Leadership Development

In today’s workplace, we increasingly want leaders who are “real”. Countless leaders, in politics and business alike, have disappointed us because they’ve misled or even deceived us. We’ve always yearned for trusting relationships, and we’ve felt let down so often. Our belief in authoritarian leadership has been on the decline for decades, and it is an incomprehensible concept to many Millennials. In addition, we all have a growing dissatisfaction with polished, faceless leadership – we want to know our leaders. This is a reason why personal branding and top management branding are on the rise: it helps you to know yourself, and then understand how to portray who you authentically are.

Authentic leadership is an approach that emphasises building a leader’s legitimacy through honest relationships with followers that are built on an ethical foundation. Authentic leaders value the input of their followers, and they are generally positive, self-aware people who promote openness.

Excerpted from Mette Johansson’s book, How to Make Yourself Promotable. To read more, visit Mette’s website to purchase the book.

“Know thyself”; Emotional Intelligence; integrity and fairness; and being able to focus on the main issue.

Mette Johansson is a strong advocate of diversity and inclusion. To hear her full thoughts on the matter, the links below direct to interview recordings of her on the topic:

https://omny.fm/shows/money-fm-893/mette-johansson

https://www.bfm.my/podcast/enterprise/hervantage/ent-hv-asia-women-speakers-mette-johansson#.XAiXHinI2_8.linkedin

Diversity is the umbrella term that covers all of the traits and characteristics which make people different from one another. It includes differences in background, sexual orientation, skin colour and ethnicity, ability, gender, education and much more.

Vernā Myers distinguished between Diversity and Inclusion by saying: “Diversity is being invited to the party; Inclusion is being asked to dance.”

Inclusion is about the behaviour or way of treating others in an accepting or welcoming manner. Many D&I experts have gone on to focus on ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, feels respected and heard in the workplace. That everyone can speak their minds freely, and feel a true sense of belonging.

Equity and equality are distinct terms. Equality is based on providing everyone with the same rights. However, look at the attached picture? Is providing these two people the same opportunities at work truly fair?

Equity is providing everyone what they need to succeed.

The business world is growing more diverse. Which is good for the bottom line – and even more so when employees have a good dose of cultural intelligence.

Cultural intelligence means:

• Strong curiosity of others and differences in wants, needs, and behaviour

• In-depth knowledge of how cultures differ

• Excellent observation skills on the impact of culture on relationship and business processes

• A superior ability to adapt to different ways of doing things, and finally;

• Defining successful strategies to navigate cultures.

Whether you work in or with a regional office, headquarters, or with virtual teams, MetaMind Training’s workshop will help you to truly appreciate cultural differences.

Individuals will learn to effectively navigate cultures, read and adapt to different cultures, as well as develop strategies for effective cross-cultural communication, including high-level negotiations.

For teams, it means higher acceptance of differences, less friction, smoother collaboration, and, through the inclusion of novel ideas, an increased level of innovation.

Ineffective leadership has many disadvantages, ranging from low engagement and thus low performance rates, to high staff turnover, and even higher burnout rate among staff.

In addition, effective leadership is about treating others human beings with due respect, and is therefore the right thing to do.

MetaMind Training’s founder, Mette Johansson, has written two blogs that emphasise the importance of effective leadership:

• What’s the true cost of poor management in your company?

• The Credibility Of CEOs Fell By 12 Points This Year To Just 37 Percent

According to Harrison Assessments’ website, “the Harrison assessments focuses on providing the most accurate and effective assessments in the industry by dedicating a large portion of its resources to research, development and user-friendly software engineering.”

We have chosen Harrison Assessments as our preferred psychometric testing tool because we don’t see a correlation between personality trait and performance. For instance, why measure whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, as many tests do? Intuitively, we think that introverts are not good at people skills, and think that salespeople must be extroverts. However, research tells us that the best salespeople tend to be introverts – so why do we still use personality traits when we wish to raise performance?

The Harrison Assessment looks at your work preferences. It is based on the theory that we tend to do a task more frequently when we enjoy doing it, and thus become better at it. Our preferences are good indicators of how we tend to behave at any point of time.

Similarly, it looks at what you value at work, and at MetaMind, we know that we get energised when we do what we truly value.

Finally, the Harrison Assessment knows that a behaviour trait is not necessarily good or bad, and there are two sides that need to be balanced. For instance, being ‘frank’ may be an asset; but only when balanced with the right dose of ‘diplomacy’. The same is true for a total of 12 ‘paradox traits’, including analysing pitfalls versus taking risk and being assertive versus being helpful.

Balancing these traits that may seem at odds with each other, but in effect are synergistic, provides deep insight into how you can optimise how you show up at work.

We will provide you a survey link, which takes about 20 minutes to complete. After this assessment, we will provide a thorough debrief and jointly discuss a personal development plan. You will typically choose one area of improvement, which can, for example, form the basis of an ongoing, individual leadership transformation coaching programme.