Equip Your Managers to Lead Through Future Workplace Challenges

The modern workplace is becoming more complex — and managers may not be equipped to keep up with all the changes.

According to research from workforce solutions provider Careerminds, most of the surveyed HR professionals and managers said they do not believe managers are ready to lead through the following challenges:

• Career development in evolving roles (63% of managers; 56% of HR professionals).
• Artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and use (62% of managers; 59% of HR professionals).
• Organizational change and restructuring (59% of managers; 56% of HR professionals).

The managers stepping into the uncertainties of tomorrow are no longer just managers, experts posited. They’re coaches, problem solvers, mentors, project supervisors, change agents, administrators…the list goes on.

“Today’s leaders are expected to execute like Elon [Musk], coach like Ted Lasso and inspire like Oprah [Winfrey],” said Anne Grady, an adaptability expert, speaker and author. “We’re putting more demands on leaders than ever before.”

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Attain Tomorrow's Leadership Skills Today

Top-down strategy is no longer the name of the game. Managers are being asked to demonstrate agility, strategic problem-solving and innovation by making calls and pivoting in real time, said Sue Cantrell, the human capital eminence leader and associate vice president of analytics and insights at consulting firm Deloitte.

“Managers are moving from translators of senior leadership strategy into agile decision-makers who respond to changing conditions on the ground,” she said.

Cantrell and Grady shared other manager skills that may become increasingly relevant in the rapidly evolving workplace:

• Measuring their team’s emotional state and recognizing stressors impacting them.
• Cognitive and behavioral flexibility.
• Becoming not only a subject matter expert, but an expert at handling uncertainty.
• Redesigning workflows to optimize human and automated interactions.
• Divergent, contrarian or lateral thinking.
• Curiosity and resilience.
• Systems thinking, spanning boundaries and strategy shaping.

Increased utilization of AI will not negate the need to skillfully coach, nurture and motivate team members. Deloitte research showed that effective team development can boost direct reports’ performance by up to 27% and make them 1.5 times more likely to exceed their goals.

Cantrell noted one of the strongest threads running through these modern skills is judgment — a uniquely human capability that will be more important than ever as AI continues to integrate further into the workplace.

Give Managers Leadership Training and Support

The Deloitte research also found that almost 75% of the surveyed organizations agreed it’s critical to reinvent the manager’s role and build new capabilities, but only 25% have efforts underway to do so and only 7% reported making meaningful progress in their strategy.

Managers often transition into their roles due to business necessity, not because they were already proficient leaders before they were promoted, said Kevin Tamanini, the vice president of professional services at leadership consulting firm DDI.

“They are then given little space to practice,” he explained. “The moment development is perceived as competing with getting the work done, it loses every time.”

Grady said all the training in the world won’t matter if you don’t give managers:

• Time to practice and develop leadership skills;
• A realistic workload and support — if they’re stretched too thin, there’s no remaining capacity to effectively lead; and
• Autonomy to manage people in their own way, using provided frameworks and training.

“Let leaders know what’s most important and then give them the tools to be able to do that,” she said.

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

For more information and resources related to this article, see the pages below, which offer quick access to all WorldatWork content on these topics:

• Career Growth
• Employee Recognition
• People Analytics