In the 2022 business climate, organizations are facing a more complex and competitive environment than ever before. As a result, the competencies of the leader who thrives in the modern day business world are changing.
Here, we’ll consider new leadership trends that will help inform your training initiatives. By considering these management trends, your programs will better prepare current and future leaders for success in 2023 and beyond.
1. Flattening organizational structures.
The days of the “hero” leader, or “the smartest person in the room” who “must know everything” and micromanage their direct reports is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Organizations are moving away from traditional corporate hierarchies and toward flatter structures. As a result, they will need leaders who can collaborate alongside their team members and offer real-time support.
“Flatter” organizations tend to benefit from improved communication between employees, increased morale, less bureaucracy and the ability to make decisions and changes faster. Typically, employees’ responsibility levels tend to be much higher in flatter organizations, thus improving job satisfaction and reducing the need for ascending levels of management. As we move toward 2023, we will begin to see a shift in the hierarchy structure of many companies, particularly those in creative industries.
2. An increasing need for ongoing development.
To keep pace with digital transformation, leaders can no longer sit back and say “I know everything I need to know,” as what they know today will soon outdated. In today’s rapidly shifting business environment, there’s a greater need for ongoing development for both leaders and their teams.
When comparing today’s job culture to that of even a few years ago, there is less loyalty amongst employees to their employers, meaning that employers need to do everything they can to keep the employees in the company as long as possible to improve staff turnover. To retain today’s workforce, employee empowerment is key. By empowering employees to learn and grow in their roles, organizations have a better chance at retaining them long-term.
3. Approaching the “talent cliff.”
Businesses must prepare as the largest workforce in history moves into retirement. Mentoring, coaching and job shadowing are examples of how organizations can manage the transition as a new generation of leaders takes hold.
Many companies teetering on the edge of the talent cliff take the approach of creating apprenticeship programs, which allows young talent in the industry to gain hands-on experience. Apprenticeship programs allow companies to build their workforce in a way that inexpensively gives back to the community, but also positively impacts the business.
4. Striving for gender balance.
Companies with a strong representation of women in leadership have been proven to achieve better business results. A successful leadership development program thus needs to tap into the expertise of its female managers.
Achieving gender equality is important for workplaces not only because it’s fair and simply the right thing to do, but because it is also directly linked to a company’s overall economic performance and therefore growth.
In addition to improved performance, gender equality benefits organizations through:
- Enhanced ability of companies to attract talent and retain employees.
- Enhanced organizational reputation.
5. Focus on the development of both hard and soft skills.
Today’s leaders need to know how to lead diverse teams. This means leading people across varying levels of skills and expertise. To do so, leaders need both soft and hard skills. Skills like strategic thinking, business acumen and customer centricity as well as coaching, mentoring, communication and agility are all vital for the modern leader. Other important leadership skills include emotional intelligence (EQ), creativity and time management.
In addition to developing their own skills, leaders need to help develop their team members’ skills, too. Training employees on both hard and soft skills can increase their leadership potential, job satisfaction and overall performance. Also, as employees have much higher responsibilities in flatter organizations, the need for business acumen is especially important.
6. The power of experiential learning and social, cohort-based learning.
As we move into an increasingly digital future, leadership training and learning journeys for managers will need to evolve to use a wide variety of modalities. By making leadership development multimodal, it’s more likely to be engaging and, therefore, effective.
Using experiential and immersive learning technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) also allows leaders to practice key skills in a risk-free environment. Gamification is another way to create engaging content that resonates with learners. Or, consider having leaders undergo training as part of a cohort to make the experience more social and impactful.
By considering the six trends outlined above, you will be positioned to design and deliver effective programs that will equip your leaders with the skills they need to thrive now and in the future.
