LEADERSHIP
Leadership Nuggets For 2021 And Beyond
By Dr . Kellen Kiambati
Leadership Jurisdiction
All leaders should clearly show their followers the strategic space within which they are operating for a given period of time . In short , they must show the strategic direction by creating and envisioning the future having carefully considered internal and external realities so as to create value for all stakeholders . They should be alive to the fact that the world has become even more complex and hence find simplicity on the other side of complexity . Inside this complexity , execution should take place by taking calculated risks and avoiding being reckless and focusing attention to prioritize engagements that deliver results . Leaders should also have the ability to convince their followers to embrace particular behaviors , identify , tool and retool certain skills and talents so as to get desired results . While this is happening they also should consider who stays and sustains their organizations after they have left , meaning they must think about succession planning and business continuity .
Leadership Identity
What sustains results in organizations is quality of leadership . The need to consider the qualities of individual leaders and how he or she engage and lead others cannot be over emphasized . Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that a leader should have distinctiveness because it communicates the maximum value they bring to the table . Failure to do so means that one will be a leader without impact and only doing transactional activities . Identity helps leaders to know and set what they want to be remembered and known for . Identify should be one that can withstand the day to day dynamics and should evolve in response to the different expectations at different times . Obviously , this calls for self-awareness and there are tools that can be employed to help leaders have full selfawareness so as to utilize their strengths and work on their weaknesses .
Leadership Value Index
When investors are choosing an organization to invest , they first seek to know who their strategic leaders are and therefore leaders must have a clear criterion that people can use to assign them value . Individual leader behavior and capabilities are two domains that help indepth analysis of the value of a leader and whether they have what it takes to drive the organizations to high performance and value for stakeholders . The traditional way of superficially looking at leaders from how they communicate well rehearsed reports during meetings has been disrupted by Covid-19 . Leaders who are ready to showcase their value index should prepare to have the interplay between personal qualities , strategic prowess , execution proficiency , interpersonal skills and organization ’ s market promises like profits , market share and expansion .
Leadership Maintenance
A leader who is on high performance this year and low performance next year is not a good leader . Leaders should have discipline to achieve sustainable results and changes that they must make in organizations . It takes discipline to maintain a track record of good leadership . Covid-19 pandemic has clearly taught us that leaders should have simplicity to thrive in a complex environment , time management so as to invest their time carefully , be accountable and taking personal responsibility for making sure they do what they say and most importantly learning from mistakes in a resilient way .
Leadership Results DNA
The attributes of an individual leader and the organizational outcome of interest that they facilitate to produce represent the DNA of leadership . All leaders should strive to come with a pragmatic formula of combining their personal attribute and results of the organization . No organization operates in a vacuum , they are all in a space that is affected by factors that they can control and others they cannot . So to have a balance , calls for constant juggling without neglecting any important factor and ensuring achievement of employee , customer and investor results . So results should be at the center or better put in the DNA of all leaders .
In conclusion , I hope the five nuggets presented will help leaders smoothly navigate 2021 and beyond .
Kellen Kiambati holds an MBA in Strategic Management from the Kenya Methodist University and a PhD in Business Administration with a focus in Strategic Management from JKUAT . She is a member of the Institute of Human Resource Management of Kenya . She can be reached via : Kellenkiambati @ gmail . com .
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