How to crush your leadership in 2023

As we head in to 2023, Leaders need to adapt to how people want to be led. The last few years have created a significant change in how we work - our values, our attitudes and our expectations of work have evolved.

Our people want MEANING.

A recent study by Randstad shows that Gen Z and Millennials would rather quit their jobs than be unhappy at work. 

People are burnt out, and are seeking transparency, value and meaningful work. 

As leaders – we need to adapt to how people want to be led.

Three challenges we'll face as leaders next year

ATTITUDES TO WORK. People have a very “if I don’t want to be here, I don’t have to be here” approach. We've seen from the research that people would rather be unemployed than working in a role that they don't enjoy. This attitude has contributed to the "war on talent" - good talent is hard to find, and we as leaders need them more than they need us. If we're not creating roles and opportunities that people enjoy - we won't be able to cultivate loyalty and tenure with our people. Losing good people can also be VERY expensive for your business, the cost to replace a high performer can be up to three times the cost of their annual salary valued from the cost of hiring, on-boarding, lost productivity and poor engagement.

MASS AWARENESS. Social platforms like Tiktok have helped bring awareness to work situations that were previously seen as an expectation. We see influencers talking about situations at work that a lot of employees encounter, and previously would have just suffered through. Now they’re seeing, en masse, that it’s not ok to be asked to do overtime repeatedly, or to be taken advantage of. Our employees want to advocate for themselves, they want to create and protect personal boundaries and be more assertive. If you aren't willing to support this, it's a rude awakening for leaders and your people become flight risks.

DESIRE FOR FREEDOM. After working from home and proving that people can be effective without being under the watchful eye of their boss, there is a general desire for freedom. Freedom from fixed schedules and the ability to work how and when they are the most productive. Our people also want freedom from workplaces and leaders that feel toxic, that aren’t aligned to their values, or how they want to create and navigate their life.

The core issue here for leaders is that we need great people in our teams. We need people to help us grow our teams and businesses and achieve our goals.

How do we build amazing teams and keep epic talent?

CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT PEOPLE WANT TO WORK IN. We must focus on building an environment, a culture and employee experience that people WANT to be in. That means focusing on your vision, leading with purpose. Using your goals and visions to ignite passion and energy and excitement, offering a future vision so engaging, inspiring and exciting that people want to throw their time and energy behind it.

Your Actions:

☑️ Define your personal leadership purpose.

☑️ Define your team's purpose and vision, and then communicate it.

☑️ Set up your team's vision check in rhythm.

BE THE BEST LEADER YOU CAN BE. Leaders need to focus on leading themselves, being the best version of you that you can be, so you’re never the toxic leader. Instead, you’re the one that people rave about to their friends, saying things like “oh my manager would NEVER”. Having your foundational leadership skills locked down is CRUCIAL for this - including confidence, resilience, EQ and communication.

Your Actions:

☑️ Grow your self awareness and understand how you impact others.

☑️ Create your own personal development plan to grow your skills as a leader. What does that include? Programs, courses, mentoring, coaching, peer network, books etc.

☑️ Implement your personal growth plan.

CHANGE HOW WE MEASURE VALUE. Leaders need to focus on how we view our employee's value – it’s not about clocking the hours anymore. It’s about delivering the goods. Their value is their success and commitment, their value ISN’T how punctual they are or how late they stay. We should focus on the output - not the input, because honestly do you care if they have a long lunch and leave a bit early if they're delivering everything they're responsible for, and delivering it well?

Your Actions:

☑️ Understand how each person in your team contributes to the overall success of the team and business.

☑️ Define each persons KPI goals.

☑️ Be clear on your expectations around quality and timeliness of delivery (the 'what' your team has to do) and don't budge on those, but be flexible on the 'how' that your team delivers e.g. working from home, early or late starters etc.

LIFE/WORK BALANCE IS KEY. We need to be the leaders creating life/work balance – because we don’t live to work BUT we do want people to love coming to work for and with you. That’s where you need to use your leadership skills to innovate and create the workplaces of the future. A workplace that attracts and keeps amazing people – and equally as important – is a place that you love to be yourself.

Your Actions:

☑️ Set your personal boundaries for work (and stick to them).

☑️ Support your team when they reinforce their own personal boundaries.

☑️ Give your team a reality check when they are stressed and overwhelmed, unless you're ACTUALLY saving lives, you're not saving lives. There are very few real work emergencies, so go home, rest, we can fix it tomorrow.

Focus on your leadership skills, create a vision and a culture that is enjoyable to be in, and TRUST your people to deliver in the way that suits them.

Bring on 2023!

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