Leadership Skills in the Digital Era - Part 1

Today, we all are facing challenges in keeping up with the younger generation. Parenting has become a challenge. The new generation which is ambitious, full of ideas, self motivated, carefree, and is able to acquire knowledge and skills much faster than one could imagine.

How this could be made possible? Today the access to information at the click of a button has made learning interesting and exciting. It has made the younger generation more independent in learning and satisfying their curiosity. My 8 year old daughter is able to Google topics that are taught in the class and learn by herself using her tablet. The mind games she has downloaded on her tablet keeps her engaged and had sharpen her mind. This pattern of learning is observed more or less across all the kids of her age .

Schools are designing new methods of teaching children by incorporating the newer technologies as teaching aids. They are not only preparing the children but also coaching the parents how to deal with the new generation kids. The challenges in front of the new age parents are -

1. How to channel their children creativity in the right direction.
2. How to provide right kind of coaching to nurture and develop their talent
3. How to help and support them in their career selection.
4. And most importantly how to help them become independent by letting them go (leaving the nest) and not interfere thereafter.

It is critical to strike a delicate balance between directing, coaching and supporting. Too much spoon feeding or directing would make the child irritating and incapable to making own decisions thereby look up to parents for the decision making at every stage and would harm their learning ability. Similarly, if the child at a formative stage is left alone without proper direction, guidance or coaching, then despite being amazingly brilliant would not be able to realize his or her full potential as they would grow with lack self-confidence and motivation.

There is a similarity between how parents groom their children and how good companies develop people. Companies are made up of people and it is its  people who run the business. In a company there are people who have different skill sets, motivation level, knowledge base, and age groups. In order to be successful, a company must have people with different skill sets and be more diverse in terms of age and experience. 

The challenge for the leader or leadership team compounds as they have to embrace new methods tailor made for individual employees or groups based on their skill and motivational level and design coaching and support system required to make them successful in their job. 

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard while working on Management of Organizational Behavior  developed a model which is known as Situational Leadership Model. The fundamental underpinning of the Situational Leadership Model is that there is no single best style of leadership. 

Effective leadership is task-relevant and the most successful leaders are those who adapt their leadership style to the performance readiness (ability and willingness) of the individual or group they are attempting to lead or influence that varies not only with the person or group that is being influenced but also it depends on the task, job or function that needs to be accomplished (book).

Just like Parenting or Teaching Leaders in a company find themselves surrounded by people in the organization with various maturity level which can be categorized as below.

High	Moderate		Low
M4	M3	M2	M1
Very capable and confident	Capable but unwilling	Unable but confident	Unable and insecure

The right leadership style will depend on the person or group being led. The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory identified four levels of maturity M1 through M4:

• M1 – They lack the specific skills required for the job in hand and are unable and unwilling to take responsibility for this job or task.
• M2 – They are unable to take on responsibility for the task being done; however, they are willing to work at the task. They are novice but enthusiastic.
• M3 – They are experienced and able to do the task but lack the confidence or the willingness to take on responsibility.
• M4 – They are experienced at the task, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. They are able and willing to not only do the task, but to take responsibility for the task.

Maturity levels are also task-specific. A person might be generally skilled, confident and motivated in their job, but would still have a maturity level M1 when asked to perform a task requiring skills they don't possess.

A good leader develops the competence and commitment of their people so that they are self-motivated rather than dependent on others for direction and guidance much like parents would groom their children. 

According to Hersey's book, a leader’s high, realistic expectation causes high performance of followers; a leader’s low expectations lead to low performance of followers. According to Ken Blanchard, "Four combinations of competence and commitment make up what we call 'development level.'"

• D1 - Low competence and high commitment
• D2 - Low competence and low commitment
• D3 - High competence and low/variable commitment
• D4 - High competence and high commitment

In order to make an effective cycle, a leader needs to motivate followers properly and become a role model much like a father to son.