The Leader of Today - Tune Up If You Want To Be One!

John set his sights on being the CEO of a multinational company (MNC) someday. By the end of his career, he had planned for a successful retirement, one that would have him sitting loftily on financial stability. 
He was now in Senior Leadership, the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of an MNC, pretty close to his goals and pretty much on track. Like many others globally, he had not anticipated a pandemic and the chaos that came with it.

His entire Operations team had to be re-hashed in so many ways. He could see some would have difficulty with the new style of working as their mindset and level of behavioural flexibility left much to be desired. 

He too knew that he would have to change in many ways especially as a leader.  The mindset to cope with current and future issues. Most importantly, his leadership would have to withstand the future and be prepared for any eventuality. 

Thankful for the Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) courses he had done that set him apart from the rest! He had climbed the career ladder fast, learning self-management tools and operating from a high performer’s mindset. 

His ability to master NLP was a big factor in having him reach the success he had. His playground was the many companies he had worked for that gave him the opportunity to use influential language with his teams, to mostly understand other perspectives and resolve conflict.

At the end of the day it was about not taking things personally and having the ability to negotiate between two parties to a desired outcome. John began to jot down things that were fundamentally crucial to creating a Leadership mindset for the future. 

What else would he need and what would he look for when recruiting a leader into his team?

1. Visionary 

While this term had been bandied about for decades, the true ability to see beyond and prepare for the worst was something that had not been fleshed out to the extent that was needed.

A leader needed to be visionary and think critically, perhaps even imagine living in a simulated world of extremes, to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

2. Empathy  

The old days of authoritarianism were over and the ability to empathise by stepping into the other’s shoes, escalated in importance. Coaching for self-management was one such skill that many lacked. 

A leader needed to understand others’ perspectives in resolving situations and making decisions. 

3. Flexibility 

The person with the greatest behavioural flexibility ended up being the winner. To up-skill and re-skill where needed, gave leadership the confidence to rotate and assign tasks as required. 

A leader needed to give employees job rotation roles as frequently as possible to acquaint themselves with working from different angles of the company.

4. Decision Making

A good and fast decision maker arose from leaders who were connected to their intuition. They were focused and driven individuals with no internal conflict. 

A leader needed to have cleared out emotional and spiritual blockages to roam uncertainty with ease. 
John also realised that for all this to be steadfastly grounded in company culture, companies needed to be in businesses that were sustainable. The overall big picture of what Mother Earth needed would have to be the driving force. 

Inside of this if the needs of employees were taken into account and met, for instance the flexible leader who promoted employees as self-management advocates where work-life balance came naturally. John recalled a CEO he had worked for in his career changes. 

He was focused on making his people happy first. “When people are inherently happy” he said “they will also come to work happy and perform.” It was so many years ago that this insightful CEO had communicated his philosophy.

He retained his people. They loved working at the company. They worked together as a team with transparency and a non-existent hierarchy. They played hard and worked hard! A big part was that they had installed a culture change using NLP tools as their main methodology. 

Employees became adept at self-management as many found it easy to master. NLP was after all a process-driven model which was  highly applicable to Leadership and the workplace. 

Looking back on the last year and what he had been through, he was thankful for his mindset and desire to continuously learn. He was prepared for the future especially when it was his turn to be in that hot seat!