Leadership is increasingly about upliftment

Organizations have historically faced a perennial tussle to retain talent. But never more acute
ly than in the current Knowledge Age when Knowledge Workers are in great demand. The other side of the coin is about increasing expectations of people. The Knowledge revolution has resulted in increased awareness levels of people; they now, not only know the grass is greener on the other side but can see how much greener and by what shade of green. This has resulted in raising the expectations of people. Aspirations range from better standards of living for themselves and their loved ones to better careers and even better treatment at work.
It is not as if, these expectations are new – the human heart always aspired – the yearnings have only sharpened. Leaders today find the demands on them are expectedly huge. Even this is not new, considering that Leaders were always expected to uplift their people, the change is in terms of scale and immediacy of expectations.
The age of Leaders living in the world of self – aggrandizement are decidedly over – agitations in the political sphere are an indicator of the intensity and power of the driving forces of desire and ambition. Followers are about immediacy, they cannot wait and they will brook no delay.
These are grave, testing time for leadership in every sphere, the message that is rising up the ranks is deliver or disappear ! Leadership that cannot deliver is neither endearing nor enduring and are apt to land in the trashcan of history.
For business organizations, the surest smoke signals are the rising swirl of attrition. People leaving the organization can no more be considered a mere statistic covered by the ‘fig leaf’ of ‘leaving for better prospects.’ The rising percentage of attrition in an organization could be a sure indicator of a deeper malaise. There has never been a time when quality of leadership has been more directly and decidedly responsible for organizational success, nay survival. Good followers can still take an organization to giddy heights but the existential question is how to keep good followers engaged and involved.
Expectations are not necessarily monetary - which could most often easily met – but could be in more challenging areas such as reward and recognition, quality of work challenges, value addition, ambience, ethics, and respectful interactions. These expectations have huge emotive potential, huge enough to excite anarchy, if unfulfilled. Anarchic episodes in organizations even today are not unheard of but the concern is that they could grow in number and scale.
The challenge to Leadership is present and emergent !
The age of sophistication in selecting, appointing and training Leadership is very much here - and here to stay !