The Seven Secrets of Leadership - Secret #2

Secret #2 - Today’s great leader is a great talent manager

What makes a great global leader? Page Executive interviewed over forty business leaders across Asia Pacific and Australia, Europe and the Americas for their views on leadership. The result of this work is a series of short articles on the topic of leadership that we are pleased to share with you. These articles encapsulate the opinions of the global leaders we interviewed, who generously shared their views on what constitutes success in a global leader, as well as offering advice to the next generation of leaders.

Leaders select and build the best teams to achieve their business goals. They have to keep motivating, engaging, supporting and taking accountability for their teams. We all know the importance of good management and managers in employee engagement and retention. In this regard, leaders must complement, and in some cases even take on, the work of the HR department and enforce their own employer branding (or ’team branding’).

Leading from the front

Leaders, as managers, have the key to staff motivation and engagement. No one is better placed to improve the working atmosphere and create a community in which people can develop a sense of belonging. Leaders also make individual roles meaningful, interesting and challenging so that people learn and develop. They need to set the right example in handling change with grace, managing the talent in their direct teams, and be an outstanding developer of people, in order to keep their employees motivated and engaged.

A channel for change

To succeed in these tasks, leaders should be able to implement change via their people. This will require being culturally savvy. Leaders will want to learn about other cultures and use this insight to create the right local conditions in which people can succeed. The capacity to embrace and manage the diversity of a conglomerate of individuals is rapidly becoming an essential leadership trait, especially when leading a global workforce and virtual teams. No leader should forget that People decide to join an organisation, and decide to leave their manager.