Flexibility: The quality of a good leader

A lot has changed in the world from a year ago when I started this series of articles and nothing has changed.   The third most important issue raised at the chamber dialogue session was flexibility of management.  The need for flexibility is no different now than it was prior to the financial crises. In an article posted by Harvard Business Publishing, the question posed to leaders given all the turmoil in the economy was "what kind of leadership do we need now?"  The most common responses were; "adaptive, flexible and innovative" leadership.

  
The question is, are we willing to be flexible?
 
I will address three areas of flexibility; leadership, management and humanistic, that I believe will support companies to be better organizations in the future. 

Leadership
Where is your business going?  Being open to seeing different possibilities for your business is vital especially when a major shift occurs in the economy.  One of my clients doubled the size of his business and cultivated an environment of a high performance team over a one year period.  Within the next six months he had to adapt to the market realities and laid almost everyone off, except for a few core staff. 
 
What was his vision?  Maintain a core group of people, operate the company at break even and be ready for when the industry comes back.  What to do with the extra capacity?  He worked on developing a training school for the key skill set where it was most difficult for him to hire people.  It was his flexibility of thinking that allowed him to be adaptive and innovative setting himself up to succeed in his vision of the future. 
 
Management
How do we need to be flexible with our people?   Each person that works in your organization or on your team is unique.  People can be categorized by generation, gender, nationality, personality style, thinking style, etc.   At the end of the slicing and dicing people are unique and yet the same.  
 
People want to be treated as if they matter and what they think is important.   For you as a manager to deal with all of these differences requires flexibility, adaptability and the willingness to be innovative with your people to assist them to bring out the best in themselves. The skill you will use most is communication. Your biggest personal challenge maybe the frustration you feel because people are not the same. 

Humanistic  
Then there are the catastrophes that happen in people's lives, that in business, we would often like to ignore.   Catastrophes can range from the death of a loved one, changes in relationships, illness and the happy catastrophe of a baby to mention just a few.   These catastrophes are part of the humanness of our lives.   Having gone through my own relationship transition this past year, I am intricately aware of it's impact on my ability to be highly productive (or not as the case may be) and hence the negative impact on my business productivity. 
 
As managers you will be faced with people who are not as productive for a period of time due to a personal catastrophe.  Are you personally equipped to be flexible and can the work be adapted to support people through their transitions?   
 
It is companies like these where the best people want to work and bring their talent.  As the leader of these really good people, not only will your company survive in a difficult market it will excel in a flourishing market because you have captured the heart of your people.
 
Wishing you flexibility to springboard you forward;
 
Jacque