How’s things? I hope you’re having a fun week š
What makes a great leader?
88% said that it includes facilitating collaboration and enabling others to contributeā¦ and influencing others ā even without a formal title or position.
Iām doing some research with leaders who navigate complexity to lead, design, and deliver change. Thereās been a great response with some interesting patterns emerging from the data.
One of the questions is: what does it mean to be a leader? Some other stats so farā¦
96% agreed that being a leader means bringing people together with a clear purpose to achieve shared goals.
82% said it means adapting your style and approach based on the situation and context.
72% agree leadership starts with and includes self-leadership.
Less than 2% felt that leadership requires a title or position of authority.
But what makes a great leader?
When asked to think about the qualities of a great leader theyād worked with, the most common traits in order of frequency are empathy, vision, clarity (or being clear), team (or teamwork), communication, growth, and authenticity.
Some quotes to give you more of a flavour of what people value in their leadersā¦
āHumility, empathy, and commitment to serving others. He prioritised the teamās well-being, listened actively, and empowered us to excel. His leadership fostered trust, collaboration, and a positive work environment.ā ā Healthcare Company Leader (Singapore)
āThey cared about their team, expected greatness and supported you to achieve it, lived the values even when it was hard.ā ā Financial Services Company People & Culture Leader (Australia)
āClear, constructive, willing to have the hard conversations, available, pragmatic and action orientated. Someone I can learn from.ā ā Energy Company Innovation & Sustainability Leader (NZ)
Research insights
This is just a taste and more themes, stats, quotes, and insights will be coming soonā¦ in the meantime, why not get involved if you havenāt already š
Get involved!
Iām curious to learn more about how youāre adapting to meet the rapidly shifting expectations of your teams, customers, investors, and regulators. Iāll present the findings from my research in a report. It might even evolve into my next book.
Join the waitlist for the report now to be the first to get it. When you join the waitlist, youāre also invited to complete the survey that takes ~5 minutes, and you can express interest in being interviewed.
Thereās been a great response since I started in Aprilā¦ a huge thanks to the more than 80 people whoāve already shared their experience and insights. I’m doing more interviews at the moment too. More soonā¦
Ideas
An event for you…
SydDT #103/Design Connection #2: Operationalising Great Work Cultures with Dan Szuc
For our 12 September Sydney Design Thinking meetup, weāre lucky to have Dan Szuc from Make Meaningful Work visiting from Hong Kong to introduce CultureOpsā¢ ā a methodology that transforms organisational culture from an abstract concept into a tangible, actionable strategy.
Come join us for some fun conversations with interesting people in and around the design community. New members are welcome! Grab your ticket nowā¦
If you miss out you can always watch the recording. We’ve got a bunch on Youtube…
Letās Collaborate
At Dynamic4, we specialise in coaching, training, and working alongside leaders to solve problems that matter. With 30+ years in financial services, this is one of my happy places.
A key way we do this is by designing and delivering project-based leadership programs that use a learning through doing approach ā with coaching ā to help leaders adapt to increasing expectations and complexity.
We do this by bringing together design thinking, regenerative innovation, wellbeing, and purpose into an integrated practice.
These sessions build personal, team, and organisational capability to solve problems that matter with more:
ā¤ļø Clarity on your purpose, goals, and approach to navigate complexity and make progress
šÆ Momentum to achieve your goals by building the workflows, rhythms, and habits for success
šæ Confidence to move forward with more certainty and less risk while increasing your wellbeing
Keen to chat about how we can collaborate to solve problems that matter? Book a free 15-minute discovery call.
Have fun!
Ben
