The pandemic of the past two years has reset many things in the world, but the concept of leadership and what success means has never been adequately defined for all people. By this, I mean that a dominant group of people on the planet have decided what leadership looks like — it was never designed for diversity, for belonging to all.

Women’s movements over the past few years have urged us to “empower ourselves,” “have confidence and rise,” “attend inclusive male training exercises,” and a myriad of other encouragements. But we need to redefine what leadership means. We should instead be asking ourselves what we, as human beings, are contributing to the world and how we’re showing up in our leadership.

An increasing number of CEOs want to create social impact, solve the world’s problems, and form collaborations. To do so, we first need to build initiatives, cultures, and systems that will be inclusive of all. Ask yourself, “Who is contributing to this collaboration?” and then think about how you can make it more effective by adding underrepresented voices.

The old leadership definition was money, power, and influence. The new definition is purpose, inclusion, and well-being. Remember, too, that your behavior can create as much impact as any of these things.

I believe that equity and leadership begin at home. Look at the broken political, social, and economic systems around us today — they are products of the family. We are all the sum of previous generations, and unless we teach our kids diversity of thought and a more responsible way of looking at life on Earth, we are destined to repeat our mistakes.

We should build businesses, families, and the world on a firm foundation. Right now, this foundation has so many cracks, yet we continue to build on it. Xerox developed the world’s first women’s employee resource group in the 1960s, yet women only make up 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs today. We keep adding Band-aids to a broken branch while the real problem lies deeper at the roots.

Think about how you lead yourself, your family, and your team in the workplace. In Whole-life leadership, the first concern is your mental health, the second is your family, and the third is your work, followed by your community. Within your marriage, it’s about your partner first and then your kids. So many negative issues I see in society today are because people are triggered by their story — the way they were brought up and the narratives and belief systems that were instilled in us. Work on elevating how you show up for those around you by becoming more aware of opportunities and new ways of thinking. Many of us think that because we’ve done something the same way for 20 years, that’s how it should always be done. A shift in focus may unlock the solution you’ve been seeking.

We transform culture when we transform people. If you want to create a thriving, social impact company, you’ll find it in your employees and those living in your home. When there’s an economic downturn, many business leaders cut creative activities first, such as keynote speakers, team-building exercises, or family outings to focus instead on quarterly results. But if you prioritize humanity before productivity, you’ll find greater success.

Do bosses trust employees to be productive when working out of the office? 

Microsoft released a new study, where it found that 85% of leaders say that the “shift to hybrid work has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive.” More concretely, 49% of managers of hybrid workers “struggle to trust their employees to do their best work.” This lack of trust in worker productivity has led to what Microsoft researchers termed productivity paranoia: “where leaders fear that lost productivity is due to employees not working, even though hours worked, number of meetings, and other activity metrics have increased.”

That data aligns with a new report by Citrix based on a global survey of 900 business leaders and 1,800 knowledge workers – those who can do their job remotely. Half of all business leaders believe that when employees are working “out of sight,” they don’t work as hard. And 48% of the business leaders installed monitoring software on the computers of their employees to check on their work. No wonder only 49% of employees say that they trust their employer.

The perspective of this traditionalist half of business leaders align with Elon Musk’s demand that all Tesla and SpaceX employees be “visible” in the office and work full-time in-person – including knowledge workers. That’s based on Musk’s belief that remote workers are “phoning it in” and only “pretend to work.” 

Musk’s demand for improving productivity via full-time in-office work for knowledge workers is something to which other traditionalist leaders aspire. Indeed, a survey done by Microsoft shows that 50% of the bosses of knowledge workers intend to force them into the office by Spring 2023. According to a Future Forum survey, this skepticism toward work from home tends to come from older leaders in their 50s and 60s. Leaders under 50 are much more accepting of hybrid and remote work and focus on how to do it well.

Is the belief of this traditionalist, older half of the business leadership that workers are more productive in the office based on the facts? Not at all.

Already before COVID, we had peer-reviewed research demonstrating that remote work improved productivity. A NASDAQ-listed company randomly assigned call center employees to work from home or the office for 9 months. Work from home resulted in a 13% performance increase, due to a combination of fewer sick days, and a quieter and more convenient work environment. Those working from home had improved work satisfaction and a 50% lower attrition rate. A more recent study with random assignment of programmers, marketing, and finance staff found that hybrid work, similarly to remote work, reduces attrition by 35% and resulted in 8% more code written.

COVID resulted in the proliferation of studies of remote work productivity. For example, a survey by Mercer of 800 HR leaders in August 2020 reported that 94% found that the staff at their companies were more or equally productive working remotely compared to working in the office prior to the pandemic shutdowns. A two-year survey by Great Place to Work of more than 800,000 employees showed that the shift to working remotely in the pandemic boosted worker productivity by 6% on average. 

A study using employee monitoring software confirmed that the shift to remote work during COVID improved productivity by 5%. In a University of Chicago research paper, scientists found that nearly six in ten of their survey respondents reported higher productivity when working remotely, while only 14% proved less productive. On average, remote work productivity was over 7% higher than in-office productivity. 

That shouldn’t be surprising. A major benefit from remote work comes from doing away with the daily commute. Workers on average devote approximately 35% of their saved time from not commuting to their primary job, according to research at the University of Chicago. Given that people spend an average of nearly an hour per day on commute travel alone, and additional time on other commute-related tasks, this adds up to substantial additional time worked.

Indeed, a research study from Harvard University published in the National Bureau of Economic Research finds a large increase in the amount of time worked by remote workers compared to in-office workers. Evaluating the impact of the lockdowns in 16 large cities in North America, Europe, and the Middle East on knowledge workers, the researchers found an increase in the average workday of 8.2%, or 48.5 minutes.

Another benefit stems from greater flexibility to do work tasks at times that work for us. We know from research that all of us have different levels of energy throughout the day when we are best suited for various activities that don’t necessarily match the typical rhythms of a 9-5 schedule. By doing specific work tasks at various times, we can get more done.

And more recent research showed that remote work productivity actually increased throughout the pandemic. Stanford University researchers doing a longitudinal study comparing productivity at different time periods found that remote workers were 5% more efficient than office-based ones in the summer of 2020. But this number improved to 9% by summer 2022. Why? Because all of us learned how to be better at remote work.

And really, are workers all that productive in the office? Studies show that in-office employees only work between 36% and 39% of the time. What about the rest of their time in the office? They’re shopping on Amazon, checking social media, and may even be searching for new positions, especially if their bosses are forcing them to come to the office full-time.

This extensive evidence is widely available to anyone who Googles remote work productivity and looks at all the results on the first page. Leaders are taught to make data-driven decisions. 

So why do so many leaders continue to ignore the data and stubbornly deny the facts? The key lies in how leaders evaluate performance: based on what they can see. 

As the Harvard Business Review points out, leaders are trained to evaluate employees based on “facetime.” Those who come early and leave late are perceived and assessed as more productive. 

According to the MIT Sloan Management Review, even before the pandemic, the focus on presence in the office undermined effective remote work arrangements. Thus, researchers found that remote employees who work just as hard and just as long as those in the office in similar jobs end up getting lower performance evaluations, decreased raises, and less promotions.

This tendency did not change much in the pandemic for the older managers who learned how to lead long before the era of remote work. That’s because of the anchoring bias, a dangerous mental blindspot – a cognitive bias – that comes from our tendency to be anchored to our initial information about a topic. 

Thus, if leaders are taught to evaluate productivity based on simple presence in the office, they will tend to stick to that information. They’ll do so even when presented with new evidence about higher productivity among remote workers. 

A related mental blindspot, the confirmation bias, caused these traditionalist leaders to ignore information that goes against the beliefs to which they’re anchored, and seek information that confirms their anchors. For example, they’ll seek out evidence that in-office workers are more productive, even when there’s much stronger evidence that remote workers exhibit higher productivity. In other words, these leaders trust their own gut reactions, internal impressions, and intuitions over the facts, thus failing to develop self-awareness of how their mental processes might steer them to make bad decisions.

The consequence of this trust in false impressions of which type of work is more productive is leading to the unnecessary drama of forcing workers back to the office. And those older, traditionalist bosses who do so will continue to lose workers as part of the Great Resignation. A Society for Human Resources survey in June 2022 found that 48% of respondents will “definitely” seek a full-time remote position for their next job. To get them to stay at a hybrid job with a 30-minute commute, employers would have to give a 10% pay raise, and for a full-time job with the same commute, a 20% pay raise. Given the significant likelihood of a recession in the near future, which will limit the ability of employers to offer pay raises and lead to a focus on actual productivity over false gut-based intuitions, we can expect a greater shift to more hybrid and remote work going forward.

Another problem of this false belief is proximity bias. That term describes how managers have an unfair preference for and higher ratings of employees who come to the office, compared to those who work remotely, even if the remote workers show higher productivity. The face-to-face interactions between managers and employees lead to managers having more positive impressions of these employees due to cognitive biases such as the mere-exposure effect. This mental blindspot describes our predilection to have more favorable attitudes toward whatever we see more often, whether people or things, without any basis for this favorable attitude other than mere exposure.

To succeed in our increasingly hybrid and remote future will require retraining managers in evaluating performance and addressing proximity bias. Companies will have to teach them to trust the data over their own gut reactions. They’ll also have to learn a new approach to performance evaluations, one customized to hybrid and remote work.

Instead of observing presence in the office and giving an annual performance evaluation informed by proximity bias, leaders will have to measure deliverables at much more frequent intervals. Ironically, even before the pandemic, we had extensive research that demonstrated the importance of transitioning away from large-scale annual performance reviews. Now, leaders who want to successfully navigate the disruption caused by hybrid and remote work will need to provide brief performance evaluations at their regular weekly one-on-one meetings with their team members.

What will that involve? Leaders would ask each of their team members to determine three to five SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals for each week. 

Prior to the upcoming one-on-one each week, the employee would send a brief report of a paragraph or two on how they did on the goals for that week, what kind of problems they had and how they solved them, and a brief self-evaluation. Then, at the one-on-one meeting, the leader and team member discuss the report and determine goals for next week. The leader also coaches the team member on solving problems and approves or revises the self-evaluation, which gets fed into a continuous performance evaluation system.

This approach helps leaders accept and appreciate the reality of which of their team members is more productive while addressing the pitfalls of proximity bias. It also helps team members know where they stand and addresses their fears around lack of career mobility due to proximity bias from their supervisor. And most importantly, it builds up trust between leaders and their employees. A Gallup survey showed that 75% of employees leave to a significant extent due to a poor relationship with their boss.

In short, by aligning performance evaluations with best practices for hybrid and remote work, companies will boost productivity, improve retention, and address proximity bias, while building trust between bosses and staff. My clients have already reaped substantial benefits from doing so. 

For example, the Fortune 200 high-tech manufacturer Applied Materials has developed a culture of “Excellence from Anywhere” to address proximity bias and focus on the outcomes rather than where work is done. Another client is the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, which carries out basic and applied research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, networks and cybersecurity, high-performance computing, microelectronics, and quantum information systems. It has taken a leadership position in hybrid and remote work by offering flexibility and focusing on building trust through a transparent and collaborative process of determining the future of work. 

In both organizations, leaders had to overcome their personal discomfort and push back against their intuitions to help themselves grow as leaders well-positioned to lead their teams in hybrid and remote settings. Any leaders who want to survive and thrive in the post-pandemic environment will need to do the same, or they will be outcompeted by more fit competitors in the future of work.

Politicians are not the best role models. Often, they are self-serving individuals obsessed with their own job security.

Social media lets us watch them say one thing and do just the opposite. Rather than lead effectively, politicians simply call each other names. The world would be a better place if politicians remembered these 10 leadership principles.

1. Tunnel vision – do not surround yourself with people who only think like you. Add diversity to broaden your scope.
2. Likeability – you cannot always be the nicest person in the room.
3. Decisions – don’t let your ego get in the way of a good decision.
4. Trust – if your team does not trust you, then you are just a bully.
5. Followers – 20-30% of the people will follow anyone.
6. Communication – talk is cheap – action pays the bills.
7. Respect – it is earned over many years but can be lost in seconds.
8. Leadership – lying and creating fear is not leadership. It is chaos.
9. Courage – do the right thing. Make the tough decisions even if it means losing some of your status.
10. Integrity – stand up for what you believe. Be the role model you want your children to follow.

Let’s hope more politicians remember that they are role models for current and future generations.   

The past few years have taught businesses many hard lessons. Among them, leaders must expect the unexpected, and no issue is off-limits for an organizational response. Consumers have become increasingly skeptical of green and purpose claims, while employees have found their voice  — and aren’t afraid to use it. So much has changed during this time, but one thing has remained constant: the power of purpose.​

It’s 2022. Do you know what your employees want? Over the course of a lifetime, we spend around 81,000 hours working. Together, that’s about one-third of the average person’s entire life, and it translates to approximately 10,000 days spent at work.

Now, consider the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard, who said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” If we want to spend our lives meaningfully, we must endeavor to find purpose in our daily work.

Corporate purpose is defined as an organization’s reason for being, beyond profits, grounded in humanity. I have the great privilege of being the founder and CEO of one of the first social purpose agencies, so I live the power of purpose every day — through my work, leadership, and clients.

Purpose Under Pressure, a new report we jointly released with the Harris Poll and Allison + Partners, proves that the influence of purpose is more vital than ever — especially among employees — and reveals that an original and activated purpose is a powerful magnet for talent. But unfortunately, many companies have an inconsistent commitment to their purpose, substantially lessening its impact and value.

I find the “Great Resignation” to be a misnomer. I prefer the better refined “Great Contemplation” —because the events of recent years have given us all a lot to think about. For employees, this has led to a rearrangement of priorities and pursuit of higher meaning in their work that places more demands on their employers.​

You can take a few specific data-supported steps to ensure your purpose is working as hard as it can for you in these turbulent times and making your company resilient in the face of ongoing business and societal challenges.

1. Purpose is everyone’s job. Johanna Jobin, global head of corporate reputation and responsibility at Biogen and executive director of Biogen Foundation, says, “I don’t think organizations make up their purpose. They reveal their purpose. And it’s up to the people in the organization to reveal that purpose and bring it to life.” It’s up to us to help our employees understand that purpose is central to their roles. Build it into job descriptions, KPIs, reviews, compensation, ongoing mentoring conversations, company meetings, and all internal communications.

2. Align your employees’ values with organizational values. More than ever, employees seek roles at organizations that have values that match their own. So, we must put those values front and center in the employee experience. Balaji Ganapathy is chief of social responsibility at Tata Consultancy and says, “As an employer, you need to enable your workforce to fulfill their broader purpose. It does not stop with providing volunteering opportunities. It is about driving a culture.”

3. Your actions speak louder than words:  Bob Jiminez, senior vice president corporate affairs at Cox Enterprises, illustrates this point nicely, saying, “A purpose without action is just some great words that folks can feel good about. We use purpose as the lens through which we make all of our decisions. We want a ripple effect that elevates other individuals and communities, particularly those in need, and raises them in the process.”

4. Engage purpose ambassadors in every function: Employee-fueled communication and programs will be the key to enterprise-wide purpose adoption. Identify ambassadors in each department who champion your purpose and ensure it’s well aligned and activated. Deb O’Connor, director of global corporate reputation and community relations at Whirlpool Corporation, says, “Employees are your ambassadors in the community. They want to be involved and are your primary stakeholder in corporate social responsibility. Your colleagues are the ones who help you get the work done.”

We know that when purpose is well defined and embedded in an organization, the result is long-term success. Companies that get it right “…make more money, have more engaged employees, more loyal customers, and are better at innovation and transformational change,” according to a Harvard Business Review report, “The Business Case for Purpose.”

As business leaders, it’s up to us to be courageous and clear that our organizations will be human-centered and staunchly focused on lifting our stakeholders, beginning with our most valuable: employees. When we identify and live our true purpose, we create meaningful workplaces. We are rewarded with better recruitment and retention, increased performance and impact, and a future-proofed organization for today and tomorrow.

Employees want authentic, vibrant, and actionable purpose embedded throughout their work:

• 84% of respondents said they would only work at a purpose-driven company.
• 66% of employees cite their employers’ positive impact as more important than before the pandemic — identical to the increase in the importance of salary and compensation.
• 35% of employees say a company’s positive impact is among the top two most important attributes when deciding to stay or leave a job.

Does this sound familiar?…

• You have a “B” manager trying to hire “A” players.
• Managers make their hiring decision based on the first impression.
• Manager and candidate bond because of similar likes (i.e., sports, college football, etc.), rather than the candidate’s qualifications.
• The manager says: “Please sit down while I read your resume.”
• The manager hires based on “I’m a good judge of character.”

This happens every day — even in the best companies. Too often, well-intentioned managers are the weak link in your hiring process. And the cost is enormous, including lost sales, poor customer service, safety issues, lower employee engagement, etc.

Training, while important, may not be the solution because most managers resort back to their old habits. How to help hiring managers:

1. Job descriptions are sooo yesterday. They are essential, but not strategic. They provide only basic info — work history, education, and the job’s duties and responsibilities, etc. Have the manager complete a Job Outlook form. Prior to starting the hiring process, capture the hiring managers’ strategic thoughts about the open position in writing and with their signature.
2. Review your pre-hire assessments. Are you using yesterday’s tools for a vastly different business model (i.e., remote workers, Zoom meetings, work/life balance issues, etc.)?
3.  Understand that there are two types of onboarding. The formal one is where the candidate learns about the company’s vision, mission, procedures, benefits, and products. The informal onboarding is where the current employees teach the new person “the ropes.” If not aligned, it will directly affect the new employee’s success with the company.

Self-aware leaders know how their values, beliefs, and personal histories shape their perceptions of reality, leading to a better understanding of those around them. But learning how to be self-aware as a leader is a challenging process. Start with these steps.

Everyone alive has their own perception of reality. That much is hard to deny, as people can’t help but perceive the world through their own personal lens. Recognizing and appreciating the differences in these various perceptions can be difficult when we can’t perceive each other’s unique views, but this ability is foundational in developing self-awareness — a critical skill for today’s leaders.

Self-aware leaders understand how their individual values, belief systems, and personal histories shape their perceptions of reality. They regularly take inventory of themselves and those they’re tasked to lead. It might seem obvious, but self-awareness is all about self-reflection: weighing your behaviors in relation to your values and those around you. Without this critical skill, you risk allowing biases to sneak into your decision-making and might even instill fear and stress within your internal hierarchy. Without some level of awareness of self and the value of others’ uniqueness, it becomes impossible to build a diverse, innovative, and motivated team.

Recent struggles in nearly all industries over the last few years have certainly helped move the needle of self-awareness for leaders. No doubt you’ve found yourself on some kind of inner journey during these hard times, reflecting on what’s most important in life and making adjustments accordingly. It stands to reason that the same level of contemplation would benefit you in the workplace and inform and improve your interactions with employees and peers.

It’s easy for any of us to fall back into survival mode when faced with struggles such as inflation, supply chain delays, talent shortages, and so much more. But it’s also important to make sure that some of that self-reflection sticks with you through the hard times: It will make you a better leader.

How to Become More Self-Aware as a Leader

Learning how to become more self-aware is a challenging process for everyone who undertakes it. More often than not, you have to get out of your own way to make progress on this front. But it’s well worth the effort, as self-awareness can often lead to much more effective leadership and team management.

Here are three ideas to get started on your journey to becoming a more self-aware leader:

1. Embrace a learning mindset.

Ego is the enemy of good leadership. Though it might enable you to act more decisively, an overdeveloped or inflated ego can be a problem — even going so far as limiting your growth and blinding you to your natural limitations. Therefore, the first step to self-awareness is coming to terms with the fact that no leader knows everything or ever will know everything. Every leader will be wrong sometimes, including you. When you abandon your ego and embrace a learner’s mindset, you tap into your curiosity and begin to view every new challenge or experience as an opportunity to grow.

It’s just as important to make the same allowances for your team. Every so often, it’s good to let go and allow team members to innovate on their own. You’d be surprised at what employees can learn and accomplish without your involvement in every decision. They might even find some great answers to team problems. This isn’t to say you should wash your hands of all duties; it’s still important to lead with good intent and explain any risks and limits they need to work around. But trust team members to develop their own ideas and solutions. Be self-aware enough to know that good ideas can come from everywhere.

2. Enlist the help of someone you trust.

Sometimes, even the best of us get too close to a situation to see it clearly, especially when it comes to self-reflection. It can be difficult to “observe” yourself. It’s common for biases and insecurities to sneak in and skew our perspective. You might overlook or overly focus on your faults. These are only a few reasons why all great leaders need mentors. A mentor can be a boss, a respected colleague, or even a friend if they’re able to reflect on you with a kind and critical lens. Even when you’re the mentor offering support to mentees, enlisting the help of a mentor or coach can be beneficial to you professionally and personally. The people you trust and respect most are often able to offer unbiased observations of your behaviors and pose challenging questions about your decisions.

As mentors themselves, self-aware leaders use their understanding of emotions, personality differences, and individual needs to inspire and motivate each member of their teams. A mentor offers the same opportunity for you to learn how to receive and provide feedback in a manner that’s both constructive and empathetic — not patronizing or disrespectful. By asking a mentor to help you in self-reflection, you’re opening yourself up to criticism on a regular basis. It’s not necessarily comfortable, but it will allow you to glean how to do the same for the variety of people on your team with greater tact and compassion.

3. Take a practical view of personality assessments.

A lot of leaders view assessments such as the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator or the DiSC assessment as “The Truth.” If the test says you’re an INFJ, then you’re an INFJ — and should approach all situations or challenges as such, no matter the context. The problem is that the letters only tell you who you are now, not who you can be. Though personality tests are no doubt informative and often helpful in self-reflection, round out your understanding of yourself with other assessments, including the Leadership Circle Profile. A systematic development assessment such as the LCP can offer more direction on how to expand your mindset and become a more self-aware leader.

The LCP stands out from other assessments because it measures both your creative competencies and reactive tendencies, giving you a snapshot of your root behaviors and mindset. This focus can help you figure out what might be getting in the way of your intended leadership impact and identify any deeply held perceptions (or misconceptions) of your leadership ability. Perhaps you’re unaware of your aggressiveness or self-protection, but there’s a way to find out. With that information, you can move forward to make the necessary adjustments and become the best “you” you can be.

The self-awareness of leaders is often directly tied to success. “Knowing thyself” is a critical leadership skill that helps foster trust and build a culture where individuals across multiple backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and ages can thrive — including you. As a leader, you can learn to connect with yourself and others in new ways that can benefit you, the company, and employees all at once. Don’t be scared to let go of your ego and explore something new about yourself; you might be surprised by what you discover.

Do this. Do that. Change the font. Make that deck pop a bit more. You get the point. Most team members today are sick of being told what to do. If the pandemic taught leaders anything, it was that people today want freedom and the ability to work under more of their own terms.

Those teams that have excelled over the last two years adapted to this request; others who refused to adapt were sent packing.

Aside from freedom and autonomy, team members also desire to be more involved. As the late great UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden (pictured above), said, “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.”

Often, leaders take on all the stress, all the responsibility, and get too deep in everybody’s business — but that is the precise difference between leaders who lack trust in their teams and those who believe in the power of working alongside their team. Getting involved is great, but it can be a problem when it hijacks your team’s ability to work, think, and openly bring their best ideas forward.

Besides being involved, team members today genuinely want to feel a part of it — the brand, direction, strategy, and decisions. By allowing your team to be involved, you are helping them mature and grow from a leadership standpoint.

What separates good leaders from great leaders is one word: collaboration. In my new book, Habits of a Champion Team, I introduced a new style of leadership that needs to emerge: the Empowering, Collaborative Leader.

The Empowering, Collaborative Leader Is King/Queen of the Leadership Jungle

This leadership style is most preferred and the one a team benefits from most today. It’s the replacement of the dictator-based leadership style that was built on the philosophy: Do this, do that, I run this place. Unfortunately, many leaders over 40 struggle with adopting this collaborative style of leadership because they are descendants of that hard-driving, rage-based, dictator-style of leadership from yesterday. What makes the Empowering, Collaborative leader different? The understanding of these two principles:

1. People need and want to feel important.
2. They need and want to be motivated and challenged daily.

The biggest issue many leaders face is that the above requires them to slow down. To be present. To engage. To listen to thoughts and ideas of those that may be in a lesser title, pay-grade, or who come from a slower speed of thought than most high-performance leaders. But here is the deal: Those individuals may see something you and others at the top do not see. In sports, the environment is very collaborative. Rookies are playing alongside veterans. Varying experience and ability levels are playing, working, and learning together.

Why is this so shunned in modern business? Why does the top feel the need to call every play? Why would they want that extra pressure? With the surge of burnout and The Great Resignation unfolding, isn’t it time to embrace a change?

Leaders today make it more challenging for themselves when they choose not to use their greatest assets: their people. Many leaders fall victim to the equivalent of trying to play all nine positions on a baseball field, so no mistakes are made. Over-management is a problem. It is what burns out leaders and teams.

If you do not trust your people and their abilities to get things done, maybe it is time to look in the mirror. Being an Empowering, Collaborative Leader is not about letting people do whatever they want and telling them they are doing well when they aren’t.

It means let them be creative, bring ideas to the table, and if the group agrees and aligns with those ideas, give them some runway by getting out of the way. Manage people by giving them clarity around work scope and expectations— don’t become their dictator.

For years, I worked under the great Yankees manager, Joe Torre. His style was simple: Let people do their jobs. They are the experts. We brought them here for their talents. Be there to support them so they can be their best. When you have the right team on the lineup card, give them a chance to shine. Again, never shy away from giving your team clarity, expectations, timelines, constructive counsel, feedback, and accountability — but don’t forget to then get out of the way.

That is great leadership. Collaboration is a powerful growth tool.

When you’re a leader and an organization that believes in collaboration and weaves it into your culture and organizational core values, culture improves, and obtaining and retaining talent becomes even easier. Empowerment and collaboration may be what you and your team need to make this year your championship year.

Like many businesses, family-owned enterprises have had their share of challenges in the current economic landscape.

As each continues to make its way through the many obstacles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 EY and University of St. Gallen Family Business Index reveals just how vital family enterprises are for the global economy’s health. The resilience of these family businesses becomes even more evident as they continue to lead in job creation and opportunities within their communities.

Paul Dickerson, CEO of CREDO and a longtime leader of his family business SWEPCO, explains that most family businesses are resilient because they take the long view, focusing on decades and generations rather than meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings report. “Most are well diversified and global, keeping their debt low. Their offices aren’t lavish, but their factories are first-rate. Cash is king, and family enterprises reinvest earnings back into the company.” Dickerson’s family enterprise is an 88-year-old manufacturer of protective coatings and high-performance industrial lubricants with plants in the United States, Canada, and Europe.  

The family businesses represented in the Index collectively generate $7.28 trillion in revenue and employ 24.1 million people worldwide. That constitutes the third-largest economic contribution in the world (after the United States and China) by revenue — despite the global economy shrinking by 3.5% in 2020. This revealing trend magnifies how family businesses are vital to the future health and growth of every country’s economic well-being and post-pandemic recovery — and the trend shows no signs of slowing.

A Pandemic Brings Out the Best

For all the challenges COVID-19 presented, family businesses had the opportunity to showcase their agility, commitment to innovation, and sense of social responsibility by pivoting during the pandemic.

Carlos DeAldecoa Bueno, president of Eximius Coffee, owns a coffee storage and processing plant and the largest liquor distillery in Texas. During the pandemic, he put the entire distillery operations on hold and shifted production and bottling lines to manufacture hand sanitizer. “Carlos donated $200,000 worth of hand sanitizer to first responders, nonprofits, and the community in Texas,” says Dickerson, “and shipped over 80,000 gallons (about 30,000 liters) of hand sanitizer throughout the United States.”

The Family Business Index revealed numerous scenarios of family-owned enterprises pivoting during the pandemic — including restaurants creating makeshift drive-through lines to serve families affordable meals during the food shortage to owners not drawing a salary to make sure their people had paychecks.

Building Success Across Generations

The success of family businesses often comes down to the planning and vision of the first generation, with the next generation building on that legacy while following its own approach. Of course, success takes time, and although the COVID-19 pandemic has made the next generation’s survival more difficult, the Index cites 75% of the family businesses are over 50 years old. However, youth is not necessarily an impediment to the growth or the scaling of a family business.

Most of the reasons a family business doesn’t survive are preventable with proper succession planning and a strong commitment by family leadership. But scaling a business beyond its founders is tricky. At 30, Tze Boon Ong (pictured above), chairman of the board at ONG&ONG, took over the family architecture business after the death of his parents. To survive, Ong believes it essential that each new generation have a hunger for not just keeping the company alive but looking to innovate, grow, and steer the business in a revolutionary direction. Ong says success for him will be “in making my role obsolete — then I know I’ve done my family company a service.”

Sustaining the Focus on Gender Diversity

The 500 largest family businesses have 4,418 board seats; family members hold 1,041. Of those, 17% are female and 83% male. The share of companies with female family members on boards is 31% and is on par with global industry benchmarks.

Gender diversity among chief executives is equally challenging to family businesses and non-family firms. Five percent (27) of the family businesses on the Index have female CEOs, comparable with industry benchmarks of 8% (41) of Fortune Global 500 companies. Moreover, female CEOs are marginally more likely to be family members than external appointments.

Change starts with intention, Dickerson says, and finding talented female business leaders and creating the conditions for success must be a stated business objective. “I encourage family leaders to have a courageous conversation and then make hiring, retaining, and promoting women leaders part of their 5- to 10-year strategic plan. Next, appoint a task force to promote female leadership in the business, family council, and other family governance structures.”

Beyond being the right thing to do, Dickerson believes it’s smart business. “In the war for top talent, neglecting 50% of the candidates (women) will be a huge disadvantage. We have a long way to go, but I believe there is room for optimism. As this generation of leaders retires, attitudes toward women in leadership will shift.”

What NextGen Brings to the Table

The average family business board member is 61 years old, but the next generation brings more age diversity and new leadership to boards. One in five businesses on the Index has a next-generation member (40 or younger) on the board or on the management team. This represents a significant opportunity for boards to diversify and extend their talent pool.

“Embrace the next generation of leaders and the entrepreneurial spirit they offer,” Dickerson tells his peers. “Tap into their vision for the business; they are the pathway to renewal and rebirth of the family business. Over time, the core business normally looks little like its founding one. And turbulent times often accelerate this transition.”

Dickerson advises family businesses to formalize their internship programs, utilize innovation sprints as a source of new ideas, and let NextGen run with the strong concepts developed and see what they can do.

More than Profit

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is no longer a passing trend, especially for the next generation of family-owned business leaders. Presently, the total valuation of ESG assets is around $30 trillion. That’s more than 25% of the managed assets in the entire market.

A good proportion of the family businesses on the Index report formal ESG metrics, including 53% (264) reporting at least once on the GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database. Fifty-one percent of those companies come from EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India, and Africa), followed by 30% from the Americas, and 19% from Asia-Pacific. The United States has the highest number (42) of family companies that contributed to the GRI database.

Employees, customers, investors, and other stakeholders demand that companies play a more active role in addressing the world’s greatest challenges. As a result, NextGen family business owners will most certainly make ESG a top priority.

Stable and Agile: Families Find the Right Balance

The 2021 EY and University of St. Gallen Family Business Index reveals how important family enterprises are for the health of the global economy. Despite the pandemic, the largest 500 family businesses globally have proven their economic dominance and resilience. Longevity and stability have mattered as these businesses have managed their long-term business outlook with an ability to pivot in the short term. Being ready to value more diversity and skills from both the next generation of leaders and women leaders is a small step for them — particularly when talent is the key to addressing ESG, innovation, and future consumers.

“It is no surprise how family businesses can now attract top talent in the marketplace,” says Dickerson. “Many accomplished difference makers are tired of constant change in their firms; they long for stability, family comfort, and putting down roots.”

My previous experience with pivoting was scary. The world was changing fast, yet I knew nothing about sustainability and social impact. I knew these were crucial skills to acquire but didn’t know where to begin. Should I go back to school and take a sustainability course? How do I break into this strange new world? 

Once I’d identified a few strategies, it was simpler than I thought. I sought out groups in areas where I needed to fill my knowledge gaps and joined them. Once I was familiar with the basics, I offered my services as an advisor to tech for good startups, became a mentor to some incubators, and even a judge for some sustainability competitions. Immersing myself in this world of sustainable business was a way of absorbing information, experimenting with it, and developing my own insights and ideas on how I could become a part of it. Whether it was a Slack channel or a club or group, I slowly began to breathe the air of the space where I wanted to find myself. 

I’m also a firm believer in manifestation and kept repeating a phrase to myself: “I want to become involved in tech for good and social impact.” Gradually, I began surrounding myself with like-minded people, a journey that ironically led me back to someone I had worked with for nine years. She was further down the line than me on sustainability and was someone with whom I could deeply engage around social impact.

When I mentor young people today, I encourage them to dabble — often and as early as possible. Like launching a new product, you should dabble, experiment, and learn as you perfect it. Keep shortening the feedback cycles, learning from the failures, and highlighting the wins. Don’t overthink — just start doing.

The role of playfulness and fantasy is a very underrated and ignored practice among CEOs, yet this is precisely the realm in which many great things have happened throughout history. I spoke with a woman recently who’s building a thousand-story mall in the metaverse; the only limiting factor in today’s exciting world of technology is people’s imagination. The metaverse is a simulated digital environment that uses augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), blockchain, and social media concepts to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world. For companies struggling to create a new business model around sustainability, these new tools offer a perfect solution — you can start from scratch by building a sustainable version of what you might become in the metaverse, risk-free.

Imagination is one of the most underrated opportunities for CEOs today. However, you don’t have to go it alone. The skills needed to reinvent yourself will come through collaboration — weaving together multiple people, companies, and ideas to achieve your goal. Get creative around how you put these teams together; that in itself is a highly creative act. Our tagline at my new social impact venture, SustainChain, is further, faster, together. I’ve realized that collective action at scale is where the new business opportunities lie. Establishing a network of trust among values-aligned business leaders can create something significant. While you’re struggling with solutions to a business problem, there may be a completely unrelated business out there ready to scale that has the solution for you. The only way you’ll ever know is if you jump into the solution zone — found among impact entrepreneurs worldwide. You never know what you might find. www.SustainChain.world

Universal truths are arduous – if not impossible – to identify and articulate when it comes to leadership philosophy and effectiveness. Those seeking the secrets to success are typically well read on the topic (with an impressive bookshelf dedicated to the discussion) and passionate about their perceived thematic threads between Winston Churchill and Warren Buffett.

We have all seen it … the list that outlines the key characteristics of dynamic, driven leaders. Titans of industry and popular politicians. While there is ample information and inspiration to pull from and apply to one’s personal approach, the number of observations and recommendations can be overwhelming.

With decades of on-the-ground (though not always written down) leadership experience – within industries with acute emphasis on inspiring and influencing others – I have my own simplified perspective on what it takes to lead a talented team and act with influence. These are consistent characteristics that come from someone who has navigated a substantial and uphill hike to the upper echelon of meaningful management positions.

Sure, there are no shortage of lists about leadership and many authors are incredibly qualified to comment about this topic, but for me, there are three qualities that make-or-break a real leader.

1. Understand Your Business. 

Somewhat self-explanatory? Maybe. Non-negotiable for effective leadership? Most definitely. A great leader knows the nooks and crannies of their organization. In addition to maniacal management of the numbers and understanding of the market, they see beyond the steady drumbeat of the business and recognize the nuances. 

The most effective leaders I’ve had the opportunity to meet know their smallest customer, as well as their largest. Priorities must be in order, but the ins and outs of the procurement department performance – and the people within the department – get a real leader equally energized as an impressive earnings report. The leader shares their understanding – the team needs to know you know – but as a way of thinking and learning with the team, not lauding over them.

2. Put an Emphasis on Interpersonal Communication. 

The best leaders understand how to manage and maneuver through office politics and are steadfast in their statements. They understand the interpersonal dynamics of their team and adapt their approach to meet individuals’ expectations and inclinations. Emotional IQ is included, but it extends well beyond empathy and the ability to read a room. 

Real leaders put an emphasis on expression. They pay equal attention to what they say (or write), how they say it and to whom they are speaking. Each interaction is an opportunity to motivate an employee to move the mission forward. And, contrary to conventional wisdom, interpersonal communication isn’t a hereditary character trait. It’s a skill that can be learned and strengthened with concerted effort and a rightsized spot on a leader’s priority list. An anonymous quote I regularly reference sums it up: “The true essence of a leader is revealed by a person who cares about the opinions and needs of others in ways that transcend position or title.” 

3. Define Your Vision and Empower Others to Execute.

Strong leaders look toward the future and are able to articulate a clear vision that their staff can understand and be energized by. This is especially important for the impact industry where people are mission-driven. Leaders instill confidence by demonstrating competence. And a core competency for any impactful leader should include the capacity to rally a team around a shared strategy, and a strong sense of purpose for the work. 

Once the destination is set, give the talented team you’ve worked so hard to build, the tools and autonomy to map the course. I’ve learned that being in the weeds is being in the way when it comes to effective leadership. A leader must ensure everyone understands and is aligned with the objective, and then empower the team to execute. 

As a leader in the impact industry who thinks regularly about the future we will leave behind, I am motivated to help high-potential, high-performers prepare for prominent leadership positions that will ensure we continue pursuing and securing our intended outcomes. We are striving to strengthen communities. We need strong leaders to recognize the weight of this work and help expand the scope of what is possible. www.advantagecap.com

Sandra M. Moore is managing director and chief impact officer at Advantage Capital, a growth equity firm founded in 1992 with more than $3.8 billion AUM. The firm focuses on high-growth and high-wage businesses investing in communities where access to investment capital has historically been hard to find.