Wear your leadership story on your sleeve

Command and control is dead. Macho CEOs, hierarchical org structures, and cascading missives down the mountain are all leadership hangovers of an industrial age.

Today’s best leaders know that none of the old rules apply — their approach has to be radically different. They set a mission that reconciles social and commercial goals, they focus 70% of their time nurturing their people and culture, they distribute leadership across their organization to empower people to take decisions and move fast.

So what does a modern leadership platform look like? There’s no hard and fast formula, but here’s what some of the most successful leaders I’ve worked with have in common…

1. A simple, up-to-date narrative that frames the macro context for employees, helps them understand the direction of change of the organization, how it will remain future fit and out-innovate the competition, and just as importantly, what this means for them and their own personal growth.

The clear strategy of ‘learning for life’ guided the agile development of Future Learn’s brand. Working in conjunction with a simple toolkit, their brand-story-on-a-page quickly established them as one of the world’s largest MOOC platforms.

2. A crystal clear mission or purpose (the handle doesn’t matter) that motivates everybody to aim higher and push harder. It has to be grounded in truths about the company’s capabilities and beliefs and be written in the kind of plain English that folks could tell their mom or their drinking buddies and they’d get it.

A clear mission — the right music for every moment — keeps everyone at Spotify moving to the same beat, and you can see it in every feature they create; from mood-based playlists to their new partnership with Uber they are helping to sound-track our lives.

3. Clarity and focus around what problems they are solving for whom and mechanisms to bring those customers into the organization — continually keeping their evolving behaviors, motivations and needs front of mind. This must be nuanced to reflect different needs and therefore offerings in different markets.

We worked with Skype to truly understand the value they provide to their customers — from enabling businesses to do more together across time zones, to bringing families and friends together the world over — this helped them shift from a start-up to a mature company hiring hundreds of engineers across the world.

4. A ‘contract’ with employees that builds a strong culture and ultimately benefits customers. Every company is different, but whatever their unique internal value exchange might be, it is constantly reinforced by processes, rituals and beacons that embody that the culture, nurture and empower the best people, and help weed out detractors.

We worked collaboratively with Qatar Museums over a period of two and a half years to build a unified team dedicated to being ‘a cultural instigator for the creation generation’. We spent time focusing on individuals, coaching them to think, plan and act in a mission-led way.

5. An approach that rewards and measures the things that really matter. One thing every organization has these days is mountains of data, but if you believe in the service profit chain, a strong net promoter score (NPS) for customers and employees is the ultimate indicator of a healthy growing company.

We helped take (RED) from an idea on a napkin to globally recognised brand, with an expanding list of iconic partners. Their success will always be measured by building awareness for their cause and saving lives — to date (RED) has raised over $275 million and reached 14 million people affected by HIV/Aids in Africa.

Most successful leaders not only have these platforms in place, but are happy to share them with the world, confident in the knowledge that a clear sense of purpose and direction combined with proof through action is what 21st Century customers and employees respect and respond to above all.

This post was originally published on our blog by Sam Wilson. We invite you to share your thoughts in the comments section and — as always — to get in touch if you’d like to talk to us about bringing creativity to your party.