Leadership Eco-system
Create sustainable conditions for leaders and their teams.
What if I tell you leadership is an ecosystem?
Let’s challenge the leadership concept. Do you need a leader? Or do you rather need a culture and eco-system?
Imagine a dynamic, interconnected network without your teams. Leadership is distributed, collaborative, and adaptive.
Sustainability is a topic, and so is leadership. Combine these two and you get sustainable growth by recognizing that leadership is not just a role, but a function of the entire company with 5 components: power distribution, collaboration, agility, inclusivity, and sustainability.
Distributed Leadership
The thought of creating conditions not positions is popping up again and again.
My workshops are nowadays less about individual skills, but about helping teams utilize their strengths together.
Why would you concentrate power in one pair of hands when you can have multiple ones? Yes, decentralized leadership can create chaos in decision-making.
Who has the last word?
Who decides?
Everything could be slower if it has to go through different levels. But hey, there is nothing more than having a word in what’s on. People want to be heard. They want to matter and feel important.
Individuals encouraged to take initiative and lead in their areas of expertise are gold.
Decentralization is your solution to ownership and accountability. Both bring money into your pocket because of higher engagement and innovation.
Collaborative Culture
A collaborative culture is the foundation of a leadership ecosystem.
In a forest, different species work together like a team, with mushrooms helping by breaking down dead plants and trees into nutrients that other plants can use to grow.
Now you have to make sure you have some mushrooms.
What you’re looking for is people who enjoy working in a team. People who motivate each other and can handle both their agendas and the company’s vision.
You’ve heard enough about the benefits of collaboration - promotes open communication, trust, and respect, breaks down silos, leverages diverse perspectives, etc.
I can hardly imagine work without collaboration nowadays. You depend on others, and they rely on your piece of work.
The question is how well it works. Do people have a collaborative mindset? If your team struggles, let me know at ivona@ivonahirschi.com, and we find a solution.
Agility
“Stillness is for losers.” That is what my boss used to say. We moved fast but lost culture on the way. Many talented people left.
Leaders have to pivot all the time. They need to find new talents, and new processes, and implement or abandon innovations. Agility helps you follow the purpose while not losing your senses on the way.
As we all know, there are many turns and traffic lights on the road.
How to be agile?
It’s a bit of a mind game. Imagine your attitude is like a door. Sometimes it’s closed and sometimes it is open. Oil the mechanism well and you will see continuous improvement.
The key is to learn to prioritize. Not to do jumping jacks.
Inclusive Leadership
Diverse teams bring a range of experiences, perspectives, and ideas, which enrich the decision-making process.
In theory…
In practice, having a diverse team can get on your nerves. Everyone wants to be heard and valued. As a result, leaders often feel they have to act like parents and babysit.
Yet, inclusive leadership is understanding you can’t use the same meter for everyone. People are different.
As soon as you accept that you will get along with everyone. No personality will drive you crazy and no more complaints about favoritism.
Inclusive leaders create an environment where everyone, regardless of their background or identity, has equal opportunities to participate and succeed.
Sustainable Practices
Sustainable leadership practices sound pretty important and sophisticated. Let’s simplify it. Two values you want to live:
Balance
Resilience
Balance ensures that power, responsibility, and decision-making are evenly distributed across your company. This reduces over-reliance on a single leader, reduces burnout, and allows everyone to shape the team’s direction.
Maintain balance, and your ecosystem can adapt to changes, deal with challenges, and continue blossoming over time.
Resilience helps you recover from challenges, disruptions, and crises. How well can you learn from setbacks, changing circumstances, and lost opportunities?
A resilient leader adapts, pivots, and progresses without losing momentum. Resilience is your ticket to stability. Bounce back from difficulties, and unpredictable changes. That is how you always find a successful path for your teams.
Nurture Your Ecosystem
Shift how you see your work, team, and company. It’s not the office. It’s an ecosystem.
Work on skills that help you create a system. Mentor and coach others to spread your reach and values. Pair emerging leaders with experienced ones to transfer knowledge. That’s how you cultivate a pipeline of leadership talent.
📻Listen to how to pour into your people
And of course, do everything as usual - foster a culture of trust, and collaboration, encourage open communication, do regular feedback, ensure tech skills are high, and focus on adaptability and a growth mindset. You already know all of this.
TL;DR
Create conditions, not leadership positions. The title doesn’t create culture. People and their interactions do. Discuss with your team:
Distributed leadership: Empower individuals to take initiative, fostering ownership and accountability, which drives higher engagement and innovation.
Collaborative culture: Create a team environment where diverse perspectives and open communication thrive, much like a forest ecosystem.
Agility and resilience: Embrace agile leadership to adapt and pivot effectively, ensuring balance and resilience to navigate challenges and sustain growth.
Have a wonderful day, Ivona
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