Are We Headed Toward A Leaderless Workplace?

Originally posted on ODN of New York Blog

So many trending topics in workplace dynamics suggest the diminishment of the role of leaders--the gig economy, where everyone is their own boss; leaderless matrix teams assembled for projects; flat organizational structures; and leaders coached to lean back, ask questions, and let their teams call the shots. Are we on our way to a leaderless workplace?

 Maybe. But I predict it won’t work and it won’t last.

Human nature is the only thing that has never evolved. Humans may physically look different than our ancestors and we certainly use more sophisticated tools and have a more complex man-made environment than ever before, but we are still social creatures. Much like ants and bees we don’t merely desire social structure, we require it to survive.

One of the more interesting aspects of human nature, however, is our strong aversion to our nature. We resist our social structures. Take a look at our animated movies about ants and bees. Those story lines are always about how the lead character breaks out of their assigned role and goes in their own direction. We value non-conformity in spite of our strongly conforming nature. This explains why those in assigned leadership roles are often met with lack of support and even outward hostility. Who doesn’t have a bad boss story? No one. 

It is therefore understandable that leaderless organizational structures appear to be superior. But, if those leaderless structures are examined more closely in practice, I believe it would become apparent that leaders emerge in those situations regardless of the desire to work without them. It just takes longer and is likely more frustrating for everyone in the early stages of the process while the group struggles for a leader to emerge.

Having a leader, therefore, remains critical for getting any group of humans to work together toward a common objective. Being a leader is an art, a science, and on some days a magic trick, getting results in spite of the odds against you. Yes, you have to engage the team, and many times defer to the expertise of others, to get the best results. And, yes, you need to do more listening than talking. But, someone needs to have the vision for the future state and guide others to get there. And, it needs to be clear to the team who is in that leadership role. Like it or not, it is just how humans are wired to operate.

What does this mean for your company? Invest in developing leaders. Strong, effective leadership will always deliver a good return on your investment and, more important, leadership is never going out of style.

Are you treating your employees like the office furniture?

Maybe you should.

Years ago Jerry Seinfeld did a bit on lemon juice. He talked about how the labels on the lemon juice in the fruit juice aisle at the grocery story said “imitation lemon flavor”. But, if you went to the cleaning supply aisle, the furniture polish labels touted “made with real lemon juice”. The punch line was “we’re spraying the good stuff on the furniture!”

The incongruence makes it funny, but the point is valid. Shouldn’t what you put in your body be of better quality than what you’d spray on your furniture? Of course it should.

This same metaphor can be used for marketing. We typically reserve it for prospects and customers. We study their wants and needs, their buying patterns and social media usage. We map their journey with our brand. We tailor our product offerings and promotions to best suit the needs of our prospects and customers. We care deeply about them.

The model for business success through marketing is clear: awareness and engagement with a positive brand experience leads to customer loyalty, profits, and business growth.

We believe it and we invest in it.

We dedicate entire divisions of our larger companies to marketing and fill them with the best experts we can find. And, they are entirely focused on turning target prospects into customers and customers into repeat and loyal customers.

But, what about your employees?

They are decidedly the most important customers you have. They are ultimately responsible for making the business successful. They need to be sold on the value of the business to them personally as well as to the customers. Their interactions with prospects and customers determine whether that brand experience your marketers work so hard to define actually plays out in reality.

The model for business success through employees is also clear: engaged employees deliver superior experiences to customers which leads to customer loyalty, profits, and business growth.

But, we don’t believe in this fully.

We let the notion of paying our employees cloud our view. We feel by compensating our employees we are doing all that is necessary and the rest is their responsibility. If we do research on our employees’ views, we often discount any negative responses as due to poor performing employees that “don’t get it” or poor leadership from our middle managers.

Maximizing business success requires putting the same marketing effort toward your employees as you do your customers, if not more. Make selling the business to your employees an important function:

1.     Use the marketing discipline to define your target employee, map the experience, and determine the real value you deliver beyond compensation and benefits. Focus on the value the organization delivers to world and how the employees make that happen.

2.     Develop communication to your employees with a tone and voice that matches your brand’s personality. Not just slogans and platitudes, but real dialog. Expand the conversation beyond the “rules” and delve into content that validates and inspires employees.

3.     Hire marketing professionals on to your human resources team with the mission of turning target prospective employees into employees, and employees into loyal employees and brand ambassadors. Not ready to make that commitment to additional FTEs? Hire a consultant to assess your company’s employer brand and recommend some action steps to get started leveraging existing staff.

In other words, get started on spraying the good stuff on your employees.