Talent Management - November 2008 - (Page 42)

dashboard by Linda Stewart Understanding the New Leadership Model Leaders can make or break an organization and talent managers play a critical role in their identiﬁcation and development . Recent research reveals new leadership characteristics that impact how talent managers execute those critical tasks. G lobal service-based and team-oriented businesses are expanding rapidly, four generations are now in the workplace and social networks are ubiquitous in business and personal life. These modern facts of talent management life — among others — mean one of talent managers’ most critical tasks is to ensure their organizations can successfully identify and integrate new leaders and unleash their potential. Further, today’s top-performing leaders need to add some new skills to their portfolios for long-term success. To promote the dynamic leadership development required to drive business results, talent managers need to understand the new trends in leadership and be proactive and focused when taking steps to attract, retain and develop strong and effective business leaders. The Successful Leaders Makeup most all leaders surveyed. Further, leaders’ proﬁciency in social motivation is signiﬁcantly higher today than in surveys of the past 50 years. Another characteristic of highly socially motivated individuals is their desire to eliminate hate and conﬂict in the world. That is more important than ever before in today’s highly globalized marketplace. Modern leaders must manage resources in all parts of the world and be able to lead multiple generations in the workplace. For the ﬁrst time in history, there are four — some say ﬁve — generations in the workforce with just as many different value systems, and all need to work collectively. Understanding how to lead, manage and help these different groups achieve their full potential requires skills that were not necessary when only one or two generations worked together. Further, these larger and more diverse groups require that leaders possess far greater understanding on how to best manage and inspire them. The study also revealed that gender is not a factor when evaluating a leader’s social competency. Effective leaders, regardless of gender, all require demonstration of some level of competency in this new skill, and the range of proﬁciency is consistent across both genders. The business disciplines practiced by leaders also are not a factor; the presence of social motivation is consistent across all disciplines at the leadership level. What It Takes Effective leadership has as much to do with the presence of the right behaviors and motivators as it does with skills and experience. In other words, often leaders can transcend disciplines to effectively lead if they possess a combination of top motivators such as utilitarianism, individualism and social acumen. These revelations can have a profound impact on the way companies identify employees’ proclivity to dem- In May, professional services ﬁrm Epoch partnered with talent management ﬁrm Focus Insights to conduct the “Epoch Financial Services Leadership Study” that included behavioral and motivational assessments of 200 ﬁnancial services executives across various disciplines. Study results revealed that strong leaders continue to score highly in their utilitarian motivation — the need to have every investment they make have a greater return in time or resources — and their high results-driven orientation. They also exhibit individualistic motivation — the need to advance to higher positions in life and to gain power by leading and directing others. According to Eduard Spranger, author of Types of Man, these two traits always have been present in successful business leaders. However, the Epoch study shows an important and signiﬁcant new trend. The social motivator, deﬁned as a willingness invest one’s own time and resources in helping others achieve their potential, is signiﬁcantly higher than it used to be and is now common among al- 42 November 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - November 2008

Talent Management - November 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Recruitment & Retention Assessment & Evaluation Compensation & Benefits Performance Management Learning & Development Succession Planning Insight Dashboard Application Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - November 2008

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