A few weeks ago, I wrote about the first six practical steps to develop your meaningful leadership skills. In this blog, I will cover the remaining six; but first a reminder of what a Meaningful Leader is.

4Seeds has coined the term, which combines transformational, authentic and servant leadership into a new style call Meaningful Leadership. All of the above leadership styles want to create a positive lasting change, ensure that employees have a deep and meaningful connection to their work, and assist employees to achieve their potential by using their strengths.

In Part 1 we outlined the first six practical steps that you need to develop as a Meaningful Leader, these are:

• Use positive we language throughout your communication;
• Uphold and honour commitments made at all times which will drive accountability, respect and trust for the team and for yourself;
• Compassion-based economics refers to finding the right balance of placing your people first and at the same time ensuring that performance is upheld;
• Learn to become an active observer of situations, and gather important facts and information before making decisions;
• Self-awareness of the impact your leadership style, actions and moods have on your team’s performance, morale and commitment; and
• Openly embrace failure as part of a learning and growing culture.

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The Next 6 Traits of a Meaningful Leader

1. Transparent and Open Communication

We communicate all day from when we wake up in the morning until we go to bed at night. Most of this communication is effortless. However, at work, this simple skill often becomes an art and a science to master. Miscommunication and conflict are among the highest reasons teams don’t perform and commitments are not upheld. As a Meaningful Leader, learn to communicate regularly with your team. Hold daily five to ten-minute scrum chats to establish where everybody is. If priorities are re-arranged or tasks reallocated, explain the reason for your decision. Also, be specific as to why something has been changed, who will be impacted, the new timeline, what’s expected and how you’ll measure progress. It’s unlikely that your team will complain about you over-communicating, so keep the communication flowing!

2. Reciprocate Positive Relationships

Communication and relationships go hand in hand. Building positive relationships requires a continuous give and take. We need to be respectful of each other, appreciating the diversity of people’s thoughts, ideas and ways of working. Trust is also important so that we know that what we have committed to will be done on time and to the required standard. We have to invest in a relationship for it to become positive, and we can only reciprocate when we get to know each other at work and outside of it. Learn to understand what people value, what they enjoy doing and make them feel comfortable to be themselves without judgement. Set time aside to get to know each team member.

3. An Open Growth Mindset

Our mindset is the attitude towards ourselves and others and influences our behaviour, thoughts and goal attainment. Balance your attitude towards upholding high-performance standards, while equally learning from your mistakes. It’s not always easy to accept setbacks which may have a cost implication, but we need to embrace them as part of the learning process when they will enhance quality or efficiency in the long run. Incorporate the phrase: “We are not there YET” which brings in the philosophy of continuous innovation, making improvements, taking risks and moving forward.

4. Take Ownership of Change

Mahatma Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see.” In a leadership role, you are the conduit through which change flows because you instigate it. This means that you must be comfortable with the fluidity of change and embrace the fact that things at work will change from week to week. To assist you in that process, start by spotting the opportunity and positive forward movement that the change will bring. Likewise, see what potential hindrances may arise and how you collectively can overcome these or find a better solution.

5. Focus on Others’ Strengths

Focusing on strengths is new in leadership and might still be questioned by some sceptics. We have been trained to focus on our weaknesses and to develop those. However, our strengths are what ensures that we repetitively perform near-perfect work as these come naturally to us and are effortless actions. As a start, a Meaningful Leader should be able to articulate what they are innately good at, being clear about what makes them unique. Once you have done it for yourself, start to see what each team member brings to the table. You can even go a step further and acknowledge the person for the strength. That’s a bonus of appreciation and strengths-spotting.

6. Embrace Work-life Balance

With the pace of the current working world, managing a healthy work-life balance is becoming a challenge for many people. We are always connected to our work on our phones, laptops and social media; some people even receive their emails on their watches! Our mind seldom rests and we are always thinking of work outside of working hours. As a Meaningful Leader, you set the tone and need to be the primary example that balancing work and life is very important. People who have had a decent night’s rest come to work feeling energised and ready to perform. Consider this when sending or responding to emails. Exercise regularly, let your team see you taking regular breaks throughout the day, and question people who are continuously working late. Encourage people to take their leave without being contactable or responding to emails. You have to set the tone here.

In Conclusion

Regardless of whether you are a new or seasoned leader, these 12 traits are recommended for you to embrace and apply. Leading means managing yourself and your team and very little about your technical skills, albeit that they are most likely how you got this far. Become a leader that your team can approach freely and talk to openly, be seen walking the floor and take time to hear and feel the heartbeat of your team.

In this world’s ever-changing and challenging economic environment, the need for change is essential to survival. No matter how small, we all know that change is inevitable; however, managing change and remaining flexible in an organisation is something that many leaders have tried, and many companies have not yet mastered.

Change is a necessary part to any company’s success and whether it is incremental or monumental, we need to find strategies to support its flexibility and sustainability.

At times when change happens quickly, organisations can often find themselves in a constant “catch-up” state. This challenge, along with the systemic approach needed to ensure that everyone is along for the ride, can leave leaders in an overwhelmed state with exhausted employees. So how can we manage change more effectively in our organisations?

Understanding Organisations as Organisms: The Bottom-up Approach

In many organisations, the decision to change comes from senior management on a macro level and filters to the rest of the organisation via the hierarchy. This is the usual form of organisational structuring and forms part of the problem when leaders want to execute transformational changes on the ground. There are many reasons why this approach doesn’t work, some of which include:

• Employees are expected to make changes but have not been included in the decision-making.
• There is a flow of responsibility down the hierarchy where those lower down are expected to make more changes then those at the top.
• Poor communication of the vision across the organisation relating to how the individual contributes to the outcome. This leads to a lack of trust and high levels of resistance to change.

So can we counter these issues without completely restructuring our organisations?

We know that organisations are organisms consisting of an intricate interplay between different moving (independently-thinking) parts. In order for an organism to function effectively, all parts need to perform their role so that they can contribute to the overall success of the whole. When we apply this analogy to an organisation, each individual within the company needs to buy-in, commit and apply a growth mindset so that the organisation as a whole can function and change effectively.

This is where the bottom-up approach to change management comes in. Each individual involved in the change needs a level of autonomy and needs to be considered as a key role player from conception to implementation. There are many factors one needs to consider for everyone within an organisation to buy into the change:

• Individuals need to see the value of their role in the change.
• They need to be part of creating a coherent vision of the future of the company.
• They need security that the risk of change is outweighed by the personal benefits they will receive from its success.
• And finally, people need role models who can elicit trust in the change and show courage and resilience. Although this is the fourth point, it can often be the catalyst of the others.

Personal Responsibility: The One for All Approach

We are all familiar with Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world”; however, there is often a lot of resistance when it comes to applying this within an organisational framework. People generally don’t want to put themselves on the line, or be the leaders of change within an organisation. The reality of this is that we are quick to identify the changes needed, both in systems and in others, but rarely take on the responsibility of being the agent of change. This is understandable; however, the good news is that we can start… small. By committing to change on a personal level, we can in turn influence change in the greater whole.

As mentioned before, organisations are systemic organisms, which means that a successful organisation relies on the flexibility, growth and commitment of each individual within the whole. In order for us to manage effective change, we need to implement these changes within ourselves first. This process is important for each individual within the organisation, but perhaps even more importantly, it needs to be the leaders who engage in the change first.

As proactive leaders, there is the tendency to see the focus points for change or the development areas of others, and while this is a necessary and key role of management, we can often forget to include ourselves. The reality of this can result in the misalignment between expectations of others versus expectations of ourselves. We cannot expect others to make changes we are not willing to commit to ourselves.

Role Modelling: A Solid Foundation for Building Trust and Commitment

Remember the saying: “Do as I say, not as I do”? Leadership role modelling is when leaders embody the expectations they have of others. Rather than making external changes, the leader is willing to make changes within themselves first, to become role models of the new and desired change. For example: If you want people to ask for feedback more regularly, you should probably start asking for feedback yourself. By buying into a new culture or process yourself, you are in fact creating a spin-off effect where people will be more motivated to take on new beliefs and behaviours.

Leadership role modelling is a powerful way to elicit effective change in your organisation as it grows trust and presents a living example of the positive impact of the change in your organisation.

Here are some key attributes to being a good role model:

• Self-awareness
• High standards for yourself
• An open-minded approach to learning and feedback
• Integrity
• Value congruence

In Conclusion

Organisational change is a reality and is becoming more frequent in today’s economy. So, in order to manage this change and have lasting, positive results there needs to be a shift from the traditional top-down approach of responsibility and communication. Rather, a bottom-up approach is required to get each individual in the organisation to commit to the change process, and the earlier the better. In fact, if decision-making becomes an organisation wide process, there is likely to be a greater sense of meaning and unity in the company vision. Another vital aspect to effecting organisational change is ensuring leadership role modelling. When leaders are willing to make the changes in themselves, they set a standard of behaviour for others, and when they are willing to change and grow on a personal level, they can be the catalysts of collective change in the organisation. It is with a combination of personal responsibility, commitment to change, integrity and an open communication process across (not down the organisation), that you, as a proactive leader, can become the agent of the change you wish to see in your company.

What are you doing to manage positive change in your organisation?