Steps ahead

A skilled leader delivers beyond the obvious. He distinguishes himself through his ability to do things well and possesses an intensity of purpose, expertise, and other excellent attributes.

He is creative, interactive, visionary, empowering, and passionate. He inspires confidence and trust in his subordinates. He earns their maximum cooperation. He guides activities in the workplace with committed, determined, organised, and sincere efforts that make the difference between effectiveness and ineffectiveness. His transformational and democratic leadership styles make him flexible. He skilfully utilises his knowledge, values, and experience to satisfy the needs of customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

An organisation that intentionally moves several steps ahead operates within the Recursive Mental Logic framework. It regularly impacts reality through beneficial products and services by identifying, studying, and influencing chains of human reactions, consequences, and decisions in its operating environment.

The game plan is to always think and act beyond the obvious. It operates with well-understood mental models of people and their likely reactions, anticipating them in order to work productively and progressively with them. Essential tools include mutually beneficial incentives, systems thinking, creativity, and innovation. People’s emotions and feelings play significant roles in decision-making. The organisation remains strategically authentic, delivers results, and stays ahead as each day unfolds.

Great leaders focus on influence rather than control. They promote effective daily teaming and teamwork as well as intentionally foster connectivity in the workplace to break down employees’ individual silos. Silos destroy organisations from within. While performance measurements take cognizance of individual targets, team productivity and appropriate reporting are always given pride of place.

Connectedness in the workplace helps employees understand how each of them contributes to the mission and purpose of the organisation.

The leader ensures that no team member stands alone because each employee’s contribution affects that of another. Everyone must work together so that the desired overall positive impact can be achieved.

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No team member should be allowed to work in isolation or in silos. The leader should ensure that the common thread is always maintained. Connectedness, or the “Collective Unconscious,” offers tremendous advantages.

An intentionally connected team creates stability and hope in the workplace. The leader must regularly communicate his interventions and key messages with clarity to ensure that connectedness remains a continuous flow.

His communication must consistently align his thoughts with organisational strategies. The leader can also intentionally map out his relationship-building and systems-development efforts. Employees need hope, stability, empathy, and trust. The surest context that creates hope and ensures sustainable success, as well as excellent results, is connectedness.

The reporting dynamics of organisations should be role-based. Every employee must understand the significance and purpose of his role. Salaries and other emoluments are important, but they are secondary to purpose.

Organisations must deliberately create and sustain the awareness that every role is interconnected. A healthy and united workplace serves customers better. Consequently, each employee should intentionally support fellow team members in succeeding. The leader must demonstrate creativity by ensuring that role-based reports clearly identify individual and group action items.

Connectedness drives a sense of purpose and value. Every action taken by an employee creates a ripple effect. Each employee should clearly demonstrate how his positive actions create positive and value-enhancing ripples. It should be evident that he is continually building and reinforcing organisational value.

The workplace is an assembly of positive and valuable contributors. The leader must maximise all available resources, while employees must fully utilise established processes and systems. They must be able to “touch and feel” the profound benefits of the principle that when one employee acts responsibly, others are positively impacted. Connectedness, together with awareness and commitment to the bigger picture, expands creativity and productivity across the entire organisation. It strengthens trust by providing individualised reassurance, broadening perspectives, and expanding horizons.

Employees gain confidence daily by knowing they are not isolated from one another and that they are regularly appreciated for fulfilling the purpose for which they were hired.

The leader utilises various communication models and frameworks to keep this “Human Superorganism” and effective people network alive- grow, reproduce, survive, adapt, and flow continuously. This intelligence-complementing network, built on trust, shared norms, and empathetic reciprocity, must be continually strengthened through practical communication frameworks such as McKinsey’s SCR method for problem-solving. SCR stands for Situation, Complication, and Resolution.

To move organisations from ordinary to extraordinary, leaders must be deliberate in influencing human behaviour and team culture.

The workplace must fundamentally and consistently add value. It must solve customers’ problems by redefining and reframing them, and rethinking solutions through priceless skills and innovation. Leaders must demonstrate agility in identifying, designing, and implementing highly rewarding interventions. They must also throw up and manage the root causes hindering employee commitment.

As I said earlier, leaders must adopt and, at the same time, adapt highly effective decision-making psychology. They must skilfully anticipate human behaviour, both employees’ and customers’, and consistently move several steps ahead.