Today's leaders are required to overcome a broad range of modern leadership challenges in order to be successful. While there are certain challenges associated with being a leader that have always been present, the rapidly evolving landscape of our modern world has created numerous new leadership challenges that leaders of the past never had to contend with. Thankfully, where there are challenges there are also innovative and effective solutions. In this article, we will explore the top leadership issues that modern leaders face as well as the proven solutions you can use to overcome them.
Challenge #1: Embracing Globalization and Cultural Diversity
With a global economy that has become increasingly interconnected, combined with an increased focus on the importance of diversity in the workplace, it is essential for modern leaders to embrace globalization and diversity. It's difficult to engage with a global marketplace and all its cultural nuances when you are inevitably limited to only your own life experiences. This makes it important for leaders to take special efforts to broaden their cultural horizons.
Solutions include:
Establish Diversity and Inclusion Training Opportunities
Diversity and inclusion training programs have gained a lot of popularity in recent years, and for good reason. These programs allow leaders and employees alike to learn more about the various cultures and perspectives of the people they work with and the customers they serve. They help establish the importance of embracing a diverse and inclusive culture.
Seek Feedback
Seeking feedback from those you are in charge of leading is always a vital aspect of leadership development, and it's an important part of creating a culture of inclusion as well. There's no better way to form a better understanding of the perspectives of those who have lived much different lives than you than taking the time to learn from them directly. If you would like to promote more inclusion in your workplace, seeking out the feedback of individuals with life experiences different than your own is an important step.
Challenge #2: Adopting a Change Mindset
In today's world, continuous change has become the only real constant. It can be almost staggering when you consider the fact that the world has changed more in the past decade alone than in the centuries leading up to this point. In order to be an effective leader in this era of constant change, it is important for leaders to adopt a mindset that recognizes change is inevitable and promotes the type of agility and flexibility necessary to thrive in a continually evolving business landscape.
Solutions include:
Develop a Vision and a Culture that Embrace Change
A company culture that is rigid and set in its ways is not one that is going to promote successful outcomes in an era of constant change. Instead, you should work toward building a vision and a culture for your company that embrace the idea that change is inevitable. This could include reframing trials and challenges as opportunities, acknowledging that failure as a normal part of trying new things, and building these goals into professional development plans. Even if it isn't possible to forecast what changes are on the horizon, creating a vision and a culture that promote the mere concept of continuous change will help make your company and its employees more agile and better prepared when changes do come.
Adopt Change Management Approaches and Tools
It's a good idea to create frameworks and strategies for dealing with changes to the outside world and implementing changes to your company as a response. These frameworks and strategies can be thought of as similar to disaster response plans, but plans designed to respond to major changes rather than disasters. Examples might include flowcharts or process maps that help employees visualize how the change impacts the whole organization. There are complete software packages designed to help businesses with organizational change management that provide things like workflows, problem identification and tracking, reporting, and risk reduction. It may also be helpful to adopt change management tools such as AI software that can help you predict changes that are coming in the near future and formulate appropriate responses.
Build Trust with Peers and Employees
Keep in mind that the constant changes that keep leaders up at night are, more often than not, just as troubling for employees and the partners they work with. If you're going to guide employees through a rapidly changing world, it is essential that they trust your decisions enough to remain comfortable with the changes you implement. There's no quick solution to building trust with your peers and employees, but it starts with communication: honest and open conversations that create transparency and welcome input. Be accountable to your word, and admit when you are wrong. Building trust is a career-long goal that you will need to continually work toward by building relationships, listening to feedback, and doing what is right by those whose livelihoods depend on your decisions.
Challenge #3: Managing Remote Work and Hybrid Work Environments
The global marketplace was trending toward an increased reliance on remote and hybrid work even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the pandemic struck and social distancing became a priority for companies across the globe, however, the prominence of remote and hybrid work environments skyrocketed. Now, there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, and modern leaders are forced to contend with all of the various challenges that managing remote employees creates. From maintaining beneficial relationships to ensuring employees receive the right instruction and guidance, there are many aspects of a leader's job that become much more difficult when they're not able to meet with their employees face-to-face on a regular basis.
Solutions include:
Standardize and Prioritize Communication Systems and Technologies
The right communication systems and technologies can go a long way toward making it much easier to manage remote teams. Videoconferencing software, for example, has already become a must-have for any leader that hopes to effectively communicate with remote employees. Workflow management software can be highly beneficial for helping keep remote employees on the same page and updated about their responsibilities.
It is important to ensure that teams and employees also have standardized processes and tips to make best use of the tools and software to optimize the remote work environment. Providing usage guidelines for different work scenarios helps, such as conducting meetings with some employees in the office while others are still remote. Establishing standards for camera use, email, and instant messages is helpful to improve productivity and effective communication. Finally, consider how the technology and tools in place for remote work can be better implemented to engage employees in new ways. To help your remote team succeed, be sure that you equip them with the tools they need to perform their jobs in an effective and efficient manner.
Consider the Varying Schedules of Your Remote Team Members
Working with employees across multiple time zones can often create scheduling headaches for modern leaders managing remote teams. As difficult as it may be, though, it is essential to consider the varying schedules of your remote team members and strive toward scheduling solutions that will work well for everyone.
Prioritize One-on-One Communication and Relationships
Without face-to-face meetings, creating positive relationships with your employees can be a real challenge. To overcome this, it is important to prioritize one-on-one communication whenever possible through face-to-face video calls. Taking the time to communicate with your remote employees this way not only helps you foster stronger bonds with employees, it can also help you better address any individual issues or concerns that might be keeping them from performing their job to the best of their abilities.
Focus on Outcomes Over Activity
Trying to micromanage remote teams will rarely lead to positive outcomes. Instead of focusing on the exact methods that your remote employees use to complete their tasks, it's much better to focus on the results they produce. For example, rather than getting too bogged down about the exact hours your remote employees work, focus on ensuring they are fulfilling their responsibilities without worrying too much about the specific schedules they keep. This is just one example of how affording your team a certain degree of flexibility and focusing on outcomes over activity can help you avoid burdening your team members with "one-size-fits-all" approaches that might not work so well for certain individuals.
Be Empathetic and Flexible
Keep in mind that working remotely is almost certainly just as challenging to your remote employees as it is to you as their leader. It is important, therefore, to be as empathetic and flexible as possible when dealing with issues and requests from your remote team members. Once again, focusing on outcomes over activities and embracing the flexibility that a remote work environment creates are great ways to ensure you're giving your remote employees the room they need to be successful.
Challenge #4: Maintaining Employee Well-Being
Employee well-being has always been a concern for business leaders, but it wasn't until recently that the importance of employee well-being really began to take center stage. If you want your employees to give their best effort, it is essential to foster an environment where their mental and physical well-being is prioritized.
Solutions include:
Adopt a Human-Centered Approach
Viewing your employees as human beings rather than cogs in a machine is an important place to start when it comes to optimizing their well-being. This is done by considering each individual employee's goals and needs rather than just the work that needs to be done. While it's certainly vital to use facts and figures when making decisions as a modern business leader, it is equally important to adopt a human-centered approach and view your potential decisions not just in terms of their effects to business, but through the eyes of your employees whenever possible.
Encourage Two-Way Communication
Being open to feedback and encouraging two-way communication between you and your employees is an essential part of being an effective leader and is likewise an essential part of ensuring the well-being of those under your charge. By creating an environment where your employees will feel comfortable coming to you with their issues and concerns, you can make it much easier to make sure they receive the guidance and resources they need to do their jobs in a healthy and productive manner.
Promote Health Benefits and Available Resources
Any resources or benefits that your company provides to its employees should be heavily promoted by you as their leader. Far too often employees are unaware of the resources they have available for ensuring their well-being. By taking special efforts to promote these available benefits and resources—whatever they happen to be—you can ensure this isn't an issue at your company.
Challenge #5: Promoting Leadership Development and Continuing Education
One of the consequences of working in an era of constant evolution is that modern leaders are required to continually develop their leadership skills and business education. Gone are the days when business leaders were able to enjoy relatively stable and unchanging responsibilities. Instead, today's business leaders must embrace continuing education and leadership development in order to keep up with the world around them.
Solutions include:
Listen and Learn From Others
If you're looking to broaden your education as a leader, there's no better place to start than learning from the peers and employees around you. If you are willing to encourage feedback and actually listen to what others in the company have to say, keeping your leadership approach up-to-date with the times becomes much easier.
Encourage and Reward Development Across All Levels of the Company
It isn't just the leader of a company that needs to embrace continuing education. As well, it is important to promote professional development and continuing education across all levels of your company to ensure you and your employees alike receive the instruction needed to excel in this era of constant change. Instill a culture of learning that is rewarded and recognized throughout the organization to ensure everyone has forward growth potential.
Attend Continuing Education Courses to Enhance Your Leadership Skills
One of the best ways to keep your leadership skills sharp and current is to attend continuing education courses designed for business leaders. At the University of Minnesota, we are proud to offer a number of exceptional continuing education courses geared toward modern business leaders. From courses on diversity and inclusion to courses on leadership essentials, these courses allow you to continually hone all aspects of your leadership skills. To learn more about attending leadership continuing education courses online through the University of Minnesota, be sure to contact us today.
