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04 Feature Story
Ahead of the times Why leadership must tap into the zeitgeist
It ’ s the ability to understand and interpret the zeitgeist that separates great leaders from the rest .
In today ’ s fast-moving landscape , it is critical for the leaders in an organisation to be in touch with the zeitgeist , or the spirit of the times .
Strategies that worked well in the ‘ greed is good ’ 1980s are unlikely to succeed as we approach a high tech , high touch 2020 , where consumer engagement is constant , compliance expectations lofty , shareholders are demanding - and potential recruits scrutinise companies around their corporate social responsibility .
For leaders , this environment is complicated by the unique historical condition of human health . With people living and working longer than ever before , leaders are tasked with expanding their worldview to cover multiple generations working side by side . Bridging the ‘ generation gap ’ with analytical insight and managerial flexibility is a key part of being a zeitgeist leader today .
Kronos CEO Aron Ain who recently scored one of the highest CEO approval ratings from the world ’ s largest employer-rating site , Glassdoor says that being an effective leader is about treating your employees with dignity and respect .
“ I hear about challenges that happen every single day , around managing the workforce ,” he says .
He says that over the last decade , Kronos has realised that employee engagement was a strategic imperative .
“ Our success is due to our active focus in creating an environment where our employees are engaged , happy and satisfied , where they feel that their jobs are fulfilling and where they feel like they have a future ,” he says .
Research of “ historical zeitgeist ” shows leadership styles vary
Tolstoy , the 19th century author of War and Peace , argued that communities of people and events of the time determine the course of history . His novel showed the great leader Napoleon to be so out of touch with the majority of people that he was unable to navigate and master the changing times .
It ’ s a classic story of a leadership that has become detached from the zeitgeist ; and researchers have since found quantifiable links between the two .
Nitin Nohria , Dean of the Harvard Business School , and Harvard senior lecturer in organisational behaviour , Anthony Mayo , studied 1,000 “ great ” twentieth-century US business leaders and found that the most successful leadership styles varied with each decade .
Their research , published in Harvard Business Review , found that those business executives who stood out for decent treatment of workers were also the most influential .
The two cite Henry Ford ’ s decision to reduce work hours and double wages in 1914 . “ Well before his time , Ford reasoned that a highly motivated workforce would be more productive and that turnover would be drastically reduced ,” they explained .
Nohria and Mayo recommend that organisations seeking to fill a key leadership position avoid the “ celebrity CEO ” in favour of the candidate whose strengths align with the direction the company needs to go .
“ Executives at the beginning of the new millennium face the potential for increased regulation , reticent consumers , constant global uncertainty , and vast demographic changes ,” they warned .
“ Celebrity and hype have been replaced with an emphasis on competence and results . Execution has dethroned vision . And consumer scepticism has overshadowed awe and unfiltered acceptance .”
Leadership changes to fit new business structures like flat teams
Dr Daejeong Choi heads up research into workplace leadership for the future at the University of Melbourne ’ s Centre for Workplace Leadership .
He says that one of the stronger trends in leadership worldwide is a transition from a hierarchical workplace towards a flatter , team-based structure .
“ Good leaders spend most of their time building relationships with their followers ; it ’ s something that takes a lot of time ,” Choi says .
“ Leaders are also now expected to inspire and connect with the broader community , for corporate social responsibility or to enable ethical missions or purpose , and they must also take their employees ’ wellbeing and happiness into account ,” he says .
He says that HR support becomes crucial as leaders are loaded up with extra expectations .
“ That becomes a problem in a flatter team , when the leader is expected to also do their own work as well as allocating work to others , managing their performance , making decisions , building mentoring relationships .”
Choi says that many organisations resolve this by using technology and outsourcing companies to take much of the routine administration load from team leaders .
Flexibility is key
Natalie Goldman is the CEO of talent matching platform FlexCareers . She joined the fast moving start-up a year ago following more than twenty years in senior HR roles at organisations including Peoplebank and AAPT .
“ Being in touch with the marketplace , the work environment and society as a whole is a critical part of transformational leadership ,” Goldman says .
“ FlexCareers touches a very raw nerve in our society around addressing the need for flexible work arrangements . The impact this has on the way we work and our lives outside of work , is massive ,” she says .
Goldman says that , while many organisations traditionally focused on working mothers as their core audience , there ’ s since been a huge shift .
“ The terminology now is all around working parents - not just working mums ,” she says . “ We ’ re talking a lot about how we can encourage dads to be flexible .”
The next stage , she says , is making workplace flexibility ubiquitous .
“ Flexible work should be for everyone . It should be reason-agnostic , there should be no determination around gender or parenthood or other reason as to why or why not to have flexibility . “
She sees technology competence as another core leadership skill . “ We are a technology company , so I need to stay on top of what our customers need and how our clients and the community interact .”
At Kronos , flexibility is a core value , says CEO Aron Ain . Some forty percent of Kronos employees work from home – and employees can take as many holidays as they want .
Ain says that it ’ s all about trust , and creating a positive environment for employees .
“ When you create an environment where people are engaged , they will produce better products , they will deliver better services ,” he says .
Rising nationalism
Dr Deajeong Choi says that rising nationalism can pose a problem in the workplace , where it may impact the phenomenon of ‘ leader prototypicality .’
“ Research has found that most employees will say that in a team situation , they want their leader to be ‘ one of us ,’ and by this they mean a leader who has similar values and goals and lifestyles to the team members ,” he says .
Teams fail when they don ’ t trust each other , he adds .
“ Where a team sees their leader as being too different , they start casting doubt on that person ’ s decisions and actions ; but if we think leaders are ‘ one of us ,’ we give them the benefit of the doubt , we are not so negatively biased .”
A longer-term effect of rising nationalism is its potential for limiting diversity and reducing acceptance in society as a whole , and that ’ s reflected in workplaces , Choi says .
“ In industries like IT , or any global company which is recruiting IT workers , where there ’ s a high number of skilled people from immigrant backgrounds , often Asian backgrounds , a workplace that is reflecting a local nationalism trend is not going to be able to attract the best talent to compete on the world stage .”
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Workforce Life | ISSUE 04