find it difficult to survive the hurdles that come in the fast-paced business world, especially when dealing with Gen-Zs as the workforce, who, unlike the previous generations, are more revolutionary and rarely joke about their demands from employers.

1. Adaptability

As the pandemic continues to spread with no end in sight, business leaders must begin planning because it is nearly impossible to predict what skills will be required to thrive in the future of work, so organizations and employees must be prepared to adapt, with leaders leading the way.

Adaptability means accepting change and exploring the market with an open mind to produce new ideas and contingency plans.

A company leader’s capacity to adapt will keep them ahead of the ever-changing trends in the work environment.

A good example is the inflow of virtual classrooms and apps that gained popularity among students and professors during the covid outbreak.

Amid the COVID -19 epidemic, these apps and virtual events are a game-changing invention, and businesses who have adapted to this sort of online event meetings have survived. In contrast, other traditional firms may have failed.

To successfully navigate their organizations through change, leaders must remain nimble and adapt on the go.

Employees should be encouraged and rewarded for reskilling and adapting the key skills required to stay in business.

A real-life example of what happens when a leader is not adaptable is the Yahoo! incident. Yahoo!, a previously striving company with a market value estimated at $125Billion in 2000, experienced a fall that serves as a big lesson in the business world.

Yahoo! did not adapt to the shift in the new internet trends and preferred to stick to the conventional methods of using non-mobile-friendly websites despite employees having suggested that they move with the trend. Remember that mobile phones of the past did not have the “desktop site” feature, and the Yahoo website had issues loading on small screens, so it was challenging for users to access their services.

The downfall of Yahoo! proves that leaders should be open to adapting to consumer needs and make decisions that support the business in keeping current.

2. Humility

Another key quality for company executives who want to succeed in the future of work is humility.

Humility is thinking less about yourself and more about bringing forth the best in your colleagues. That involves shifting from a know-it-all to a learn-it-all mindset.

In a 2021 survey of employee performance in three advertising agencies in Africa, employees who were allowed to share their perspectives and be creative with solutions came up with some of the most innovative ideas that pushed agencies to new heights.

Business leaders must be willing to actively listen and learn and ask compelling questions to inspire creativity and innovation, which will allow for experimentation, resulting in new discoveries and inventions.

Know-it-all leaders focus on their expertise to generate solutions and are less open to constructive feedback or further dialogue. In contrast, humble leaders take responsibility when things go wrong, admitting their mistakes with a willingness to learn from them and recognizing better ideas from others.

This quality discloses their flaws, which creates a psychologically secure environment for employees to be themselves, express their opinions and ideas freely, and learn from their mistakes.

Humility as a personality trait leads to increased collaboration, engagement, and innovation, all of which contribute to long-term organizational success.

3. Communication

A study by Economist Intelligence Unit published in the HBR article confirms that ineffective workplace communication costs big companies approximately $64 million yearly. This enormous loss was a result of failure to finish projects, high-stress levels, low morale,  and missed performance objectives, mostly on the part of employees.

As the pandemic persists, leaders need to improve their communication skills because communication was identified as the number one shortcoming in most firms during an employee engagement survey.

The only approach to achieve a smooth transition when environmental and economic conditions are rapidly changing is to communicate properly.

Leaders must bridge the gap and hopefully recoup the loss incurred as a result of poor communication because the purpose of communication is to align workers with the business strategic goals and culture and sustain employee engagement to foster collaboration and teamwork required to flourish as a company.

It’s also important to note that the influence of successful communication keeps increasing with the younger generation (Gen Z), who value proactive communication, transparency, and a sense of belonging at work.

Especially because we now enable remote work, the importance of excellent communication cannot be overemphasised.

At the end of the day, if you want to increase employee retention rates in the long run, employees must feel included and associated with the organisation’s goal.

4. Nurturing

In the future, unlimited business growth will be mostly based on one main trait: NURTURING.

Leaders who see workers as the company’s growth potential agree that treating employees with respect and empathy is critical to realizing and developing their full potential.

The journey to developing excellent workers begins with taking the time to understand their professional goals and explore how they might be linked with the strategic goals of the company to produce a win-win situation for both employees and the company.

Leaders can help workers achieve their professional goals by offering them more responsibility and job rotations and allowing them the freedom to innovate, take chances, and disrupt the status quo while still keeping them accountable.

Nurturing also entails pushing people to go beyond their present capabilities to demonstrate what they are capable of, supporting and mentoring them along the way while allowing them to fail and learn valuable lessons, and praising them when they succeed.

When you help workers grow and develop into leaders, you are increasing employee engagement and retention while also actively planning for your company’s future.

CONCLUSION

Leaders who can adapt, are humble enough to admit their mistakes, listen to suggestions from subordinates, communicate effectively instead of barking orders, and nurture their employees to their full potential are more likely to survive in the future of work than leaders who do not possess these qualities.

A good question to ask yourself as a business leader who intends to succeed in the future of work is, ‘How am I integrating these four essential qualities into how I carry and present myself to my team, and how can I improve on the areas that need improvement?’

Leaders who can adapt, are humble enough to admit their mistakes, listen to suggestions from subordinates, communicate effectively instead of barking orders, and nurture their employees to their full potential are more likely to survive in the future of work than leaders who do not possess these qualities.

A good question to ask yourself as a business leader who intends to succeed in the future of work is, ‘How am I integrating these four essential qualities into how I carry and present myself to my team, and how can I improve on the areas that need improvement?’

You’re a trained coach, so why is your coaching impact a hit or a miss?

Coaching can be an extremely rewarding experience. Having the ability and expertise to help somebody reach their goal or get over a hurdle is not something that just anyone can do. It requires patience, knowledge, and years of training.

However, even the coaches with years of training may find themselves in a series of hits or misses. Sometimes, you may feel like you did amazing with your client and then have a session the next day that makes you feel like an imposter.

Sounds familiar?

Don’t worry, we’re here to get to know the reasons – and solutions – behind it.

The Reasons Behind The Misses

Firstly, step back and reflect on what you’re experiencing. You may be facing a case of self-doubt, and are not objectively acknowledging how you did. Are there hidden expectations you had of yourself you didn’t fulfil? Is there a mismatch between where the client landed vs what you wanted to see from the client?

Here, I am suggesting two instances which you can consider to redefine or refine your measures of success Read on below.

You judge your success by how you feel you did.

• While feeling accomplished is a great feeling, it’s not a great measure of success. The same way that feeling like you failed doesn’t necessarily mean that you did. Coaching is a deeply personal profession but it’s best if you learn to detach your personal feelings from the outcome.
• Remember that it’s all about your client. Projecting yourself and your feelings on their journey does the coaching partnership a great disservice. Every client is different. They have their own stories, needs, and personalities that greatly affect their journey to whatever goal they set. Every client should be treated with objectivity from start to end of each session. Seperate yourself from the client’s journey and process.

You might not have set clear coaching objectives.

• Clear objectives help you and the client scope out the session’s purpose.
• What some coaches tend to do is to go over sessions like a tightly created module. Human progress isn’t linear and coaching shouldn’t be standardized – again, every client is different. To make it your goal to “cover” everything, every session, is often not helpful to your client especially if they don’t get what they need from it. Coaching shouldn’t be too focused on getting to the “solution”, not when it sacrifices deeper discoveries and often, more important, discoveries for your client.
• Remember, clients often don’t know what they want exactly, thus not really knowing how to measure the success of each of their coaching sessions. As their coach, it’s your job to provide guidance without leading them to the results that YOU secretly wish for.. It is their journey and you are their guide. Make sure that each session is defined by what’s important to them and allow a safe space for bouncing off their ideas that will slowly but surely lead to a clearer picture.

Now that you know what to look out for when determining the success or failure of a session, you might be wondering how to solve them.

We have a three-step solution you can follow and revisit when you need to.

The Three-Step Solution

Invest time in thoroughly defining with the client what would be meaningful for them to experience from the session, and invest time in yourself as a coach following these three steps.

1. Focus on your client’s experience.Lift your eyes from your checklist and notes. focus beyond your client’s responses and pay closer attention to their experience. Your job as their coach is to present what could make a difference for them and to provide clarity to their jumbled thoughts.Best way to do this is to invest time in exploring what would be meaningful for them from this session – and why? Find out, where they specifically require your support, and what is the best form this support could take? This co-creation process helps you separate your personal wishes from what the client objectively needs from you, and the process to get them there. As a coach, learn to meet them where they are – not where you want them to be.

   At the end, ask how they feel after the session. Do they feel more confident about the next course of action? Do they feel lighter now that they have more clarity in their thoughts? What is the difference between when they first came in, and where they are now? What allowed that change?

2. Give them time and space.It’s tempting to get immediate feedback after a session, but some things might take a while to sink in. Again, clients often don’t know what they want or need. As their coach, as much as it is your job to guide them, it is also your job to trust them and give them a safe space to unpack their thoughts in order to slowly reveal what they need.The best practice here is to co-create check-in points that would make sense for the client. Some clients prefer shorter feedback cycles, whilst some respect the process and prefer to flow with what comes up. Be clear what to expect, so that you don’t take ‘no feedback as bad feedback’; likewise if as a Coach, you need conclusive feedback, let them know and design that process with them.
3. Reflect upon yourself.Now, as for you, the coach, you have your own innework to do. Similar to observing your client’s experience post-session, take time to absorb your own as well. Separate what was satisfying and effective for your client from what YOU ideally wish or intend to achieve as a coach. Notice if there’s a gap between the two and give yourself space to be kind to yourself before determining your next steps.Ask yourself the following questions through a objective point of view:

   – Were you fully satisfied with how you conducted the session?
   – How do you feel about your performance?
   – Did you feel unfulfilled or lacking in any way? Where is that coming from?

It’s best practice to engage a coach supervisor or mentor with whom you can discuss these with and process beyond any self-limiting structures, to support you in your coach development.

Conclusion