Empowering and celebrating leaders at all levels is the only way to drive innovation, change, and personal betterment. It’s this decentralized leadership that will usher in organizational change is successful enterprises.
This seems obvious enough, so why do so few organizations embrace this? Why are so many decisions made behind closed doors, and grandly announced to the masses once it’s a done deal?
Too often, we define leadership in narrow terms: A fearless general, leading his troops into battle. Volodymyr Zelensky currently embodies everything we celebrate in a leader, but something we so rarely see. And there’s a reason for that. Zelensky represents a certain type of leadership, often borne out of storybooks or tragic circumstances. But day-to-day we are not talking about life or death strategic decision-makers.
Everyday leadership should be built around analytical and collaborative thinking and action, based on what we know.
Establishing true diversity and wide collaboration within some of the largest organisations will, unfortunately, take time. But drawing on wider perspectives from within should remain an integral part of moving the dialogue forward.
We need to empower colleagues to make a difference by providing them with platforms to share views and insights in order to drive authenticity and innovation. And I don’t mean showcasing ‘perspectives’ through carefully controlled internal communications messages and social media posts, to fulfill a company’s ‘Brand Promise.’ I mean really empowering the unique people who make up your business to share their thoughts constructively and candidly, whether that’s through expert focus groups, reverse mentoring schemes, or ongoing changemaker meet-ups.
Finding topics that will lead to rich, inspirational conversations is the key to sparking ideas and collaborative working.
The ongoing debate around the importance of the metaverse in the future of communications is a topic that challenges my thinking daily, driven by my colleagues’ views and inspiring examples of how we are all supporting our clients with their foray into web3.
Encouraging open dialogue and being receptive to challenge and debate should be part of everyone’s journeys, no matter what level you are at.
This openness is embedded in Vested, where we connect with our Operations Leaders – everyone from Account Manager level and up – to ask how we can improve client standards, agency processes, and everything in between.
The world is hurtling towards decentralisation and reflecting this in the way in which we lead is the most powerful way of driving real change.
