Why business leaders must upscale their skills

The world is a dynamic hub of different human activities, including business. It is the directions given by the leaders that give the world its meaning. Leadership has been defined as the ability to influence others. It is not a matter of age, sex, educational qualification, colour, tribe or religion. It is the ability of one person to inspire others to do some activities. Types of leaders include: political, traditional, business, institution, religious and sports leaders, according to function. According to style of leadership, we have autocratic (dictatorial), laissez faire, democratic, strategic, transformational, visionary, coaching, bureaucratic, transactional, pace-setting and situational leaders. According to demography, we have youth, women, people with disability (PWD), ethnic leaders etc. According to the institution, we have a market, club, bank, church, school or education institution, community, union and team leaders, etc.

One common thing about these leaders is that they have followers whom they must influence. They are in charge of moving people to work voluntarily and without coercion. Since the business environment is dominated by people who have objectives to meet, business leaders must be ready to adapt to the needs of the people they are leading in order to influence them effectively. According to Tiffany D. Kriz, Ayraham N. Kluger and Christ J. Lyddy in “Feeling Heard: Experiences of Listening (or Not) at Work” published online in 2021 by Journal of Front Psychology, “listening has been identified as a key workplace skill, important for ensuring high-quality communication, building relationships, and motivating employees. Business leaders must learn to listen beyond hearing, a requirement in leading today’s employees. They must allow ‘modern’ employees to air their views and encourage the ‘introverts’ among them to contribute to the ‘production process’.

Modern employees are different from the employees of the past. Amongst others, age diversity among workers has brought about generational differences in the workplace, with each generation having unique work beliefs. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, there are about five different generations in workplaces today, right from the Silent Generation to Gen Z. It is glaring that the generational differences are impacting business organisations’ functioning. Among different generations in the workplace, there are a variety of preferences and values. The differences between the age groups are quite small but their styles are great. For instance, millennials may want to communicate with other workers via texts, while baby boomers do not want that. A popular belief is that millennials prefer flexible or virtual work schedules while their older counterparts prefer a traditional workday.

Leading skills today are different from leading skills of the past. Leaders do not only lead human beings, they also lead robots, other structures with artificial intelligence and team members who are computer literate and information technology-compliant. In the past, employees worked generally in physical offices and regularly met each other and their leaders. They listen to instructions from their leaders for each round of production and hold physical meetings regularly. They work for pay and future advancement. Today, employees meet through virtual meetings on zoom and telegram. They chat with social media tools. What modern employees are generally concerned about is the common goal of their organisations, their targets and how to meet them. Leaders’ goals still remain the same – to make sure that employees meet their targets.

Work environments are changing daily and business leaders also need to upscale their skills daily to be able to meet up with their team members’ yearnings. For the first time in history, there are five generations in the workplace. They are: Traditionalists – born between 1925 and 1945; Baby Boomers – born from 1946 and 1964; Generation X – born from 1965 and 1980; Millennials – born from 1981 and 2000; and Generation Z – born from 2001 and 2020. This complex work diversity brings a lot of challenges for today’s leaders. Generational workforce differences affect leaders’ ability to manage employees effectively. The traits, beliefs, needs and life experiences that mark each generation, influencing how they work, communicate, and respond to change, must be appreciated by today’s leaders before they can effectively lead them successfully.

This is why the most common business training in the business circle today  is leadership training. Modern leaders are expected to be versatile and to be on top of their games. From business profitability goals to sustainability requirements of businesses and from employees’ management to corporate social responsibilities of the immediate community of the business, business leaders have tasking roles to play. Business schools of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and reputable business schools like London Business School, IESE Business School, Chicago Booth School of Business, Kellogg School of Business, Tuck School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management and Lagos Business School, have short leadership training courses all year round.

Leaders cannot afford to be docile in the new millennium business world. They must believe in self-development more than managers and other employees to continue to be ahead. They can do this through networking with their peers, reading research findings from international magazines like The Economic Times, The Economist Magazine, The Walls Street Journal, business journals and regularly observing and listening to their team members.

Leadership methods are generally divided into two: general leadership skills which cut across all regions and localised leadership skills which are unique to different workers in different organisations. The localised leadership skills in banks are different from those of manufacturing industries as their processes are different. The last COVID-19 epidemic which has made it glaring that some types of workers can work “office-less” successfully has made leadership requirements to be more challenging. Leaders must therefore upscale regularly to meet today’s requirements and future needs of employees.