Omnipresent Leadership

Countless books have been written, thousands of courses taught, and there are hundreds of conferences that expound the values of leadership and how you too can become the next great leader.  Most of these training aids and courses raise a lot of good points worth following.  However, they typically focus only on how to be a leader while you’re in the room.  Very few coach you on how you can continue to be a great leader when you’re nowhere to be seen.

Naturally, it’s important to keep your employees’ perspectives in mind when you have them as an audience.  Delivering a speech full of leadership jargon isn’t going to send productivity through the roof.  You must speak to your employees as a group in a language that they understand.  Once you’ve mastered this, you’ll still be leading after your employees have filed out the door.  But, how do you lead a diverse group of personalities?  How do you lead those who you have little contact with except by email or telephone?

Unfortunately, leadership techniques that have worked in the past may not work in the future.  Your employees are a diverse group of personalities and abilities.  You’ll truly begin making an impact once you’ve recognized all of your employee groups and tailored your messages and approach for each them.  For example, the younger members of your workforce may see the exercise of piling into a stuffy room for a meeting as a chore, when you could use an online meeting solution.  On the other hand, your older employees may prefer the personal touch of an in-person meeting, and forcing an online solution could be seen as a brute force shift in approach.

Many leadership possibilities raise the question of, “How can I know that?”  The larger your company, the harder it is to take the pulse of each and every employee.  And if your company has been successful enough to have employees scattered across the globe, it can be hard enough to keep tabs on their productivity, let alone know how they feel.  Companies large and small are turning to surveys for the insight they need to continue to grow and succeed.

At NBRI, we recommend first setting a baseline using employee engagement surveys.  The results will tell you what your employees need from you as a leader, giving you the information you need to adapt and become the best leader you can be for everyone in your company.  Then, we recommend resurveying periodically to gauge the impact of the improvement initiatives you initiate as a result of your employee engagement scores.  You’ll be able to bring out the best from your people once you have real data at your fingertips.  Anyone can read a book, but not everyone takes action. Contact us today to start becoming an omnipresent leader.