Your organization’s senior leaders should set customer focused directions with clear and visible values, and high expectations. In addition, today’s global business leaders need to adopt a strong understanding of the major societal forces shaping our world, as well as to know where and how to respond for the good of their organization and for society as a whole. Leaders should also ensure the creation of strategies, systems, and methods for achieving performance excellence, stimulating innovation, building knowledge and capabilities, and ensuring organizational sustainability.

In order to gain the benefit of the entire workforce, senior leaders should inspire and encourage their entire organization to participate, develop and learn, be innovative, and embrace change. An understanding of the business risks and opportunities of environmental and social trends is expected of today’s leaders, in addition to how their sector and other stakeholders are responding to them. Louis Têtu, CEO of a tech company called Coveo, explains the necessary ability of a leader to bridge the gap between current knowledge and knowledge needed to take action. In his opinion, the world is moving “180 degrees away from Henry Ford’s product-centric business model to a customer-centric one, and we start to see the immense power of being able to find the right information quickly. In a product-centric world, you could take weeks and months to research.  In a customer-centric world, you only get a minute, even less if the customer on the other end of the phone is frustrated.”

Senior leaders should serve as role models through a variety of means, including their ethical behavior and personal involvement in planning, communicating, coaching the workforce, developing future leaders, reviewing organizational performance, and recognizing members of the workforce. As role models, they can reinforce ethics, values, and expectations while building leadership, commitments, and initiative throughout their organization. As a new generation of business leaders emerges, they must continue to engage meaningfully throughout different levels of society. John Brock, Chairman of Coca-Cola Enterprises, shares his thoughts on what it means to be a business leader today:

“I think the role of a business leader today is much more challenging because you’ve got so many other constituencies out there that you didn’t have before.  Certainly the hierarchical approach – let’s just lead from the top and if other people don’t like it, that’s their problem—that does not work anymore.  You’ve got to engage with these multiple constituencies and make decisions in a much more consensual way.  And that requires a real skill.  As the leading drinks manufacturer in several countries, and as a major player in the industry itself, we believe we have an important leadership role to try to figure out how to bring government, NGOs, and industry all along.”

In summary, the new generation of leaders that are emerging will need to have a strong understanding of not just their workforce, but also major societal factors that are a part of business in the modern world. The most successful leaders will benefit from the creation of strategies and systems that are designed to achieve performance excellence which incorporate the needs of society as a major stakeholder.

Sources:

The Changing Role of Global Leaders

Staying Competetive In A Customer-Centric World

Juran’s Quality Handbook: The Complete Guide to Performance Excellence, 6e

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