As a senior executive who has retired from the military reserves with over 20 years
of service and in parallel operated in the corporate world for the past 30 years,
I have seen leadership transform. What’s most apparent to me now is we are more in
tune with what drives peak performance in teams while leveraging technology hardware
and software to enable the strategic imperatives of the business.
When I first started in business and the military, leadership was much more command
and control. Today, however, leadership is centered more around leaders serving their
teams and taking the time to influence more through their emotional quotient (EQ)
rather than titles or power.
Through decades of research, industrial psychologists have developed profiles for
good leadership and the means to assess those people leaders. Technology has played
a role in those assessments of leaders and capturing and archiving data for year-over-year
and peer-to-peer comparison.
The Environment
My experience in today’s business is that it’s very dynamic and challenging with greater
needs and expectations of employees and customers. The past few years have been unprecedented
with talent shortages continuing to rise, the need to upskill and reskill the existing
workforce and customer demand being unpredictable with higher expectations.
I am now having to make decisions more quickly with greater precision, delighting
a more diverse customer base and ensuring valuable experiences for talent in the company.
The Tools
The good news is that leaders today have more tools and assets than before. Software,
machines/robots, artificial intelligence and people are the most important assets
in any company.
Leveraging robots, software and artificial intelligence requires strategic thought
on a foundation of the ethical and moral context of the business while balancing the
companies’ purpose, vision, values, commitment and behaviors.
I found this to be the solid foundation on which we operated — leading to an organizational
culture that fosters trust, engagement and inclusiveness. As these multitudes of tools
cohabitate in one environment, I have had to invest in the continuous learning of
my teams, focusing on digital communication, cybersecurity awareness, information
management and data literacy.
We have put even extra focus on data literacy to ensure data is understood and interpreted
correctly. This has enabled informed decision-making with greater precision.
Equally, we have also focused on ensuring our artificial intelligence systems address
concerns about bias and privacy. It has been critical for our organization to put
guardrails up in a transparent and balanced manner, as we know we will be held accountable
for any inaccuracies and shortfalls. The team and I have invested time in understanding
the depth and capabilities of our artificial intelligence system while managing its
abilities effectively. Our implementation has been game changing, giving us speed
and lowering our cost to serve the business.
Leveraging Assets Effectively
At one of my former companies, I had growing pressures of lowering the cost to serve
with higher demand for key critical skill hiring within a very niche environment.
We were faced with tremendous headwinds in the market, and our business was counting
on us to deliver.
The team came together and participated in a “possibility thinking” exercise, generating
ideas that would achieve the greatest value. My strategy was to leverage technology
by redirecting routine and mundane work that I call foundation work.
We needed to scan a high volume of resumes; this is where I made the investment in
an applicant tracking system (ATS). Its software used algorithms to analyze resumes
and match them against specific criteria such as skills, work experience, education
and certifications. It enabled us to filter through large volumes of resumes efficiently
and identify the most suitable candidates as part of our first-screen candidate selection
process.
Internally we launched a campaign to collect skills and career-aspirational data from
our workforce. All employees loaded their skills and short- to long-term career aspirations
in our Human Resource Information Management System (HRIM). This data enabled the
artificial intelligence tool built into the system to make learning and development
recommendations and career move proposals that would enable their capability build.
The last piece of our strategy was to use “bots,” short for robots. Bots are software
programs designed to automate tasks, and with speed and precision, our bots entered
data into our HRIM system to enable the accurate onboarding of our new hires.
As a result, we were able to go to the market and find talent with the right capabilities
and hire them quickly while having a good inventory of internal capabilities with
the right focus on the development required to close capability gaps.
Summary
As I continue my leadership journey in the 21st century, I am expected to lead a broad
network of stakeholders (employees, shareholders, customers, investors, suppliers/partners).
To win in this dynamic marketplace, I have found that being a boundaryless collaborator
across the stakeholder network serves the best interest of the business, given that
I am able to promote teamwork while harvesting the collective intelligence around
one purpose, one mission.
Leveraging technology, including artificial intelligence, has become so sensationalized
that its often misunderstood. This can become “noise” and a distraction from creating
value for the company. I believe this type of technology can enhance our work environment,
but we must take the time to understand it and anchor ourselves on the values and
principles of the company, while ensuring we have solid guardrails in place that will
delight customers and deliver a great people experience.
As a leader, I have adopted these traits: external focus, imagination, inclusiveness,
courage, clear thinking and continuous learning. Leaders must be externally focused,
ensuring what they are doing will leapfrog the competition. They also must be imaginative
and have the courage to act on their ideas. Leaders must also embrace inclusiveness,
listening to the diverse perspectives of those around them.
Leaders must also be clear thinkers to distill the most complex of problems. Continuous
learning has also served me well, as I have immersed myself to new ideas and concepts.
I will continue to be a lifelong learner — it is challenging and rewarding all in
one.
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of In the Lead magazine, from Buccino Leadership Institute. The bi-annual magazine focuses on leadership perspectives from the field of health
care, with content that is curated from leaders across the industry who share lessons
learned from real-world experiences.
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