5 minute read
Can Kiwi leaders learn from Brexit?
CEO at Ask Your Team, Chris O’Reilly asks whether we are living with too much command and control in our lives and how we can get out of it.
Are you sick and tired of hearing about Brexit? I am, even though we live thousands of kilometres away and the impact on our lives here in New Zealand seems tangential at most.
But it has me thinking. Not about Brexit, specifically, but about some of the forces that got Britain to this point. We’re living in an age where people everywhere, and in every part of their lives, want autonomy. That trend has manifested itself in many Brits wanting out of the European Union, and I’m convinced there are parallels for New Zealand leaders and workplaces. I think it’s time for Kiwi leaders to move on from leadership by command and control and embrace leadership by involvement. In other words, Kiwi leaders need to learn to give up control and let the people who work for them make more decisions.
I think it’s time for Kiwi leaders to move on from leadership by command and control and embrace leadership by involvement. In other words, Kiwi leaders need to learn to give up control and let the people who work for them make more decisions.
Tens of thousands of Kiwis across hundreds of workplaces have now used AskYourTeam, giving us 6.5 million data points and providing remarkable insights into the minds of New Zealand workers, in particular, how they think their bosses are performing.
On the whole, the report card for New Zealand leaders is positive, but there are several areas where they could do better. A look at what Kiwi employees say their leaders do well and where they fall short sends a simple but compelling message – our leadership culture is stuck in a 20th century command and control mindset. To get the best out of our 21st century workforce, it needs to catch up.
Positives: getting buy-in to the big picture
Kiwi workers have confidence in their leaders’ strategic ability. On the whole, they’re confident their leaders are taking their organisations in the right direction. They’re also happy with the way bosses are articulating the big picture vision to them, and they understand how their work contributes to that big picture.
Could do better: employee involvement in running the business
On the flip side, the number one issue that Ask Your Team has found in the New Zealand data held is the sense that workers lack sufficient autonomy to make a meaningful contribution to running the business. Our respondents said that they don’t feel their leaders consult them before making changes, and don’t seek input on how to improve the business.
At the risk of generalising, our typical workplace is still led by an inspirational individual (usually male), who sweeps into the workplace, explains the organisation’s strategy, and then outlines a detailed playbook of what each individual is going to do to make that vision a reality. For the past 100 years, that standard procedure was a sound way to operate. But not anymore.
The rise of autonomy
Just think about it. Many of the significant issues we’re currently grappling with in New Zealand, from the decriminalisation of recreational cannabis to the ‘right to die’, are fundamentally about individuals seeking greater autonomy over their lives. We see it when we switch on the news at night – a lot of the conflicts playing out globally, from Brexit to Catalonia and Hong Kong, fundamental calls for greater autonomy and a reaction against command and control leadership.
You may think it’s a stretch to connect these events with leadership in the workplace, but there are real lessons here, whether you’re leading an entire nation or a team of three. At work, people increasingly expect to be asked how to improve performance, not told how to do it. They expect to see tangible evidence that their perspective has been heard. They want the power to change their workplace. They expect to be involved. They expect more autonomy.
It’s happening where you least expect it. Five years ago, everyone thought Silicon Valley campuses were the most well-functioning, enlightened workplaces on the planet. Now, at companies like Google, we’re seeing a cascade of employee activism against top-down decisions on executive pay, contracts with the US military, cooperation with Chinese censorship and more. And I suspect this is only the beginning.
The lesson for leaders
What this means for leaders is that today’s workers expect the opposite of old-school command and control leadership styles. The great leaders of this era lead by involvement. They measure their success as a leader, not by how people follow them, quite the opposite. Success for an involvement leader is the degree to which they can give the people they lead the skills and autonomy to make independent decisions in their jobs each day, independent of that leader’s command or oversight.
Linda Hill from Harvard Business School puts it this way, “The job of leaders today is to build the stage, not necessarily to perform on it themselves”. The lesson to New Zealand bosses is simple. Get uncomfortable. Let go of control. It’s certainly not easy, especially when some workers are conditioned to ask for validation and approval for the smallest of tasks.
For the HR professionals among us, the challenge is to get the senior leaders we work with to realise that the moment they embrace their weaknesses, they actually begin to emphasise their strengths. The end goal is a shift from leadership by control to leadership by involvement.
At a time when calls for greater autonomy are dominating the headlines at home and abroad, it’s a lesson that leaders cannot afford to ignore.
Chris O'Reilly is the CEO and Co-founder of AskYourTeam, a disruptive technology company, revolutionising the organisational and leadership performance space. E: chris.oreilly@askyourteam.com
