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Communication for leaders isn’t as easy as we like to think. It’s far more than just opening your mouth and letting words gush out. Your followers analyze every word, look for nuance, and read between the lines—so they often hear things you never meant! That can spell disaster for your team, if not your company.

Our guest, executive coach Amiel Handelsman, has some proven ways to improve your leadership conversations—like swapping mansplaining with manquiring. He explains more in this episode.

“Just listen.” That tired old trope telling leaders how to better communicate doesn’t cut it anymore. The workplace and its teams have become far more complex: five distinct generations actively working, divisive politics, culture wars, real wars, shrinking talent pools…the list goes on.

Amiel has keenly discerned eleven skills and concepts most crucial for leaders to effectively communicate in our diverse workplaces. Here are five that stood out to us as particularly transformative or unexpected.

1. Inquire or Manquire

Inquiring moves you beyond the old-school stereotype of the leader who knows everything. If you’re prone to over-explaining in a condescending manner or assuming that a person has no knowledge of a subject, you may be mansplaining (or an offshoot thereof). Combat mansplaining with its foil: manquiring (man + inquiring). Though the concepts are directed at a specific gender group, the practice of inquiry is useful for anyone. Inquiring is the act of intentionally asking questions to better understand what someone is communicating to you. Assume from the get-go that you don’t know it all. Go to your team and ask what they know. This stance of curiosity fills your knowledge gaps while letting your team know they are heard and valued. It boosts two-way communication and navigates unconscious bias in the process.

2. Confirm and Clarify

Now that you have all that new information, make sure you understand it. Simple misunderstandings derail even the most fortified plans. Paraphrase what you heard (or read) from a teammate and relay that back to them. Tell them what you think the ramifications of their points are. This creates a great feedback loop. In the end, it boosts efficiency because everyone is clearly on the same page with the same goals and mission in mind.

3. Be a Conversational Chameleon

No two people communicate exactly alike. Some people read between the lines instead of paying attention to your words; others demand exacting accuracy in your vocabulary and take every word literally. It’s up to you as the leader to learn how each team member understands you best and to further adapt your communication style to the context and the medium. Cultivate your own conversational agility so your unique voice and intent come through no matter who you’re speaking with.

4. When You Assume, It Makes an…

It’s natural to assess someone, or what they say, on the fly. But these subjective judgments you make in the moment can be influenced by little things that have nothing to do with the conversation: something as big as having an accident on the way to work, or as small as garlic on their breath after lunch. During the conversation itself, pause before reacting; be certain you’re reacting to what you’ve just heard rather than leftover emotions from something else. Afterward, reassess, and see if your assessment aligns with concrete evidence, observable facts, and a clean rationale.

5. Practice, Practice, Practice

We all learn to communicate at some level from the moment we are born. Our communication gets a bit more specific as we grow because we constantly practice and tweak as we learn what gets better results. This shouldn’t stop just because we reach adulthood! Even the most gifted athletes practice relentlessly to hone their performance; practicing is perfect for your communications, too. Play with different writing styles, speak in front of a mirror, and be aware of your body language—all of these hone your messaging. And just as you paraphrase what you hear from others (remember #2?), ask people to paraphrase your words so you receive feedback, too.

Trendy leadership advice focuses so much on listening to your team that we forget effective communication is a two-way process. Amiel’s tips are a potent reminder to work on that circular flow. The best leaders do more than listen; they are also heard!

 

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Cultivating Conversation: How to Improve Leaders’ Communication.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

 

How would you like to run a 100-year-old start-up?

Omaha Steaks has been around for over a century and has been tremendously successful throughout…achieving every marketer’s dream of becoming a household name. The secret, according to CEO Nate Rempe, is to act like a start-up, and constantly innovate. We’ll give you a taste of his Innovative Leadership ideas in this episode you can chew on. Read on for Nate’s key ingredients to success in a values-driven firm.

At first glance, Omaha Steaks may seem like a straightforward food company, a brand dedicated to selling gifts and subscription boxes that help families get dinner on the table. But in my time here, I’ve learned that we’re so much more—this is a 107-year-old iconic brand powered by passion that has mastered the secret sauce to creating premium customer-centric experiences for families all across the country.

With my background in technology and data-driven decision-making, I was thrilled to join the company in 2016 as its CIO. But to be honest, before I would be elevated to the role of President & COO in 2020 and then to CEO in 2023, I had a lot of learning to do about who Omaha Steaks was and what it needed to win the next 107 years.

Becoming the first non-family leader in the brand’s history meant that there were new leadership lessons I would need to learn and embrace. Even with my experience, I had much to learn about how to be successful at the helm of a century-old, family-owned company. While many companies refer to their culture as a “family,” it’s almost always more in words than action. Yet, at Omaha Steaks, there really was this sense of family—not in the traditional sense per se, but rather in the sense of membership and values. Team members here are celebrated as a part of something special, and we align on shared core values…values we actually live by. Understanding this key cultural element was critical in continuing the Simon family legacy at Omaha Steaks, a legacy I felt a strong responsibility to keep.

In my tenure, I’ve figured out a few key ingredients to being successful in a values-driven firm like ours—but in reality, these principles can be transformational in any business. Here’s my recipe:

1. Empathy and heart at the center: Change is good, but it doesn’t need to be immediate. My first eight months as CIO at Omaha Steaks were more focused on inflicting change on the organization and not on winning the hearts and minds of the people surrounding me every day. It wasn’t until I honestly reflected on my methods—something easier said than done—that I had the realization that I needed to adapt my approach. Empathy in leadership isn’t something that comes naturally to me, and I had to challenge myself to be more conscious of what others were feeling on a day-to-day basis. New leadership always creates feelings of uncertainty for team members, and I needed to inspire and lift up the people around me, so we could make changes together.

2. Transparency with ALL employees establishes a culture of trust: We’re all in this together. We win and lose together. As a result, our culture talks honestly about things like company performance and the ups and downs of running our business—the good and the bad. The more transparency exists, the more engaged and invested team members are, the more they trust the organization, the better they perform, and the longer they stay. I’ve seen transparency work wonders at scale. After all, building a culture of trust is what leadership is about.

3. Leadership means prioritizing two-way conversations: Omaha Steaks has 1,500 employees year-round, and we hire 6,000 more during the holidays. It didn’t feel like enough to sit behind a computer screen and preach at the company from my office. Neither did “all hands” meetings have the intimacy we needed. I wanted to have individual conversations with as many team members as possible. The end result: my team helped me form “Rempe’s Roundtables”—a program where every quarter, I hold 45-minute conversations with small groups of team members across the company, where individuals can share honest feedback and ask me questions. Going into our fourth year of the program, the sessions have been excellent, but the benefits have reached far wider. It has created a dynamic where people feel like they can approach me. That transparency creates trust and loyalty, and our job satisfaction rates have never been higher.

4. A leader’s impact stretches far past the employee count: The late Bruce Simon, who also held the role of CEO at Omaha Steaks, imparted an unforgettable piece of wisdom to me—as CEO, we are the captain of a ship of 7,000-plus souls. And it’s not just the faces we see in the hallways every day: we’re responsible for the well-being of their kids and spouses, too. When the company performs well, we enrich all of those lives—and the opposite is true, too. That’s given me perspective and a unique sense of motivation.

5. Leadership is a learned skill, not an instinct: We can’t “talk the talk” about growing our business without fostering growth inside, too. It’s all connected, and true transformational change in an organization will only come when its culture commits to continuing education around how to lead. Leadership is a learned skill, and at Omaha Steaks, we recognize one of the best investments we can make is in helping our leaders master their craft. Our Accelerate Leadership Program and our Omaha Steaks University courses teach our leadership methodology and reinforce our vocabulary, including relevant concepts that drive our mission: creating amazing experiences—for both our team members and our customers.

Omaha Steaks has had an amazing 107 years in business, and I’m excited to see how we can harness the changing technology and DTC landscape to transform over the next 107. I recognize and am humbled by the impact we can make on customers’ lives every day, and I never take that impact for granted. Whether we’re here to get a wholesome dinner on the table during a busy night or we’re helping someone give the perfect gift during a special occasion, it’s because of the collective heart of our teams that we are able to do so. I’m proud to lead that charge.

 

This article was written by Nate Rempe as a companion to our podcast episode Why Rare Leadership is Well-Done at Omaha Steaks.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

Would you like to be valued for being you rather than for being your job description?

That’s a personal benefit of working in a skills-based organization. For the company, that kind of recognition brings better engagement, more productivity, and increased innovation.

A skills-based orientation goes beyond job titles and descriptions. Instead, it assesses the talents of everyone, from the front line to the back office, and then assigns people to projects that best suit their unique combination of skills.

Brian Richardson helps organizations enter this skills-based world. The founder and CEO of Richardson Consulting Group, Inc. shared the following steps and tips as a guest on our podcast. They can help you plan your move to fully realize your team’s talents.

1. Start with your own leadership mindset: it’s time to experiment.

As with anything new, expect stumbles and outright failures. More importantly, let your team know to expect them…and that they’re okay. One primary reason innovation and change stagnate is fear of failure; far too often, employees expect to be punished if they fail, so stop taking risks. Let your team know some failures are expected; it’s okay if you then look at the data and learn from your implementation experiment. At the Innovative Leadership Institute, we call this leadership trait “the mind of a scientist.”

2. Assess individual talents on your team.

Determine each person’s skills; without this step, you’ll obviously have trouble being skills-based! Skills assessments are nothing new. Your HR department most likely knows them quite well. Artificial intelligence platforms have entered this arena, making the assessments all the easier to collect, collate, analyze, and then have at your fingertips when it’s time to deploy. With AI’s help, go even deeper: fully understand what employees can do now and what they could do in the future with some development.

3. Start with one or two targeted pilot projects.

Remember the mind of a scientist? These pilots are your experiments. Don’t expect overwhelming victory from the outset; you’re gathering data now for your ultimate success. What works best in your particular workplace? For the quirks and strengths of your particular team? Discover your new best practices as you build momentum with quick wins in these focused domains.

4. Consider the cultural ripples.

Most firms grew with the old-school practice of squeezing people into narrow job descriptions instead of providing the personalized work experience that skills-based systems create. That standard workplace culture must now change, too—especially for leaders! HR leaders, for example, will now shift perspectives, enabling fluid workflows by basing activities on employee abilities rather than predefined responsibilities. Managers will move to flexible teams, quickly identifying qualified people from across the company to fill particular project needs. C-suiters will drive strategies (and strategic plans) by aligning them with the skills pool buoyed by their talented staff—talent they can now appreciate thanks to this new skills-based approach!

5. Expect an organization-wide change.

With a few successes under your belt, the advantages become clear. The win-win for employees and the company fosters a desire to change across the company. Hold steady; despite the excitement, this will be a multi-year journey requiring patience and commitment. Every step of the implementation provides you with more experience and data to make the next rollout smoother and more successful.

As the pace of change and the increase in disruptive events continues in our world, adopting a skills-based approach is more than a forward-thinking HR strategy; it’s an absolute necessity. Think of it as an accelerator for your organization’s survival skills: adaptability, resilience, enhanced productivity, and boosted employee engagement. And for you personally, what could be better than being valued for being you?

 

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Economies of Skill: Moving to a Skills-Based Team.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

It sounds like a Zen riddle: “Does a leader make a sound if there are no followers there to hear?”

Followership is the most critical part of leadership—and your ability to influence is the most critical part of gaining followers. But aside from Dale Carnegie, who talks about influence and persuasion, especially in leadership circles?

Well, Brian Ahearn, that’s who. Brian is today’s podcast guest, and the Chief Influence Officer at his firm: Influence PEOPLE. Which is a pretty strong hint that he’ll be talking about influence—ethical influence—and how leaders can use that for team success.

Do you like the people on your team?

Far too many executives believe the old myth that positions or titles make them leaders. In reality, the ability to influence people is a core component of a true leader, regardless of rank. And liking those people greatly powers your influence.

Here’s how Brian lays out the basics.

1. Practice the Principle of Liking

People are more likely to respond positively to those they like and hold in high regard. That part is just plain common sense. But here’s the twist when it comes to influence: that positive response amplifies when people feel that you like them. Why? Because that implies you also care about them, so they’re confident you put their concerns into the equations for your decisions. Instead of the usual short-lived, shallow transactional relationships most bosses have with their workers, you’ve created a lasting, meaningful connection with real value. As Brian sums it up, your instructions filter through a lens of “Good for me, good for you: good to go!”

2. Ground Relationships in Trust

Your team needs to trust that you’ll follow through on that care. It’s a simple case of your actions speaking louder than your words, so be sure to:

• Consistently fulfill promises (and explain when you can’t)
• Extend grace and understanding when a coworker makes mistakes (it’s important to forgive yourself for mistakes, too)
• Sacrifice your personal interests for the good of the team, and
• Address issues openly rather than let tension silently build.

In building solid relationships on a foundation of trust, you’re also providing your team with a solid sense of psychological safety—which in itself boosts innovation and engagement.

3. Practice Pre-suasion

Set the stage; that’s what this point boils down to, yet it’s remarkable how many leaders don’t prepare their teams for big news, major projects, and the like. Pre-suasion, then, simply means you’re laying some groundwork before you try to persuade or influence the team. Taking them by surprise inevitably kills morale and creates resistance to the new initiative! So, prepare your team mentally, emotionally, and even physically before launching into something new. (Brian exercised pre-suasion before asking his wife to marry him; enjoy the romantic details in his TEDx talk at https://bit.ly/InfluenceAndLeaders-TEDx).

4. Deploy Influence Ethically

Influencing unethically is flat-out manipulation—which destroys any sense of trust or care you’ve worked so hard to foster. Brian suggests three standards that ensure you’re holding to an ethical bar:

• Truthfulness
• Using persuasion—and pre-suasion—naturally
• Creating mutual benefit

In other words, as an ethical influencer, you’re transparent and authentic, you avoid manipulation, and you ensure your requests of the team provide value for everyone involved.

We all try to influence others. It starts the moment we’re born with cries to bring us the food and shelter we need as infants to survive, and it continues from there: it’s a womb-to-tomb process. You can tame and refine that natural need to influence: performed ethically, effective persuasion and influence ultimately enable leaders to unlock the full potential of their teams. They build relationships where conflict no longer divides but drives innovation!

 

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode How Influence Leads to Great Leadership.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

Maureen Metcalf, CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute, and Dr. Christopher Washington, Provost and Executive Vice President of Franklin University, share this trends article as a companion to their podcast Leadership Trends for 2024,

Link to the entire interview:

Listen to the companion interview and past episodes of Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future via Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audible, iHeartRADIO, and NPR One.

Every generation of business leaders experiences social, economic, and environmental tensions that must be managed to achieve successful organizational results. What’s new in 2024 is that the volume and pace are accelerating. To navigate these changes, we must move from solving problems to managing tensions. What combination of problems, barriers, and opportunities will create the tensions and barriers that managers must manage in the coming year?

Here are the top trends I see for 2024 and beyond.

Trend 1: Artificial Intelligence & Computing Power

Technological advancements, including AI, robotics, sensors, and gene editing, are taking center stage in 2024. We can expect a significant impact of these advancements on how most people live and work. Bill Gates says, “This new technology can help people everywhere improve their lives. At the same time, the world needs to establish the rules of the road so that any downsides of artificial intelligence are far outweighed by its benefits, and so that everyone can enjoy those benefits no matter where they live or how much money they have. The Age of AI is filled with opportunities and responsibilities.”

Tension: As Gates highlights, we must balance the need for speed and experimentation with solid processes and operational excellence. Balance the cost and time investment in training and desire for novelty with the speed at which changes happen. Where do we invest, and where do we train? One crucial recommendation is to determine where to learn and where it is essential to unlearn outdated mindsets, skills, and behaviors.

 

Trend 2: Weather Disruptions and Environmental Degradation

Weather will elevate to the strategic level for many organizations. We are seeing changes in weather patterns that are disrupting weather prediction models. Accurate prediction is becoming more challenging. Since weather impacts every supply chain segment, every organization will be affected to varying degrees.

While weather is more visible, the issues are broader and more encompassing than weather patterns. Environmental degradation encompasses various environmental harms, such as pollution and resource depletion, while changing weather patterns refers explicitly to the alterations of atmospheric conditions. Corporate activities such as growing industrialization and overexploitation of natural resources can lead to environmental degradation and changing weather patterns.

Tension: Balance the need for data and certainty for weather-related strategic planning with the fast-changing climate disruptions. Mitigation can include creating a weather-related strategic plan to balance the need for data and certainty. The planning process and having a solid data source like the Weather Company to predict longer-term trends will provide a solid foundation for crucial decisions.

 

Trend 3: Polarization

The polarization of groups and communities makes agreeing on a path and moving forward challenging. As people in any group — whether a team, department, company, community, nation, or people sharing a planet — we need to find a process to identify common ground and develop agreements and solutions to address our most significant challenges. If the trend continues, we may see a rise in incivility in some groups and, in others, a willingness to find common ground.

Tension: Within organizations, we want people to have the opportunity to be authentic, and concurrently, the organization needs employees, contractors, and board members to focus on the business of the organization civilly and respectfully. We need to create a psychologically safe environment to explore the impacts of policies and business decisions among team members with vastly different perspectives. Then, we need to make decisions that team members will support. Tolerating disrespectful behavior and noncompliance with business decisions can lead to long-term damage.

 

Trend 4: Shifting Interest Rates

For over a decade, individuals and businesses alike have become accustomed to easy money offered in a low-interest rate environment. This all changed in 2023, with escalating interest rates significantly shifting ROI calculations and, in some cases, overall business models. While increasing interest rates tend to slow borrowing and business investment, reducing it has the opposite effect. Additionally, fluctuations in interest rates in either direction unevenly impact individual and organizational spending.

Tension: Balance sticking to your organization’s proven products and services with rapid prototyping and exploration. To regularly create a profitable product portfolio, organizations must monitor the economic environment and its impact on purchasing and selling power, maintain robust processes to evaluate current products’ viability, and simultaneously launch new products. These processes should align with the organizational strategic planning process and be agile enough to adjust as the interest rate environment shifts.

 

Trend 5: Work-Life Demands

For many, the aftermath of COVID-19 has changed workplace norms and expectations, and many people are trying to find a new work-life balance. While we read that AI will make a four-day workweek possible, others see the opposite: increased expectations and work volume. This is already leading to burnout and epidemic-level mental health issues.

Tension: We all want to attract and retain the best talent while managing increasing cost pressures and inflation. As organizational leaders, we must find approaches to balance sustainable workloads with meeting our financial goals. High levels of retirement and long lead times to hire are straining many organizations during the current labor shortage. Companies are experimenting with approaches such as a four-day workweek with some success. The Chamber of Commerce recommends, “Businesses can increase their hiring pools by removing barriers to entering the workforce like expanding childcare access, offering innovative benefits, participating in second-chance hiring, and providing opportunities for new and existing staff to be upskilled and reskilled on the job.”

 

Trend 6: Multigenerational Workforce

The presence of five generations in the workforce creates a level of diversity not previously seen. This diversity of thought, experience, and approach will allow companies to leverage a wide range of talent. Still, generational diversity will also create challenges ranging from clashing workplace and cultural norms to more complex decision-making processes.

Tension:Balance the broad perspectives that relate to almost every topic, from remote work to technology use. Some organizations engage members representing each generation to create organizational norms and agreements. They work past the stereotypes to understand one another and structure communication approaches, benefits, and leadership approaches for each group. Each generation must feel respected and engaged to create a thriving workplace.

 

Trend 7: Shift in Post-Secondary Education Pursuits

According to the Fall 2023 National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s regular updates on higher education enrollment, “Students continue to gravitate towards shorter-term credentials, with enrollments in undergraduate certificate programs jumping 9.9 percent over 2022, compared to 3.6 percent for associate degrees and just 0.9 percent for bachelor’s degrees.” There are lots of workforce implications here.

Tension: Employees will need retraining at an accelerating rate based on the range of disruptions we see. They will need to choose between a range of options for retraining and balance the cost and time involved. Concurrently, organizations and governments must weigh these investments based on the broader community, social impact, and cost. Also, universities and corporations can collaborate to incorporate relevant micro-credentials that lead to employability into full degree programs that can reduce the overall time and cost to obtain credentials, and benefit both individuals’ future career prospects and corporations’ need for more advanced talent.

Trend 8: Geopolitical Uncertainty

Reshoring of manufacturing, CHIPS Act implementation, new alliances, diverse worker perceptions of global conflicts, and the state actors involved are among the range of factors driving geopolitical uncertainty. Geopolitical factors drive tensions that spill over into organizational policies and staff interactions. Geopolitical issues can be very personal, highly charged, and polarizing. Leaders must understand how their colleagues and employees are affected. Often, uninformed statements have the potential to damage relationships. Part of leadership is to create a safe environment for employees to work.

Tension: Beyond creating a safe environment for people, organizational impacts can cover every aspect of the enterprise. Organizations and their boards must develop clear points of view about when and how to respond to geopolitical issues. Responses may evolve as conditions change.

 

Final Thoughts

Leaders must take care of themselves first to lead their organizations effectively. For many, this means maintaining resilience-supporting practices ranging from having solid relationships and exercise routines to meditation and prayer practices. After self-care, leaders must then create environments where their organizations can thrive.

These trends mean everyone will face challenges in the next year. Some will be excited by the opportunities; others already fear the risks. No matter which tendency people have, each individual will be in a situation where the changes impact them personally in ways they didn’t expect. Leaders need to excel at the human skills of communication, acting with empathy, and even compassion and love for the precious humans who will struggle and overcome complex challenges. Everyone will be called to dig deep and do difficult things in 2024 — and the years that follow.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Maureen Metcalf is the founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute. She is an expert in anticipating and leveraging future business trends. Ms. Metcalf helps leaders elevate their leadership quality and transform their organizations to create sustainable impact and results. She captures 30 years of experience and success in an award-winning series of books used by public, private, and academic organizations to align company-wide strategy, systems, and culture using Innovative Leadership techniques. Ms. Metcalf is a Fellow of the International Leadership Association. She also serves on the advisory boards of the School of Strategic Leadership at James Madison University and the Mason Leadership Center at Franklin University. Ms. Metcalf earned an MBA from Virginia Tech. She can be reached at mmetcalf@innovativeleadership.com.

Christopher Washington is a learning ecosystem designer who serves as Executive Vice President and Provost of Franklin University.

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