We are living in a day and age where there’s a ‘new normal’ for business as well as how we conduct our everyday lives. And, we haven’t had much chance to adapt to this change. Owing to the current COVID-19 health pandemic, which has brought the global business community to its knees, quarantine measures were put in place extremely quickly so forcing companies to abandon their physical premises and work remotely.
Although the notion of working from home has been the exception rather than the norm for corporate South Africa, now organisations are being forced to allow their employees (who are able to perform their jobs from home) the ability to perform their roles and responsibilities without the watchful eye of their managers. There is no choice in the matter: it’s either this or the company faces extinction.
The new type of leadership in the Forced Industrial Revolution
In a previous article, we look at what traits are necessary for a successful leader, in the Forced Industrial Revolution, to have. We saw that the individual leader needs to be more people-centric as opposed to being focused on numbers and how much each individual staff member could produce.
Leaders need to appreciate the individual themselves, what they’re feeling and their attitudes towards various aspects of their work. Only once the employees and leaders are on the same page can the issue of productivity be looked at.
In other words, in the Forced Industrial Revolution leaders will need to be more focused on corporate culture than ever before.
The new imperatives of the leadership body
In order to steer their companies towards success in the Forced Industrial Revolution, the body of leadership of a company needs to be forward-thinking. They need to be constantly monitoring trends, both globally and in their industry, and seeing how they need to adapt their companies to these.
As technology in the Forced Industrial Revolution is moving at lightning speed, changes are happening equally as quickly. This means that leaders will have to act quickly in order to make sure that their organisations are ready to tackle this changing environment.
Leadership in the Forced Industrial Revolution must not be afraid of making mistakes as this is how they learn. There is no handbook on how to successfully navigate this ever-changing business landscape so the only way to get this right is by trial and error. Making a mistake does not equate to failure. It’s just an indication of how not to do something the next time.
Leadership needs to be humble. They need to be open enough to listen to the ideas of others in their organisation – even if it’s the lady who makes tea. Great ideas come in all shapes and sizes and it takes a phenomenal leader to recognise this.
On the subject of the changed imperatives of leadership, Jasen and Jono spoke to Julie Robinson: Principal Consultant and Head of People Advisory at Freethinking Business Consultants about what leadership will need to take into account post COVID-19 regarding their employees.
Watch the conversation here:
Being a leader in the Forced Industrial Revolution is scary. It’s uncharted territory and is subject to a lot of scrutiny by many. All that’s really necessary is for leaders to be courageous enough, and convinced in their own convictions, to be able to take their vision forward.
If you’re a leader who needs to successfully navigate the Forced Industrial Revolution, we – at Syscor – have a number of technological solutions to assist. For more information, please follow this link.