OWP liVe REPORT

10

in the way they approach strategy and adaptive to a changing environment. As COVID has shown us, leaders must also be accelerators in the midst of disruption.

Self-awareness is the first step, but really constructing behavioral tools, self tips on developing new skills is key. Power sharing can be challenging. How can one empower colleagues while ensuring accountability? Power sharing has to be accompanied by three things. The first thing is a culture of feedback where you coach your team on how they can improve in future attempts. Second, is psychological safety. If the people you are empowering don’t have psychological safety, they’re not going to feel comfortable coming back to you when they try something, hit a roadblock and need your input. Finally, is a clear frame. Power sharing is essentially freedom within a frame. You as a leader have to establish what that looks like. What is the span of influence they have? What are the constraints? So you’ll be very clear when you empower on what that frame looks like, on the questions that can be raised in times of uncertainty and the feedback that you will give on performance.

Does this mean the days of ‘command and control’ leadership are over?

L E A D E R S H I P

Not really. Moving between traditional and new world modalities with ease has become a key skill. Our research found that leaders that were really successful were able to be agile, or ambidextrous, between new world, digital competencies and what we call the traditional world. These leaders were sometimes able to be the adapter, sometimes the constant; sometimes they were the power sharer, and sometimes were the power holder. So when we talk about agility at IMD, what we’re talking about is this agility between the traditional leadership world and the new digital leadership world.

What is the most effective way of practicing this ambidextrous leadership style?

We need to ask where we are on each of these seven tensions [see previous page]. Differentiate those factors in which you are strong and those where you struggle and tend to shy away from. Applying a mindful awareness of each of those seven tensions in the future brings new skills to the fore.

JENNIFER JORDAN