We believe the discipline of leadership has fallen behind today’s radically changing playing field. For some time.
We’ve spent the past 18 months living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We’ve worked with clients in countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, India, and Malaysia.
We’ve been testing what we call “the new rules of leadership” with our clients. These are leadership best practices that today’s exceptional leaders are using that pack a tremendous punch in today’s age of disruption.
You’ll know many of these rules. But it is always good to create a codified list to examine, evaluate and build upon.
Here are eight leadership best practices (rules) for your consideration
Rule 1: Inspire hearts and spirits
Today’s exceptional leaders recognize that an organisation’s impossible will happen to the degree that hearts and spirits are inspired.
The key is giving employees a powerful personal why and reason to set aside self for a larger, noble purpose.
Employee engagement is old school. It focuses primarily on heads, hands, and work effort. After 25 years of investment in employee engagement training, recent data suggests highly engaged employees continues to hover at 25%.
The new science is compassionately inspiring the whole person. When this happens, employees happily free up discretionary effort and go above and beyond their job description.
Hearts and spirits are volunteered and cannot be bought. They must be inspired. Showing compassion and genuine humanity to an increasingly isolated and lonely workforce is a start.
What no longer works: Emphasising employee engagement as THE key metric around employee well-being and productivity.
Rule 2: Embrace simplicity
Today’s exceptional leaders emphasise simplicity. In everything.
Like gardeners, they constantly prune, thin, and jettison clutter and distraction. They religiously reduce friction in processes and interactions. They also reduce mental friction through simple messaging, clear expectations, and laser-focus on the must-wins.
Exceptional leaders are masters at saying no and recognize that less is more in this world of complexity. Simplicity allows their team members to keep the main thing the main thing.
Think Steve Jobs, the ultimate minimalist. Saying “no” was his specialty.
What no longer works: Emphasising and tolerating complexity and bureaucracy as a heroic badge of honour and symbol of how things have always been done at a historic institution.
Rule 3: Be radically inclusive
Today’s exceptional leaders believe everyone brings value to the team and organisation. No matter the level or discipline.
The era of the all-knowing, celebrity CEO is over. Collective intelligence is in. Exceptional leaders seek new and diverse ideas from all parts of the organisation.
They create a strong sense of belonging, inclusion, and safety with employees and stakeholders. They lead with empathy, curiosity, and authenticity. And, they are the first to walk the talk.
What no longer works: Relying upon a celebrity leader, or a small brain trust, to possess all the answers and be the sole creators of strategy, initiatives, and future plans.
Rule 4: Hyper-innovate everywhere
Today’s exceptional leaders recognize that innovation must be rapid and game-changing.
More importantly, they realise that hyper-innovation should not just be constrained to products. Processes should be hyper-innovated as well.
Every function and division in the organisation should be challenged to look for significantly better ways of doing things. This includes enabling and support functions, such as training and development.
Simply keeping up with industry innovation is no longer a viable strategy. It is leap-frogging competition, solving unsolvable problems (by mastering first principle thinking), and resetting the bar for what’s possible.
What no longer works: Emphasising innovation (and investment) solely in products, services, and IT.
Rule 5: Think non-linear
Today’s exceptional leaders recognize that today’s business environment is too fast and unpredictable for sequential responses and linear pivots when disruption appears.
The reality of today is that it is a 24/7 full-sprint environment. Everything is time compressed.
When making major pivots, all key disciplines must be in the cockpit (strategy, operations, HR, finance, IT). Pivots must be executed in parallel as much as possible.
The agility equation is more biological than mechanical. Speed is dramatically increased when non-linear thinking and action is embraced.
What no longer works: Responding slowly, sequentially, and in silos when pivoting or transforming.
Rule 6: Be the first disrupter
Today’s exceptional leaders welcome change and boldly disrupt the norm. They are first movers and always error on disrupting others before being disrupted.
You might find them in a conference room asking: how would we put ourselves out of business if we were the other guys? In these discussions, everything is on the table. Even when they are #1 in the marketplace.
These leaders have an uncanny knack for seeing around corners and noticing subtle sea changes.
They embrace accelerating technologies to help future-proof their organisation and intertwine them immaculately within processes and culture.
What no longer works: Playing it safe, reacting to change, and being the victim.
Rule 7: Collaborate with ecosystems
Today’s exceptional leaders lead ecosystems versus manage industries.
They surf the edges of their ecosystems to find new talent and capabilities. They compete on the edge. They often search beyond their current ecosystem to adjacent ecosystems also.
They recognize that asset availability is more important than asset ownership. They rapidly acquire new capabilities from the external ecosystem when fast pivots are needed.
They gravitate to the centre of their ecosystem and become the central facilitator of value in a plug and play world. Platforms are the business model of choice.
What no longer works: Winning by focusing on industry dominance and seeing your industry peers as your main competitors.
Rule 8: Aspire 10x
Today’s exceptional leaders think big and seek breathtaking moonshots. The trajectory and velocity of their thinking is exhilarating.
This moonshot thinking pushes others to act, think, and behave differently. This leads to breakthroughs previously believed to be unachievable, and inspired hearts and spirits, including those ecosystem partners.
Exceptional leaders surround themselves with others possessing growth mindsets. These high-altitude climbers possess exceptional combinations of IQ and EQ.
What no longer works: Thinking incremental. Playing small and leaving potential on the table. Visioning is a me-too exercise.
Upgrading Leadership Mindsets
Exceptional leadership is the great force-multiplier of everything good. Bad leadership deflates. Good leadership accelerates.
It will take new leadership mindsets to activate these leadership rules and successfully compete in the future.
At Thinkers50 we are hard at work on an exciting new initiative. We call it Leaders50. This new listing of 50 inspiring leaders drawn from around the world will be published in November.
Leaders50 aims to ignite a global conversation about what twenty-first century leadership can and should be. It will celebrate and enable better understanding of the inspiring leadership practices and philosophies of leaders who are making a positive impact.
Leaders50 will be created by the Thinkers50 Community. At the heart of this process is a simple question: Which current leaders do you find inspiring?
Find out more about the Leaders50 at thinkers50.com/leaders50.
Thinkers50 Limited
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Thinkers50 Limited
The Studio
Highfield Lane
Wargrave RG10 8PZ
United Kingdom
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