People & Culture

HR Leaders: How Well Do You Really Know Yourself and Your Team?

6 min read

As a people leader, managing the complexities of team dynamics and organisational growth is a delicate balancing act. This was evident at our recent roundtable event where HR leaders from across the industrial and energy sectors, joined together to discuss their views on leadership challenges.

Existing challenges

HR leaders highlighted several talent challenges within their organisations and markets. Economic instability and supply chain disruptions, particularly in industries that experience frequent cyclical booms and busts, was a prominent concern. Establishing effective leadership teams is critical, yet difficult, amid geopolitical tensions and cross-cultural differences that can negatively impact employee morale.

Additionally, companies face sustainability issues, including reducing their own corporate carbon footprint and navigating the broader energy transition. Balancing staffing levels, whether dealing with overstaffing or under-resourcing, is another significant challenge. Prioritisation becomes essential as senior leadership often has to manage multiple critical initiatives simultaneously.

Maintaining a strong talent pool is crucial for growth, requiring existing staff to step up, given the limited time for onboarding and training new hires effectively.

Attendees expressed the need for a cohesive and talented team as vital to an organisation’s success and growth.

The need for individual and corporate change

Often corporate cultures exhibit strong resistance to change, requiring resilience and intentional focus to drive transformation forward. For new initiatives to take root, it is essential for senior leaders to believe in and embrace the idea, as their leadership is crucial for broader adoption.

A heavy focus on process change can overshadow the need for the accompanying mindset and behavioural change which is often the most challenging part, though once achieved, the momentum for change led by the early adopters, can build naturally. Although senior leadership may advocate for agendas like DE&I and sustainability, they sometimes retract against such agendas when faced with difficulties; effective leaders with steadfast resolve are vital for realising substantial positive impact.

The ability to identify and engage with individuals and establish teams who are passionate and committed to implementing such a positive impact, is essential in today’s corporate environment.

A path to enhanced leadership

Andrew Rodgers invited us to consider a modern sports team - the coach will have a significant volume of data, insights and statistics detailing their players' performance which are then fed back into training to identify gaps and optimise play, enabling the team to be more successful.

Similarly, the Odgers Berndtson Next-Level-Growth (NLG) approach incorporating the LeaderFitTM team profile applies data-based insights to assess a senior team’s leadership competencies, thereby enabling performance potential to be identified and achieved whilst mitigating against previously unforeseen derailers.

In the context of the challenges mentioned, HR leaders need to ask themselves key questions such as:

How well does the team know itself?
What is the teams’ potential?
What impact is it having?
What is the team mindset?

If the existing knowledge is based on day-to-day working relationships, gut feeling and biases, how valuable, strong, or reliable is it for informing your commercial operations?

The NLG approach can assist in the following key areas:

Identity

Our LeaderFitTM profile helps organisations better understand their performance potential identity using a rigorous scientific approach, providing clarity on a leadership teams capability to deliver on the organisational strategic objectives.

Impact

NLG identifies the impact a leadership team is having on the organisation, determining prevalent behaviours and whether they are helping or hindering strategy fulfilment.

Improvement

Change begins with self-awareness for growth proficiency and improvement, activated through new leadership mindsets, permeating the organisation. NLG establishes new growth mindsets enabling leadership team and organisational success.

The group shared and discussed real examples of how these dynamics can play out. It was clear from the discussion that supporting leaders to understand themselves and their team is a critical competitive advantage in the constantly changing business environment.

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