Last week I spent a day at a famous office building in San Francisco, in the company of 64 thought leaders and CHROs, looking into the future of HR. While my daughters would argue that the only benefit of being there was the ability to tweet from @Twitter headquarters, I benefited from listening to valuable insights offered by people in the know. Several teams described their tools and concepts under development, designed to achieve the dream of positioning HR as an über-influencer on enterprise success.
I left the symposium realizing that the future of HR, while somewhat nebulous, is in good hands with futurists like Ian Ziskin and John Boudreau. I also realized that, over the course of eight hours, almost no one mentioned leadership.
Consider the role of leadership. It's an integral part of driving success for almost any venture. Whether you're scaling a mountain or shifting organizational strategy, you need to demonstrate effective leadership. In fact, the most effective organizations leverage their leadership to build momentum.
I liken this to an airplane propeller, the kind you see it in old aviation films. The pilot has to pull the propeller so that it accelerates to a critical velocity, which will drive the plane forward. An untethered propeller spins freely, enabling takeoff. A tethered propeller experiences drag, and is likely to fail . . . enabling a possible crash-and-burn scenario.
As an HR professional, you can be the pilot of your organization. Jump-starting organizational effectiveness is in your hands. How much force is necessary is a function of the leadership behaviors you bring to the situation. Each effective leadership behavior helps you spin the propeller faster. Each ineffective behavior is a tether that creates friction and drag.
Which leadership behaviors are most important for ensuring a healthy spin for your organizational propeller? To jump-start effectiveness, leaders at the most effective organizations usually perform three functions:
1) Set agile strategy. These leaders leap at opportunities and focus their efforts. They rarely suffer from "paralysis by analysis." They move quickly when presented with change. They don't fight change through inactivity, preferring to risk being wrong over being dead in the water.
2) Build data-driven plans. Effective leaders are agile, but they don't simply consume data and run willy-nilly. They use data to build plans for achieving an informed objective. Their organizations eschew tethers and avoid drag by using all available data to push strategic planning.
3) Demand more from the team. Leaders at the most effective organizations don't rest on their laurels. They're powered by the urge to shift to the next gear. These leaders demand more by driving ahead. While there's a risk of burnout, their teams, taught properly, learn to innovate.
All organizations want to drive effectiveness, but few leverage the leadership power to do it. Some organizations, in fact, leverage ineffective leadership, slowing progress. It's as if they're bumping their collective heads into an old airplane propeller at an aviation museum.
How do you leverage leadership in your organization to build momentum and enable takeoff? How many hands are you using to spin your organization's modern-day propeller of effectiveness?
Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Knowledge Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.
During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).
Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.
Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.
Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.
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