by Lauren Fahy, Head of Marketing Talent, Alternatives

I attended a conference this week where a key topic was how business shape and create their future leaders. In an era of unprecedented change, there is a shift from thinking about talent plans in long yearly cycles to what needs to be done today to retain and grow increasing transient talent pools. Several interesting themes emerged around growing leaders during periods of change.

(1) Agility & Collaboration

A leader from a major tech firm here in Ireland spoke about how their business’ leadership philosophy is based on the organisation’s values, one of those being agility and adaptability to change. Just as there are constant changes in technology, she spoke about leaders needing to continually evolve and hold themselves accountable for getting their teams through periods of flux. Key to this is dealing with what is happening right now. To do this, they focus on unleashing talent within all employees at all levels. Not everyone will want to be CEO, but for all staff, they foster a culture focused on growth, adaptability and collaboration. All employees are held accountable and rewarded for delivery and results.  They put an emphasis on collaboration, innovation and the power of a team, as the sum of the parts is much more powerful that the individual.

(2) Empowerment

Another business leader from a professional services firm spoke of their recent double-digit headcount growth and how to retain and develop talent in this environment. Her business’ focus is ensuring their workforce is agile and that all hires have a sense of entrepreneurship. They use an evolved decision making model where senior managers guide and give a degree of direction, but each employee understands that they need to ‘own’ their role as if it were their personal business. This includes all the decision making around it. Empowering their employees rather than having a strict hierarchical structure has allowed ‘shining stars’ to rise quickly through the business.

(3) Culture of Learning

Another speaker from a tech firm discussed fostering a culture of learning; an open, honest and no-blame culture. In order to coach and grow their staff, they have a constant but constructive feedback model. Even if something is going well, it’s looking at how an individual can still improve their performance. They also encourage their leaders to really ‘know’ their team and let them have their time. Action learning is encouraged so that employees can have their own experiences to build their leadership skills.

If you’re working on building your team of future leaders, get in touch with me at lfahy@alternatives.ie or call +353 (1) 661 8889