Liberating bureaucracies from their shackle and chains demands new models of leadership and action from all! Decentralising bureaucracies will provide a significant competitive advantage by building competent, capable, creative and committed individuals. Radical change requires leadership, demonstrating tenacity, belief, vision and commitment to supporting transformation. Four fundamentals are essential to change; building the right culture, instilling the values that underlie behaviours, a commitment to teamwork and utilising the principles of self and shared leadership. Opportunities can then be realised for unheralded levels of organisational engagement, sustained performance, productive social relations and an interconnectivity allowing new realities to be reached and sustained.
- Falling profitability, lowering levels of engagement, overwhelming levers of control, lack of ownership for the solution and exhaustion from constant running with increasing demands
- Isolated from suppliers, and dissatisfied customers. Rising costs and poor returns the tip of the iceberg had been revealed, it was a mountain
- A small part within a large organisation, any sense of relevance can be easily lost
- Data rich, information poor, vague performance objectives and poor tools to assist in measurement
- Crevices appearing between divisions as leaders ducked for cover, no one was taking accountability or offering any lead
- Limited budget, tight timeframes, mission critical
- How does a small division within a large organisation move from a centralised model of leadership, when the rest are standing still?
Leaders need to own and set the vision and strategy for organisational change, displaying the behaviours and actions that empower others within the organisation to assume similar leadership roles.
Leadership is about change, it begins with one person stepping forward and having gained the trust and confidence of others who in turn are then prepared to follow in their footsteps.
Culture, Values, Teamwork and Leadership are the enablers to achieving change.
Organisational culture enables development of highly engaged participants. Culture does not change overnight, it requires a commitment and continued demonstration that things have changed. Communication is always important in supporting that, generating alternate realities; modelling new behaviours, resourcing individuals for their roles, investing for competent, well informed, and capable individuals.
Organisational values recognise and affirm diversity, supporting and recognising individual and team responsibility. Teams will begin to naturally merge from across the scope of the organisation as opportunities for improvement are sought. Teams are empowered to generate and enact upon solutions improving the organisations performance against its key objectives and in turn profitability (Stewart et al, 2011).
Teamwork unleashes the true potential. Culture and values are what unleash the value of their work. When values are incongruent, conflict and tension can arise, people’s commitment, level of trust and engagement will fall, turnover increases, as do workloads, morale declines and clients leave.
Self leadership and shared leadership (Manz and Sims, 1991), recognise that individual have the capability to develop strategies at both a behavioural level and, at a cognitive level (Pearce and Manz, 1991). Everyone has the potential to be a leader, and provided the right environmental factors are in existence, transformation can occur.
At different times circumstances will demand different responses, requiring new leaders. If you are reliant upon the same leaders, you will inevitably achieve the same results. Grow your talent.
Capability and competency has to be built across all teams. Environments need to be adaptive and support opportunities for both individuals and teams to develop and absorb new information, responsibilities and roles.
Have a well planned learning and development programme that supports your vision. Identify the competencies, gap analysis and build a blended learning programme – involve your teams in the development of the learning products, recognising that people have different learning styles.
Support new members of the team by having them mentored with an experienced person, enabling them to assist during the induction process, modelling shared problem solving and creating learning and leadership opportunities for both.
Communities of Practice, build teams across the organisational based on common areas of work. Use the teams to introduce opportunities for self management, identifying needs, learning outcomes, work practice development etc. Empower the group to be accountable for delivering specific outcomes, that will benefit the wide organisation.
Resources need to be prepared to be invested, not only at the initial stage but ongoing; the form that this takes must be flexible as the needs of teams and individuals will be diverse.
Develop experts and ambassadors, who can use technical or specialised knowledge, assisting in building greater capability.
Feedback is critical, sometimes the most powerful feedback can come from informal discussions and this will only be achieved in a culture that is open, has high amounts of trust, respects diversity, allows constructive dialogue and appreciates difference. Use a formal coaching model and provide training to everyone, communicate why it has been introduced, how it will work.
Listen. Leadership is about listening, asking the questions that facilitate a deeper understanding.
Walk the talk and be genuine.
- Relationships will emerge across the organisation that will deliver new and unexpected benefits
- Success will become a self fulfilling prophecy
- Teams that are empowered, resourced, informed and trusted will deliver far greater return and build your competitive advantage
- Turnover will reduce
- Internal and external satisfaction will increase
- Engagement will rise
- Some people will leave – self leadership, shared leadership, teamwork is not for everyone. A culture high in autonomy and accountability can be intimidating, offering fewer opportunities to hide. Provide support, use good communication techniques, clarity of purpose, consistency.
- Communicate – hold purposeful meetings, enable common understanding, clear outcomes and follow up with actions
- Build vision, demonstrate passion and energy
- Build a burning platform and then a way forward
- Identify key stakeholders and lobby them on the benefits of your proposition, demonstrate how things could be done and the return on investment
- Lead and recruit others who are willing to lead and can share the vision
- Empowerment. As individuals we will only realise our potential in environments that enable growth. Do not put in place unnecessary constraints that only act as further controls. Ensure that the right levers are in place and everyone knows what they are and why they are there.
- Information. Provide accurate information from which people can then make decisions and act.
- Accountability. If individuals are given the autonomy, resources and capability to achieve results, they must also be given the accountability for delivering those results.
- Measure the important indicators and provide opportunity for regular feedback.
- Be consistent.
- Collaboration. Teams with a common goal will naturally collaborate, sharing innovation and generating higher levels of creativity.
- Be careful when establishing reward systems that they will support the desired behaviours and outcomes.
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