Weekly Business Insights from Top Ten Business Magazines | Week 296 | Leading & Managing | 2

Extractive summaries of and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Week 296 | May 12 – 18, 2023.

The Leadership Odyssey

By Herminia Ibarra et al.,  | Harvard Business Review Magazine | From the Magazine (May–June 2023)

Listen to the Extractive Summary of the Article

Executives have always been—and always will be—expected to produce results. But today they’re expected to produce them in a fundamentally different way. Gone are the days of the heroic individual leading from the front. Instead, in most corporations decision-making has become decentralized, and leaders are now supposed to empower and enable their people. 

How can leaders who fall short on soft skills develop a more enabling style?  There’s no one moment when everything snaps into place. They involve wandering and uncertainty, inner battles, and protracted periods of personal struggle. So it is with broadening your repertoire of people skills. It’s not a single event but an involved process that unfolds over time, often uncomfortably, with many twists and turns. That said, there are predictable stages and challenges along the way.

1. The Departure.  A leader recognizes the need for a change and deliberately starts to leave behind familiar ways of working.  Leaders alter their habitual—and successful—ways of doing things only when they become aware of a gap between where they are and where they want to be. The catalyst might be a particular event or feedback from colleagues or coaches. But usually people embark on a concerted effort to change only after multiple experiences and conversations make them realize that their behavior is impeding outcomes they care about.  Many leaders underestimate the extent of change required and need the help and perspective of a trusted partner—an adviser, a mentor, or a coach. Not all of them reach the departure stage. And the ones who do embark on a genuine voyage of discovery will need humility, self-awareness, patience, and resilience to complete it.
2. The Voyage.  A time of transition during which the leader encounters obstacles and trials that teach important lessons and open the path to transformation.  Those who succeed engage in three key practices: creating a new context for learning, enlisting helpers, and persisting through (and learning from) setbacks.
3. The Return.  Leaders arrive at a new understanding of who they are and what kind of leader they want to be and start to transfer what they’ve learned to others.  The moment of return arrives when, after the trials and tribulations of the voyage, leaders at last internalize a more empowering leadership style, see it as a genuine reflection of their new selves, and can employ it across the board in their professional lives. Their learning is far from finished at this point, but it has become self-sustaining.

How to start your own journey?  A few tips to help you get on your way:  know what you’re in for, map out your learning agenda, create space for learning, and don’t go it alone.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. How can leaders who fall short on soft skills develop a more enabling style?  
2. Three stages: departure – the leader recognizes the need for a change and deliberately starts to leave behind familiar ways of working. Voyage, a time of transition during which the leader encounters obstacles and trials that teach important lessons and open the path to transformation. Finally, there’s the return, during which leaders arrive at a new understanding of who they are and what kind of leader they want to be and start to transfer what they’ve learned to others.
3. How to start your own journey?  A few tips to help you get on your way:  know what you’re in for, map out your learning agenda, create space for learning, and don’t go it alone.

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Topics:  Leadership, Succession, Emotional Intelligence