Most people have heard a version of the saying ‘good leaders ask good questions’. It’s less common, however, to think about asking a good mix of different types of questions.

“When you read about this in management literature, you get insights like, ‘Good questions are follow-up questions or open-questions, but [leaders need] a little more guidance than that,”  says Arnaud Chevallier, strategy professor at IMD Business School in Switzerland.

Particularly for first-time leaders, the tendency to jump into solution mode before letting curiosity play out can put many organisational elements at risk, such as innovation (if we don’t ask questions to surface everyone’s ideas), psychological safety (if people don’t feel they can push back on an idea) and wasting time or resources (if we put all our energy into solving the wrong challenge).

That’s why Chevallier has spent years determining five types of questions that he and his co-researchers believe will help leaders and organisations to operate on a deeper, more strategic level.

“I think all executives and professionals should develop a mindful set of questions that they’re constantly updating to serve them better in the decisions they’re making,” says Chevallier.

5 types of questions

Over three years, Chevallier and his co-authors Frédéric Dalsace and Jean-Louis Barsoux, also professors at IMD, conducted interviews with hundreds of top-performing executives to learn about their favourite types of questions.

“Then we refined them using the Delphi method and organised the questions into general buckets.”

They also conducted a robust literature review.

“Management executives aren’t trained to ask questions, but other professions are – physicians, psychologists, journalists, lawyers. We wanted to learn as much as we could from those other fields [whose workforces] have thought long and hard about the meaning of questions.”

From this research, they first determined four types of question, which are as follows:

1. Investigative questions

These types of questions follow a similar line of thinking to Toyota’s ‘five whys’, says Chevallier.

“This is epitomised by the ‘what’s known?’ type of question. Investigative questions help you probe the root causes of the problem, and help you to go deeper into the decision you need to make.”

Examples:

• What is and isn’t working?
• What are the causes of the problem?
• How feasible and desirable is each option?
• What evidence supports our proposed plan?

2. Speculative questions

Going deep with investigative questions is important, but not sufficient, says Chevallier. 

It’s also useful to go broader with your line of questioning. This is where speculative questioning comes into play.

“We epitomised speculative questions within ‘what if?’ For example, ‘What if we didn’t care about costs?’ or ‘What if we could relax these other constraints?’

“[These questions] foster innovation by challenging the implicit or the explicit assumptions we come to in our decisions.

“For HR professionals, who are addressing the human component of [work], you really need to develop your subjective question mix so you’re always asking yourself ‘what’s the actual meaning that’s going on behind the words?’”

Examples:

• What other scenarios might exist?
• Could we approach this differently?
• What else might we propose?
• What can we simplify, modify, combine or eliminate?
• What potential solutions have we not considered?

“All executives and professionals should develop a mindful set of questions that they’re constantly updating to serve them better in the decisions they’re making.” – Arnaud Chevallier, strategy professor, IMD Business School

3. Productive questions

It’s also important to have a set of questions that are designed to move processes along, says Chevallier. He refers to these as the ‘Now what?’ questions.

“They’re here to help us adjust the pace of the decision making – sometimes accelerating it because the deadline is coming, or sometimes slowing down because we’ve come to a decision with a preconceived mindset or there might be cognitive biases that are crowding our judgement.”

Examples:

• What do we need to achieve before we advance to the next stage?
• Do we know enough to move forward?
• Do we have the resources to move forward?
• Are we ready to make a decision?
  

4. Interpretative questions

Interpretative, or sense-making, questions help us take what we’ve learned from our investigative, speculative and productive questions and turn them into insights.

“[These questions] are epitomised by the ‘So what?’ Okay, we’ve figured out this one thing, what is that telling us about our overarching goal?'”

Examples:

• What did we learn from this new information?
• What could this mean for our present and future actions?
• How does this fit in with our overarching goal?
• What are we trying to achieve?

Chevallier and his colleagues were originally happy with these four types of questions, but after analysing the insights gleaned from their discovery sessions with the executives, they realised something was missing. 

They needed a question type that surfaced the many things that are often left unsaid, which led to the addition of a fifth type of question.

5. Subjective questions

“We’re not dealing with robots. We’re dealing with people. In every conversation, there are hidden emotional or possibly political sets of insights. [In these cases], it’s [important] to figure out the meaning behind the words,” says Chevallier.

For people managers, this is where you might uncover people’s frustrations, tensions or hidden agendas. People’s answers to these types of questions can often lead you down a completely unexpected (and often critical) pathway.

From an organisational perspective, subjective questions can protect a business from risks such as wasted budgets, reputational damage and causing dissent or disengagement to brew in teams.

Examples:

• How do you feel about this decision?
• What aspect of this most concerns you?
• Are there any differences between what was said, what was heard and what was meant?
• Are all stakeholders genuinely aligned?
• Have we consulted all the right people?

Learn how to hone your leadership and management skills with this short course from AHRI.

Curious cultures

While Chevallier and his colleague’s research didn’t go into detail about the cultural environments that are required to allow for these types of questions, his opinion is that trust and psychological safety are key to making these types of questions effective.

In an article for Harvard Business Review, they wrote: “Team members may be reluctant to explore emotional issues unless the leader provides encouragement and a safe space for discussion. 

“They may fail to share misgivings simply because no one else is doing so – a social dynamic known as pluralistic ignorance. Leaders must invite dissenting views and encourage doubters to share their concerns.”

You also need to choose your timing wisely when asking certain questions, says Chevallier.

“If you come into a new position and start asking a bunch of speculative questions, it might be too early. You might first need to establish those relationships with people.”

Read HRM’s article about how to build social capital in the workplace.

Auditing your question default

Chevallier and his colleagues have created an interactive tool – which will launch later this year – to help leaders assess which type of questions they default to. For example, you might complete the assessment and discover you have very few points allocated to speculative questions.

“[In that case], you could make a list of 10 speculative questions and, ahead of a meeting, highlight a couple that you’d like to ask,” he says.

There’s no specific mix of questions to ask, he adds. The research isn’t suggesting every situation calls for one of each type of question.

“You might ask five different investigative questions. It depends on the specific situation. 

“The five types of questions, hopefully, help people realise that there are various ways to look at a problem or a decision. Before we follow our muscle memory into one direction or another, we should periodically step back and ask, ‘Are we still going in a productive direction?’

“The world of today is not like the world of yesterday. We absolutely need to update the way we make sense of it or we’re at risk of not being able to decipher it.”

Example questions listed in this article sourced from Dalsace, Barsoux and Chevallier’s article on their research in Harvard Business Review print edition (May-June 2024). You can read the online version here.

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With our ways of working changing rapidly, relying on traditional leadership approaches could put organisations at risk of falling behind in the future of work.

Some aspects of the traditional leadership model, such as command-and-control structures and rigid roles, are slowly losing relevance as organisations traverse the rapidly evolving technological and economic landscape, says Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services at Mercer and upcoming speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August.

Below, Jesuthasan unpacks four key capabilities leaders of the future will need in order to navigate emerging disruptions and harness the opportunities presented by technological advancement.

1. Shift from hierarchical authority to empowerment and alignment 

There are several forces at play in the current business environment which make the traditional hierarchical model of leadership difficult to sustain, according to Jesuthasan.

One example is the shift towards hybrid and remote work models, which challenges traditional dynamics of control and requires a more trust-based approach to management.

Another is the emerging shift towards more agile ways of working. 

With skills shortages continuing to impact employers, many are recognising the value of a skills-based approach to work, where work is allocated to employees and non-employees based on their capabilities rather than whether it’s part of their job description. The rapid shifts in the skills landscape mean this strategy is likely to become more prevalent in the coming years.

While this approach allows employers to allocate resources more efficiently, effectively and with greater impact, the move away from rigid roles requires a significant mindset shift on the part of leaders.

“As we move towards these more agile, skills-based ways of working, leaders’ ability to empower teams and align them to a mission becomes increasingly important,” says Jesuthasan.

“And leading through empowerment and alignment has one prerequisite, which the hierarchical model doesn’t. And that’s trust – trust in your people that they are motivated to accomplish the same things you are and their trust that you have their best interests at heart.”

HR should keep in mind that this transition might be uncomfortable for leaders who might be used to functioning under a command-and-control model, he says.

“All of this is a reversal of about 140 years of learned behaviour on the part of leaders. So it’s really important that they have the space to experiment, practice and fail.”

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2. The ability to redesign work

With the shift away from rigid roles and towards skills-based ways of working, leaders will need to hone their ability to redesign work so talent (and AI and automation) can flow to it, says Jesuthasan.

“[Leaders need] that skill of being able to take an emerging body of work, deconstruct it into its elemental tasks, understand the skills required and the work options available, and figure out how to deploy that work,” he says. 

“For example, where should I use automation versus using the skills of an employee? Where should I use a gig worker or shared services? And then continuously reconstructing new ways of working that optimise speed, profitability and the workforce skills.” 

With work being resourced based on skills and capability rather than roles, leaders will need to adapt to having fewer dedicated teams, he adds.

“[There needs to be] a pivot from leaders who are really good at process execution to leaders who are increasingly exceptional at project guidance.”

3. Humanistic automation

With technological advancement moving at an unprecedented rate, it’s no surprise that digital literacy is projected to be a critical leadership skill of the future. To remain competitive, leaders need to constantly ask themselves if they are going far enough in understanding and leveraging emerging technologies, says Jesuthasan.

“What the past two years have taught us is that just being digitally savvy is too low a bar. We need business leaders who really understand AI in all its forms, understand the tools available and understand how it’s going to reshape their operating models.”

In the future, it will become increasingly important for leaders to strike the right balance between harnessing the capabilities of AI alongside the capabilities of their workforces.

“[Ask yourself], ‘How do I automate in a way that ensures that I’m not compromising ingenuity and innovation in my business? How do I automate in a way that makes the most of the human skills I’ve invested in for decades?’,” says Jesuthasan.

As AI takes on more and more of our repetitive, rules-based work, leaders should be placing more focus on cultivating human skills such as communication, problem-solving and critical thinking in both themselves and their people.

According to research from the World Economic Forum, the half-life of a technical skill is currently about five years. While it remains crucial to develop technical skills to navigate emerging technologies, employers should remember that the so-called ‘soft’ skills will always be necessary for success.

“What the past two years have taught us is that just being digitally savvy is such a low bar. We need business leaders who really understand generative AI.” – Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services, Mercer

4. Cultivating diversity of thought, experience and perspective

The most effective leaders in the future of work will be those who can leverage the benefits of diverse workforces, says Jesuthasan.

“A key skill is managing diversity, equity and inclusion – not episodically like we typically do when we hire someone or promote them, but continuously by opening the aperture to having different skills, different perspectives and different experiences being deployed to work,” he says. 

“Because that’s the only way any business stays ahead of the competition – that diversity of thought, experience and perspective.”

Inclusive hiring practices are essential not only to innovation, but also to business stability, he says. He offers the example of a US airline that set up its own flight school as its traditional talent pool of ex-military pilots began to dry up. 

“Because of who was accepted to fly in the military [in the past], most of their pilots, unsurprisingly, were older white men. But with their own flight school, their first class was 80 per cent female and minorities. 

“By opening the aperture and creating their own school, they know that in less than two years, they’ll have a flight crew that is exponentially more diverse than the talent that they’re going to be replacing. It’s a win-win – we secure our supply, and we ensure that the supply is more diverse than the legacy supply chain.”

This strategic approach to diversity ensures that organisations are not just keeping pace with change, but are actively shaping the future of work.

As we move into the next iteration of work, HR plays a critical role in cultivating this next phase of leadership. As the champions of human-centred ways of working, HR practitioners are in a unique position to support leaders as they develop the skills to lead through empowerment, implement humanistic automation and enhance their approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Ravin Jesuthasan will be speaking on the deconstruction of jobs and the reconstruction of work at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August. Sign up today to hear from Ravin and other experts, including Seth Godin, Dr Pippa Grange and more.

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In an increasingly divided world, fostering inclusive workplaces is more challenging and more crucial than ever before. 

According to Edelman’s 2023 Trust Barometer, which surveyed more than 1150 Australians, Australia is currently considered “moderately polarised” and on the brink of “severe polarisation”. Nearly half of Australians (45 per cent) feel the nation is more divided now than at any other time in history.

When this polarisation creeps into our workplaces, it can create a plethora of psychosocial risks, including interpersonal conflict, negative stereotyping and poor communication. 

“The risk is that people form themselves into these binary oppositional groups, and there’s this mentality of, ‘If you’re if you’re not with me, then you’re against me,’” says Dr. Juliet Bourke, Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School and upcoming speaker at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August.

“But that’s not what the world is really like. There’s a broad spectrum of views. And part of the skill is not getting sucked into that narrative, but to stand back and understand the individuals on a broader spectrum.”

Bourke, who has researched and written extensively on inclusive leadership practices, spoke with HRM to discuss the most effective strategies for leaders to foster inclusive workplaces within a seemingly polarised society.

1. Recognise the spectrum of attitudes towards DEI

An essential step in ensuring that polarisation does not damage organisational culture is engaging employees in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. However, Bourke stresses that there is no one right way to engage employees in these conversations, given that employees can hold vastly different attitudes and opinions on the subject. 

To help leaders decide the right way to communicate with employees about DEI, Bourke has broken down employees’ typical attitudes towards DEI into a spectrum of six archetypes.

“At one end, there is an oppositional response. That person brings a level of anger or negative emotion to the topic. At the other end is the person who’s really passionate and positively disruptive,” she says.

The archetypes she has formulated are as follows:

• Oppositional: These employees are strongly against DEI, often expressing anger or negative emotions towards it. They might feel that they are losing privilege or being left behind.
• Disengaged: This archetype is indifferent to DEI. Their eyes may glaze over when DEI is discussed, and they’re unlikely to attend events or workshops. They may say DEI is not “their thing”.
• Ambivalent (two types): In Bourke’s view, there are two forms of ambivalence to DEI. The first type is somewhat supportive of DEI, but fears making a misstep and therefore remains silent. The other is fatigued – while they may once have been committed, they now lack the energy to engage.
• Supportive, but not leading: These employees have a fairly positive attitude to DEI and are willing to follow others in their efforts, but don’t take the initiative themselves.
• Champions: This archetype is passionate about DEI, actively contributes to the organisation’s inclusion efforts and pushes boundaries in a positive way.

The goal for leaders, says Bourke, is to meet people where they’re at and move them up the engagement curve. Understanding the spectrum above is crucial to matching the message to the person, since different archetypes will require a different approach. 

She also notes that while employees on the champion side of the spectrum are already fully engaged in DEI efforts, this does not mean leaders can ‘set and forget’ this cohort; they still need to ensure the efforts of these employees are in fact contributing to a more inclusive workplace.

“Sometimes when people are champions, they can also be tone deaf. And they can be like bulldozers. I don’t think that that’s helpful either,” she says. “So leaders have a role to play in keeping champions connected and curious.”

On an individual level, employees are also influenced in different ways by different means of communication. 

Bourke suggests thinking of information in terms of content that engages the head, heart or hands. For example, some employees will be more affected by hard facts and data, while others will be swayed by heartfelt stories with real emotions. Others learn from doing and want to be guided on the actions they should take. The trick to influencing others to be more engaged in DEI is understanding the person’s archetype and the type of information that is most suited to the person.

She also says that leaders should ask themselves whether they are the best person to deliver that message, or if there is another person who is more suited, perhaps because they have a closer, stronger and more trusted relationship.

“I would say to leaders, step back from the black and white and see [your people] through a lens of colour,” says Bourke. “See the person in front of you with a bit more nuance, think about who influences them and [the way] you’re trying to influence them, and experiment with that.”

2. Facilitate open dialogue

Once leaders have established the most effective ways to communicate with their teams about DEI, a crucial next step is to ensure employees feel safe to express their perspectives at work.

Of course, facilitating open dialogue in a workplace where employees have polarised views creates the potential for conflict, meaning leaders may be reluctant to initiate these difficult conversations. However, allowing polarisation to simmer unaddressed is not conducive to a psychosocially safe work environment.

“I would say to leaders, step back from the black and white and see [your people] through a lens of colour.” – Dr. Juliet Bourke, Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School

In facilitating conversations between employees with differing views, one strategy Bourke has found particularly effective is to try and establish common ground between the parties involved to help them understand each other’s perspectives.

“This strategy is about bringing together those two people who are opposed and saying, ‘Well, what do we agree upon?’ And it is unlikely that you won’t find some commonality.”

For example, she says, while there may be polarised views on current geopolitical issues when it comes to religion or political ideology, employees on both sides are likely to agree that family is important and that peace is the end goal. 

Finding this common ground not only helps prevent conflict, but can also help bust misconceptions employees might hold about their colleagues.

“If we have an open conversation and get an empathetic understanding of the other person, it’s harder to hold onto the stereotypical view you went into the conversation with because you realise that person is a person, a whole person, not a cardboard cutout picture.” 

3. Demonstrate curiosity

When facilitating open dialogue among their teams, it’s important for leaders to model the curious mindset that will help employees understand each other’s points of view.

To demonstrate this curiosity, Bourke suggests leaders take part in regular ‘perspective taking’. Within the workplace, this might look like talking directly with employees about their unique experiences, showing genuine interest in their perspectives and asking thoughtful questions to gain insight and build stronger connections.

Leaders can also immerse themselves in other cultures and communities outside of the workplace to gain a better understanding of a particular cohort’s perspective, she adds. This could be as simple as exploring books and films from other cultures or attending community events.

It’s also important for leaders to demonstrate healthy curiosity about themselves.

“The skill of self-reflection [is important],” says Bourke. “As a starting point, [ask yourself], ‘How am I coming across? How am I influencing this conversation, [maybe] in ways that I didn’t intend?’”

Given that it can be hard for anyone to view their strengths and weaknesses objectively, Bourke suggests leaders get input from trusted people in their circles on where their communication styles might show room for improvement.

“You can also look at other people whom you admire,” she says. “If you look at someone and think, ‘I want to be like that person,’ then ask, ‘What is it they are doing that I want [to mimic]?’”

4. Prioritise self-care

Dealing with a polarised workforce in a turbulent business environment can take its toll on HR’s, managers’ and leaders’ wellbeing. 

These difficulties are reflected in multiple research reports from the past two years showing that managers and leaders are experiencing higher levels of burnout than their junior counterparts.

This is an important issue to address since, according to Bourke, inclusive leadership is only possible when leaders have the space and balance in their own lives to approach this complex issue with energy and curiosity.

“For me, when I come across those challenges, I make sure I balance it in my life with situations and people who give me energy because sometimes dealing with entrenched resistance is very draining.

“Giving yourself time to regenerate and [participating in] positive activities is a way to support yourself to be an inclusive leader.”

Dr. Juliet Bourke will be speaking on inclusive coworker behaviours at AHRI’s National Convention and Exhibition in August. Sign up today to hear from Juliet and other experts, including Seth Godin, Dr Pippa Grange and more.

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Work is no longer about just turning up and getting paid, says Jess Roberson MAHRI, General Manager, Organisational Development and People Performance at Kestrel Coal Resources, a Queensland-based coal mining company with 700 employees.  

“People want a sense of purpose. They want to buy into the ‘why’ and what the company’s trying to do,” says Roberson.

Traditional leadership styles that depend solely on knowledge, technical prowess and instructing employees to perform specified tasks are becoming less effective. Instead, employees want to work with their leaders – to collaborate on initiatives, so they feel their ideas, questions and contributions are highly valued.  

Consequently, the leaders of the future will be those who can inspire employees with the ‘why’ – by demonstrating the company’s values, ensuring their teams work with purpose and influencing rather than merely managing.

To equip Kestrel’s leaders with the skills they needed, Roberson and her team developed UNLEASHED, a leadership program which won AHRI’s Best Leadership Development Strategy award last year. 

A three-pillar program to nurture leadership capabilities

UNLEASHED is based on three pillars: safety leadership, people skills and business skills. 

“Safety leadership is around giving [leaders] a deep understanding of the day-to-day challenges our people face, giving them the mindset and skills to role-model safety, and supporting them to build trust in their teams,” says Roberson. 

The people skills pillar focuses on expanding awareness of purpose, improving communication and building better relationships, and the business skills pillar covers planning and prioritising while empowering others, and collaborating to drive continuous business improvement. 

The three pillars form the basis of nine leadership modules, which, in the first roll-out, ran over 12 months. Eight were face-to-face and one was run online. 

Rather than being delivered in a traditional manner, they comprised a series of experimental initiatives. For example, under the people skills pillar, all participants completed a DISC (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness) profile, which assessed their workplace personality, then ‘speed-dated’ employees with contrasting profiles. 

“We had feedback from leaders who later used this tool in their teams,” says Roberson. 

“They’d been struggling to work with a particular individual, but, once they understood themselves and the other person better – their drivers and motivators – they could tailor their approach and get a totally different outcome.”

Another example was a Shark Tank-style pitch session, run under the business skills pillar.  

“Each group had to come up with an initiative to improve the business, and convince the audience it was a great idea. It wasn’t about the validity of the idea, it was about allowing people the space to pitch their idea, using the influence, engagement and communication skills learnt through the modules.” 

“We had some excellent ideas, like ‘Thank God it’s Thursday’, pitching the benefits of a four-day week, and a new design for our underground conveyor system.”

“We don’t see leadership as your job title – it’s far bigger than that.” – Jess Roberson MAHRI, General Manager, Organisational Development and People Performance, Kestrel Coal

Leadership development is more than a title 

In inviting participants to join UNLEASHED, Roberson and her team adopted a broad definition of leadership. 

Rather than limiting participation to official people leaders, Roberson and her team invited 220 of Kestrel’s most influential employees to participate.

“We don’t see leadership as your job title – it’s far bigger than that,” she says. “There are people in our organisation, such as HR or finance business partners, who don’t have a team under them, but influence others at all different levels in the business.”

In addition, they saw an opportunity to break down silos. 

“We purposely arranged groups so you’d be with around 15 people you may never have worked with or even met. You might have an executive in the room with an operational supervisor and a superintendent. It was really, really mixed.

“This approach allowed our people to gain an appreciation of the work of other teams they’re not ordinarily exposed to. Some participants said it opened up new relationships and improved communication between our wash plant and underground operations.”

Furthermore, the HR team, in presenting the program, collaborated with others. 

For example, members of the executive helped deliver a module on leadership beliefs, while a hand-picked group of five participants co-facilitated a module on apathy, sympathy and empathy in their own language. 

Impressive results 

At the end of each module, each participant completed a leadership diagnostic, which enabled the HR team to track progress. 

By its conclusion, UNLEASHED delivered impressive results. Participants reported a:

• 33 per cent uplift in developing and executing innovative business improvements with their team.
• 22 per cent increase in committing to a plan to improve their team’s engagement and performance.
• 24 per cent increase in taking time to coach and mentor others. 
• 29 per cent uplift in participants’ understanding of the things that make their leadership style unique.
• 25 per cent uplift in participants’ understanding of their purpose beyond their job.
• 21 per cent increase in participants’ knowledge of their future goals and how to achieve them.

UNLEASHED is now an ongoing two-day program that Kestrel runs for new starters and new leaders.   

“Overall, the program has lifted the capability of all of our people,” says Roberson. 

“It has provided a unified purpose and common language that all levels in our business are aligned to.” 

A version of this article was originally published in the June edition of HRM Magazine.

Know someone who has made award-worthy contributions to their organisation or the HR profession? Applications are now open for the 2024 AHRI Awards. Read more and apply here.

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Have you ever presented information to your peers and colleagues with confidence and then presented that exact same information to a group of senior stakeholders and felt completely out of your depth?

If so, you’re not alone. Feelings of Impostor syndrome or a sudden onset of self-doubt are incredibly common when engaging with executive and board-level leaders for the first time. Often, it’s the absence of executive presence that makes it more challenging.

“The more self-aware, comfortable and confident you are within yourself – when you’ve done some personal or professional development work and when you have a good [understanding of] how you add value – you’re more likely to have that grounded sense of confidence,” says Fiona Pearman, facilitator, coach, author and c0-founder of Quantum Impact Group, alongside Kate Boorer.

Executive presence means you’re less likely to get “hijacked by your nerves” when you find yourself in a situation where you need to demonstrate leadership and influence, she says.

Acquiring these skills takes time, but there are small things you can start doing today that will help you build these critical leadership behaviours over time. Pearman shares five key tips below.

1. Ask really good questions

People often underestimate the value in asking a really good question, says Pearman.

While she warns against over-preparing, Pearman suggests taking the time to understand the environment you’re entering – who’s in the room? How do they communicate? What are their end goals? – and then thinking about some of the questions you might ask to help move the group towards their end goal. 

This can be a great way to cement your presence as a considered, strategic and big-picture thinker. For example, if you’re with a team that is problem-solving, you might ask questions such as:

• What might we be missing here?
• Have we gathered sentiment from anyone who’s not in this room?
• If we asked someone to identify a flaw in our plan, what might they say?
• Are we able to clearly articulate the problem we’re trying to solve?

“The more we can resource ourselves to understand what the parameters are, the less likely we are to [experience] the derailers of executive presence, which are things like self-doubt, the nervous system going into fight, flight or freeze, or being worried that people are going to judge us if we say the wrong thing,” says Pearman.

2. Consider your communication style

As you’re working on developing your own communication style, Pearman suggests taking the time to notice how other executives hold themselves.

“Notice what they’re doing, but also what they’re not doing,” she says.

For example, they might avoid being the first to speak in a meeting, or perhaps they’re restrained when it comes to offering a solution to a problem and instead ask the right questions to help people get there on their own.

The way you communicate matters too, says Pearman.

“If you notice people with executive presence, one of the things you often hear is less is more.

“They don’t pad and they don’t fill. They’re actually pretty comfortable with silence. They’re not trying to people-please, and the absence of that gives them that gravitas and executive presence.”

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do the preparation work that you’re naturally inclined to do, you just don’t need to explain everything, she says. Let your confidence speak for itself and be prepared and available to go deeper should the situation call for it.

Read HRM’s article on how to make your communication more impactful.

3. Don’t feel you need to be the subject matter expert

Many people have an internal bias telling them they’ll look weak or incompetent if they have to ask questions or admit to not knowing something, says Pearman.

“What happens in our early career and leadership journey is that we often rely on our subject matter expertise. We rely on working really hard and knowing our stuff. Particularly for women, we keep thinking that another course or another degree will be the fastest track to executive presence, and yet it never is.”

This isn’t on the individuals, she adds. It’s the result of systemic, social pressures that often hold people back, especially women.

“We keep thinking that another course or another degree will be the fastest track to executive presence, and yet it never is.” – Fiona Pearman

But these challenges occur for all genders, she adds. Pearman has done a lot of coaching work with MBA students through Macquarie Business School and says it’s “phenomenal” how far-reaching these confidence issues are.

“These are all talented, high-potential leaders, and they were hoping their degree would be the ticket to the next stage, yet there was this whole piece around the way they were showing up with their executive presence that, for many of them, was undermining their ability to communicate, engage and inspire people.”

When Pearman works with clients, she has to do a lot of “course correction” to overcome this expertise-versus-presence challenge.

“It’s about getting people back in touch with that inquisitive, curious part of themselves. Being able to ask for help from a place of personal power is very different from tentatively asking questions nervously.”

A great example of this in action is seen in an article HRM published last week. Clare Murphy FCPHR, Executive Director Organisational Enablement at EACH, wrote about how she recently took on responsibility for the finance, IT infrastructure, quality and risk units in her organisation, as well as maintaining her former HR responsibilities.

Murphy noted that she wasn’t a subject matter expert, especially with IT, but she was able to utilise her well-honed HR leadership skills to her advantage.

“Not having an IT background can have its benefits, as I had to ask a lot of questions to understand what was needed, and that enabled a roadmap and communications strategy that has been translated into language everyone can understand and relate to,” she said.

“The most critical skills are the ability to listen, bring together different people and perspectives to work collaboratively together. My general approach is to put out what is proposed and ask people to tell me what’s wrong with it or what’s missing. If you listen to their responses, you can make better decisions.”

4. Have a meeting before the meeting

Executive presence can flow from appropriate consideration prior to an important meeting.

Say you’re presenting to the board and know they’re interested in seeing progress around your employee retention strategies, for example, but perhaps you’ve seen an increase in turnover or what you proposed last time isn’t quite working.

This might feel like a challenging thing to present back to the board, but, as AHRI’s National President and Chair Michael Rosmarin FCPHR said in a previous HRM article, the board is there to help you.

“It’s often a good idea to seek out the Chair and speak to them before the meeting and say, ‘I’ve got something challenging that I’d like us to discuss in the meeting.’ These meetings aren’t about just presenting your work for approval; they’re about getting input and feedback and often working through challenges together,” he said.

Pearman agrees that a “meeting before a meeting” can be a smart way to not only allay any personal nerves, but also get senior stakeholders on side, as you can learn about their priorities and communication styles and tailor your response to them.

“Learn who will be in the room and the dynamics that might be at play,” she says. “What sort of questions might you be asked?”

Read HRM’s guide to developing social capital in the workplace.

5. Develop commercial business acumen

There’s an expectation on leaders that they’ll be able to engage in a robust commercial discussion, says Pearman.

“If you have shied away from understanding a P&L or balance sheet, spreadsheets or financials, that is an area to expand your knowledge on, because even mid-level leadership roles are expected to have a good understanding of the financial implications of choices and decisions.”

This means even when you’re viewing a citation through a people lens, you’re talking about costs, she says.

“When we speak [executives’] language, when we speak into their budgets, into their constraints, into the challenges they have, then we’re solving a problem together. It’s not like HR are coming with their own view of the world. You’re coming into their world and figuring out how you can support them to be more effective in achieving their commercial goals.”

Want to learn more about effective leadership and management? Sign up for AHRI’s short course to understand your leadership style and learn how to create key performance indicators.

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Middle managers are working in increasingly hybrid workforces, often geographically dispersed and requiring more flexibility than ever before. Amid a cost-of-living crisis, social and political challenges, and the long-tail mental health impacts of the pandemic, employees are coming to work seeking support for personal issues from their managers.

Middle managers are also expected to do more with less, such as boosting productivity in organisations battling employee shortages and wellbeing issues. It’s a lot to contend with on top of making it through their own workloads.  

The unrelenting pressure of working in middle management led Paul Farina towards unhealthy over-working habits. He spent a decade in the cosmetics and retail sectors in Australia and the UK, managing teams and clients across various time zones. 

Working around the clock was common. 

He would barely get home from a long day in the office when his boss would call, asking for a debrief from the day. Rather than speak up and admit it was too much, Farina handled the pressure by working harder and longer, and turned to alcohol to cope with the stress.

“When you’re in middle management, you’ve always got a boss needing monthly and quarterly budgets to be hit, projects to be met by deadline and things to be completed within budget, and all that pressure gets funnelled down to you,” he says. 

“I needed to take those directives and deliver on them while simultaneously plugging gaps and vacancies, all the while toeing the company line even when things were less than perfect in the field.” 

This dynamic meant he was constantly looking for ways to appease others, often taking work off his team and doing it himself. 

“There’s an emotional side to working in middle management as well, which comes from this feeling of being emotionally isolated and not being able to share that with anyone. 

“You feel like you’re being held hostage by your staff as well because you don’t want to lose them, which leads to isolation. If I didn’t have a couple of buddies in the trenches with me that I could trust, I would have been in a lot of trouble. We’ve all got to pay the mortgage, and, at the time, I wasn’t in a situation to just up and quit.”  

Eventually, Farina did quit, navigating his way into a role where he now counsels others in middle management. Looking back, he admits he didn’t have the education or strategic thinking to deal with the pressure. 

“I had nothing in my toolkit at the time. I should have been more assertive, and I should have held senior staff coming at me with constant demands to account. I should have learned to say ‘no’.

“I don’t recall saying ‘no’ to anything or anyone, which means I was constantly appeasing staff and external stakeholders.”

He believes the pressure on middle managers was amplified during the pandemic years. 

“Budgets are down and organisational hierarchies have become even flatter. Middle managers are carrying a lot of that load. 

“When you get under the hood, most organisations have a lot fewer people in them than you might assume.”

Middle managers are feeling the strain on their mental health

The complex work of middle management is all taking a toll on this cohort’s mental health. Not surprisingly, more than half of middle managers (53 per cent) are feeling stressed or burned out and 46 per cent are experiencing anxiety, according to the Indeed 2023 Workplace Wellbeing Report. 

Middle managers also feel neglected and lack essential leadership, communication and people management skills, found research by the Australian Institute of Management and Monash University. 

It indicated that middle managers are therefore significantly underperforming despite their key role in corporate ranks. But this doesn’t necessarily reflect a lack of capability. 

Many haven’t been adequately trained to deal with these added pressures, or don’t have the bandwidth to respond appropriately to the competing pressures put upon them. 

“We need to acknowledge that individual contributors promoted to middle management don’t come automatically equipped with the management skills needed to thrive in their role.” – Kade Brown, Workforce Solutions Director, RMIT Online

Reducing friction points for managers

Bolstering middle managers’ capabilities needs to be a key priority for organisations. 

Effective middle managers are able to reduce friction points at work, accelerate action and help an organisation work towards its goals. 

The challenge of balancing the fiscal needs of a business, managing cost and maximising profits means there is a huge under-investment in leadership capabilities, says Lorraine Farah FCPHR, Director of Leaning Forward. 

She wants to see organisations drag middle managers out of the weeds of work where they are often overworked and under-resourced.  

“Senior leaders underestimate the impact their [managers] have throughout their organisation,” she says. “The shadow they cast by the behaviours they demonstrate impacts not only engagement, but, importantly, all aspects of delivery of the business outcomes.”

Coupled with this, managers and leaders often deprioritise development and training in their already over-committed roles and seem unwilling to find time to upskill, she says. 

As well as time constraints, she lists three main issues holding middle managers back from utilising their full potential:

• A lack of commitment from leaders to prioritise managers’ development as a core capability.
• Structurally, the span of control of middle managers often sees them stretched too thin. They have too many direct reports, combined with complex processes, leaving them burnt out just trying to get the job done. 
• Managers aren’t usually rewarded for being a good manager. It may be acknowledged, yet it’s not always encouraged nor rewarded in a way that delivering on business results is. Managers will focus on what is measured and rewarded, and make choices on which work to prioritise when pressed for time. 

Farah wants to see commitment at an executive level to consistent, non-negotiable leadership development for middle managers. 

For example, providing access to leadership development topics right in the moments they need it most – such as how to conduct performance reviews, manage conflict, create space for innovation, seek and provide feedback, etc., in addition to established leadership programs.

This just-in-time training approach helps keep learning highly relevant for middle managers, so they are able to bake it into their workflow rather than viewing their upskilling as separate to their work or as an addition to their to-do list.

Research from McKinsey & Company shows that companies that invest in their human capital yield more consistent earnings through times of crisis. In fact, organisations with effective middle managers in the top quartile produced up to 21 times greater total shareholder returns than others in lower quartiles, according to 11 measured management practices used to define an organisation’s health.  

“The correlation between trust and the relationship between employees and their direct manager is strong and leads to better outcomes,” says Farah. 

How technological development will impact middle managers

While the role of middle managers will continue to evolve with technological advances, it’s unlikely the layer will disappear entirely, says executive coach Smita Das Jain.  

However, the specific responsibilities of middle managers will evolve alongside the adoption of technology as routine tasks and administrative duties are automated.

“Organisations [should] stop and take stock, and adopt technology to automate many of the tasks middle managers perform, such as training, employee performance, generating reports and making decisions,” says Jain. 

This frees up time for middle managers to focus on higher-level strategic planning and decision-making, she says. 

Rethinking traditional managerial roles

As organisations shift and become more complex, middle managers may become more vital than ever, says Murat Tarakci, Professor of Innovation Strategy at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

He cites findings that attribute 22 to 30 per cent gains in productivity and innovation to effective middle management. In a separate academic paper he recently published, he illustrates the challenges middle managers face by quoting one middle manager at phone company Nokia admitting: “We knew the iPhone was coming out about a year in advance. We had pretty good specifications for it. The CEO forwarded the email to his subordinates, writing ‘Please take action on this’. Yet, middle managers folded, and opted to sugar-coat the stalled process, causing Nokia to lose the competitive battle for smartphones.” 

“Middle managers are constantly coping with, adapting to, or even resisting contradictory demands and pressures,” says Tarakci in his paper.

“As new technologies emerge, rivals flood one’s turf and customer preferences reposition… these shifts require rapid and effective organisational responses to adapt to an ever-changing environment,” says Tarakci.  

While changes in the business landscape often necessitate extra support for middle managers, the simple elements of work can also create friction points. For example, an excessive number of direct reports can overwhelm managers, hindering their ability to provide adequate coaching and guidance, says Kade Brown, Workforce Solutions Director at RMIT Online.      

“Conversely, too few direct reports may indicate inefficiencies or questionable promotions, leading to underutilisation of managerial talent,” he says. 

Empowering managers to focus on the right tasks is critical, he says. This involves identifying and streamlining low-value bureaucratic activities, leveraging automation and outsourcing where applicable. 

“By reducing administrative burdens, middle managers can allocate more time and energy towards fostering a supportive environment, nurturing talent and addressing the needs of their teams,” says Brown. 

“We need to acknowledge that individual contributors promoted to middle management don’t come automatically equipped with the management skills needed to thrive in their role. They require intentional and targeted upskilling in three key areas: business acumen, structured problem-solving and people leadership.”     

As such, middle manager upskilling initiatives shouldn’t focus just on theory, but on embedded practice and behaviour change. 

“It’s imperative to design or procure upskilling solutions that enable managers to integrate new skills seamlessly into their current world of work,” says Brown. 

This strategic realignment enables managers to focus on driving impact and promoting a culture of engagement and growth within the organisation. 

“The pace of change, disruption and transformation in the world of work isn’t going to decelerate any time soon,” says Brown.

To alleviate the cognitive load on middle managers, the best thing we can do is to equip them with the tools and skills they need to cope with this new reality. 

This article was first published in the April/May 2024 edition of HRM Magazine.

Want to learn more about effective leadership and management? Sign up for AHRI’s short course to understand your leadership style and learn how to create key performance indicators.

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I have worked in various HR leadership positions in different industries over the course of my 25-year career, but it wasn’t until I joined my current employer, EACH, that I had an opportunity to expand my remit to include more than HR tasks.

EACH is a large, complex community health organisation that runs over 150 different programs across six different program streams: mental health, older adults, NDIS, early childhood, primary care and child, youth and family services. I spent the first four years at EACH leading the organisation’s HR function, but when our CEO, Natalie Sullivan, restructured the executive team, she decided to put all support functions under one leadership role.

Under the old leadership structure, the back-office function consisted of a Corporate Services Director, who was responsible for IT, finance and infrastructure, a Strategy Development and Marketing Director, and an HR Director (my former role). There were also two Directors of Operations to manage the front-end functions of the business.

While this structure previously served us well, as the organisation became more complex over time, we found it was introducing inefficiencies. From the perspective of the back-office support functions, we often struggled to have alignment between the three business units; we were all working towards our own KPIs and strategic plans.

This lack of alignment was having an impact on the people who were delivering front line services to clients and, in some instances, making things more difficult for them.

For example, we might have previously had HR rolling out a training program at the same time finance required managers to work on budget-related tasks and IT was implementing a new system. 

In a for-purpose organisation, funding is lean and the expectations on our operations teams to deliver to the KPIs of the funding contracts means the majority of their time is providing services to clients. 

It’s essential that the back-office support teams that are there to support Operations are not making their jobs harder.

Recognising that the structure was ineffective and inefficient, Natalie made the decision to consolidate responsibility for the back and front-end operations at EACH to sit under two executives, an Executive Director Operations and an Executive Director Organisational Enablement, which is my current role. 

The decision to call ourselves the ‘organisational enablement’ team was very intentional because that was the required shift in how we viewed our back-office function: we exist to enable the business to do great work. 

We saw the Operations teams as the core, as they are providing essential services to our customers, and the Operations Enablement Team wraps around them to enable them to do that. 

No need to be a technical expert

While my remit now expands to include HR, finance, infrastructure, quality and risk, the national intake service, as well as IT, other than the HR remit, I am by no means a technical expert in each area.

Instead, it’s the ways of thinking and my people-centric lens garnered through my years in HR that enable me to make a unique contribution as an executive leader. Pragmatism and a strong dose of common sense certainly helps too!

For example, since having responsibility for IT, I’ve restructured the team, engaging external support to provide advice on the technical aspects. 

I worked with the new IT leadership team to develop a five-year IT roadmap. I’ve been able to contribute skills in translating ‘what needs to be done’ into a strategic plan that justifies the resources required to deliver. 

Not having an IT background can have its benefits, as I had to ask a lot of questions to understand what was needed, and that enabled a roadmap and communications strategy that has been translated into language everyone can understand and relate to. 

We have exceptional talent in our IT team. They know what they need to do, but just require support to be enabled to do it. This means I didn’t immediately put a Chief Information Officer into the structure, as I wanted to see how it worked with the IT leaders collaboratively leading among themselves. 

After six months of working closely with them, I determined there wasn’t a significant gap. The gap that was evident was my lack of technical knowledge, meaning if they needed someone to bounce technical ideas off, I wasn’t particularly helpful. 

To mitigate that gap, we have engaged a fractional CIO to support the team when they need it, provide advice to me and to have external oversight to our IT roadmap and strategy, which gives the board reassurance that we’re on the right track. 

The most critical skills are the ability to listen, bring together different people and perspectives to work collaboratively together and recognise when you’ve got something wrong and need to adapt. My general approach is to put out what is proposed and ask people to tell me what’s wrong with it or what’s missing. If you listen to their responses, you can make better decisions. 

Spreading the word

While I don’t have responsibility for our communications or marketing units, the work of these teams does inform a lot of my role in organisational enablement.

For example, a recent project I’ve worked on with this team is working out how we can make the work of the organisational enablement teams more visible to the rest of the business. 

“We have to demonstrate our ability to see the bigger picture and align with the broader business goals. I wouldn’t be in my position today had I not done that.” – Clare Murphy FCPHR

There’s often a tension between what these teams are asked to do and what they have the capacity to deliver on; they can be pulled in a variety of directions. 

I also work very closely with our Executive Director Operations, Camilla Radia-George, to address these tensions; the relationship with her is critical. When there are competing priorities, we get together to map out the priorities to make sure we’re aligned and are continuing to work towards the same goals.

To create that visibility and transparency, one of the things we have been doing is creating a series of short videos that interview some of our back-office employees about what they’re working on.

We found that this resulted in increased understanding of the demands of the back-of-house teams – like Operations, they have competing demands and by making this visible to the broader team, people are more patient with requests and willing to be flexible with time frames.

As an executive leader, a key part of my job is tying all the threads together and getting teams to see how their effort and time contributes not only to our customers, but also to their fellow teammates. Having a bird’s-eye view of each function makes that much easier to do.

I often say to our leaders, ‘That will impact X team. Have you looped them into this work?’ or ‘We may have to push that time frame back, as X is happening and that will impact staff too.’

The future role of HR

I would love to see organisations moving away from the common move of having the Chief Financial Officer as the next in line for a CEO position. Organisations can benefit immensely from having more HR leaders in executive leadership roles and taking on a broader remit. 

Our ability to navigate complexity, manage stakeholders of all levels in the organisation and apply a people-focused lens to decision-making means we’re able to make unique contributions to the business. 

But we also have to demonstrate our ability to see the bigger picture and align with the broader business goals. I wouldn’t be in my position today had I not done that. 

If you are wanting to move into a broader role, don’t wait to be asked. Get involved in projects outside HR, speak to your CEO about your intentions and see what opportunities are available. For example, you could ask your colleagues in finance or IT if you can join meetings with them to learn about their priorities and ways of working.

To become a future-ready HR leader, it’s about more than just having technical aptitude and understanding how to read a financial report. It’s about how you support people to work in more effective ways – enabling them to make impactful contributions to the business and having a return on investment in the process.

Want to learn more about how to develop executive presence to enhance your HR leadership? Sign up for AHRI’s webinar on this topic on 1st of May. Free for AHRI members.

The post Is it time we expanded the remit of the HR function? appeared first on HRM online.

When considering solutions to Australia’s lagging productivity levels, our minds often turn to innovation growth, optimising workforces to operate in a streamlined manner and upskilling workers with critical skill sets. 

While these factors are all important and will play a part in getting Australia to meet its OECD counterparts’ productivity levels, there’s a more impactful lever that needs to be pulled which we often ignore.

“We should think about productivity as a concept that’s much more dispersed. Every person, everywhere, in every organisation, every day, plays a significant role,” says Christina Boedker, Professor at the University of Newcastle, who has researched the impacts of poor management practices via the Australian Workplace Index.

The Index found that in the past five years, Australia’s productivity growth has dropped to half of its 25-year average. The impact this is having on our economy reaches into the billions of dollars. For example, staff turnover alone is leading to a $3.8 billion-dollar loss to productivity.

Professor Boedker says when we think of productivity as more than just an innovation agenda, that gives us much more opportunity to intervene at an organisational level – and it positions HR leaders to design capability uplift programs that will have an impact.

How to measure management

In 2004, John Van Reenen, academic at London School of Economics and MIT, and Nicholas Bloom, Professor of Economics at Stanford, were among the first researchers to offer robust evidence on management quality’s effect on an organisation’s bottom line, when they established the World Management Survey (WMS). 

For nearly 20 years, the WMS team – which now also includes Raffaella Sadun (Harvard), Daniela Scur (Cornell) and Renata Lemos (Senior Economist at the World Bank) – has collected and measured management practice information from hundreds of medium-sized firms around the world.

They’ve found that managerial practice is strongly associated with productivity, profitability, stock market valuation and organisational survival. Following a wave of surveys in 2023, with data that spans 20,000 interviews across 35 countries, the key takeaway from nearly two decades’ worth of research was that around a third of global productivity gaps can be attributed to poor management.

“What’s stunning is how consistent the patterns are across industries and nations, and over time,” says Van Reenen, who is Ronald Coase School Professor at the London School of Economics and Digital Fellow at the Initiative for the Digital Economy at MIT.

“We’re starting to call some of these patterns ‘the natural laws of management’.”

Crucially, management scores are also strongly correlated with the wider economy and GDP per capita. For example, Van Reenen attributes management, or lack thereof, to around half of the gap between the UK and the US. 

“Given that low productivity is probably the number-one economic problem in the UK, this shows you how much could be gained from moving the dial on management.”

Kieron Meagher, economist and Professor at the Australian National University, who also contributed to the Australian Workplace Index, says the WMS is one of the most realistic measurements of management’s impacts on productivity.

Often public discourse around management’s impacts on productivity is solely focused on labour productivity data – the output per worker, he says.

“That’s because total factor productivity, which is how much you get for all the inputs you use, is very hard to measure, especially in service industries which [account for] about 80 per cent of the economy,” he says.

“[Management training] is usually something we do when things have gone wrong. It’s not something that all organisations will proactively invest in. Then they don’t understand why people are leaving or why they have low productivity.” –  Christina Boedker, Professor at the University of Newcastle

“But the thing is, labour productivity goes up with more capital regardless of whether it’s a good idea for the business to invest in the capital… because if you’re not counting the capital as an input, you get more output, then labour productivity has to go up even if you’re wasting those resources.”

But that’s not what the WMS has done; its researchers have encapsulated labour productivity as well as labour inputs, skill levels of the managers (based on those who’ve secured an MBA) and the capital investment of the organisations.

However, the WMS measures of management are mainly focused on management practices such as setting goals, monitoring people, providing them with incentives, holding employees accountable and hiring good people.

“They don’t really measure the psychological side of management. If you consider that, the productivity impacts could potentially be even larger. So I would view their numbers as somewhat conservative in that regard.”

Van Reenen’s 2017 research also shows Australia’s management scores lag behind those of most other developed nations.

Good management is directly correlated with improved business performance, says Van Reenen. This is why he believes management training should be a top priority for businesses in 2024 and beyond. 

“As an economist, I am flabbergasted at just how many badly managed firms there are. For example, businesses failing to collect sensible data on what they’re doing, setting impossible goals and promoting based on connections rather than ability and effort.

“There are some clear drivers of better management practices, so the good news is that there are many ways that business leaders can up their game.”

But how can HR help them get there?

Leadership empowerment

HR leaders have a role to play in addressing these challenges via targeted training programs fit for the modern-day worker, which need to account for the fact that work is becoming less routine, says Professor Meagher.

“People often think of this production-line type of economy, but we left that behind a long time ago. We now have a large proportion of people who are knowledge workers doing complex jobs.

“As a supervisor, you’re not just looking over people’s shoulders to see how fast they’re screwing the wheels on in the Ford production line. You can’t even tell what they’re doing because it’s all in their heads.”

Professor Boedker says part of the solution lies in moving away from prescriptive leadership styles and empowering employees to “be the custodians of their own productivity”.

“[Australia] is still far off in terms of the attitudes that most supervisors take. Scandinavia, for example, has been a lot more progressive in institutionalising and bringing into leadership this idea that people can think and act independently,” she says.

People management 101 needs to be the foundational skill set that we develop in future leaders and managers, she says, but we often just promote those who are technically accomplished and think of people skills as a secondary training element – and that’s if we consider them at all.

“[Management training] is usually something we do when things have gone wrong. It’s not something that all organisations will proactively invest in. Then they don’t understand why people are leaving or why they have low productivity.”

Empowering leadership styles are the answer, she says. The Australian Workplace Index found that if all Australian managers and leaders adopted an empowering mindset, we could reduce Australia’s work-related mental health costs by $1.7 billion, increase staff productivity by 10 per cent and reduce employee turnover by 25 per cent.

On a smaller scale, Professor Boedker says just a 10 per cent increase in empowering leadership translates to:

• A seven per cent increase in job satisfaction
• A 10 per cent reduction in employee turnover intentions
• A 6.5 per cent reduction in emotional exhaustion
• A six per cent boost to emotional wellbeing.

Putting insights into action

Professors Boedker and Meagher share key areas to focus on, both from a training perspective and in order to set the right conditions for managers to thrive in. These include:

Helping employees find meaning in their work

Employees who feel their work is meaningful have improved energy, health, resilience and satisfaction in their work, according to research.

“If you can see the point in your work in a moral sense or derive personal satisfaction from it, then that can make your job easier to do. You feel like there’s less drudgery,” says Meagher.

Action: Read this HRM article about how to help employees search for meaning in their work.

Set long-term KPIs for managers

“When managers are given short-term goals to meet… they might sacrifice the long-term interest of the workers in order to achieve their short-term goals,” says Professor Meagher.

“We hear about CEOs doing that stuff all the time, right? Like stock price manipulation by doing something with the books. But middle managers can do that kind of stuff too.”

Action: Review management KPIs with the leadership team and consider adding in people-centric goals, such as ‘How many employees received a promotion in your team?’ Or ‘How many new skills have you introduced to the company via your coaching efforts?’

Make work less difficult for people

By removing friction points and ensuring employees have the resources, skills and information they need, employees are enabled to work in more streamlined ways. 

Action: Encourage managers to include a recurring agenda item in their one-on-ones to check that employees have the information they need to do their work for the week ahead and help them to remove any roadblocks that are in their way, such as excessive meetings or technology challenges.

Facilitate discretionary effort

Discretionary efforts are dipping in Australia. Gartner found that change fatigue paired with cost-of-living pressures could be contributing to this. We also know that engagement levels are currently low as employees continue to wrangle increased workloads, uncertain economic circumstances and more complex work tasks, among other things.

“Consider what motivates us to put in that discretionary effort,” says Professor Boedker. “It’s the relationships we build, right? Yes, there’s a job to be done, but people come to work because they have good relationships and feelings of being supported and recognised.

“We can’t underestimate the relational elements, and I think some managers tend to forget that.”

Action: Sign your managers up to AHRI’s Leadership and Management short course to help them learn the fundamental skills required to be an effective manager in 2024.

Weed out the bad apples

We know that the negative impacts of a bad apple in the workplace can be far-reaching, and it’s even worse when that bad apple is in management.

“The side of management that we don’t talk about enough is the negative sides of [managers’] behaviour. The ‘Dark Triad’ is psychopaths, Machiavellian behaviour and narcissistic behaviour.”

These personalities are huge productivity detractors. Rather than just adding more ‘good leaders’ into the mix, it’s more effective to either weed out toxic players or put in the work and structures to change their behaviours, as organisational psychologist Adam Grant pointed out in this article on ‘givers’ and ‘takers’ in the workplace.

Action: Read HRM’s article ‘How to turn a bad boss into a strong leader’ and ‘The three types of narcissist you might encounter at work‘.

“These are all skills that some people might be born with, but for most of us it might require training, so I think there’s a role for HR to help managers to be thinking about those,” says Professor Meagher. “These [factors] aren’t peripheral extras. They’re key to modern management.”

The post A third of global productivity gaps can be attributed to poor management appeared first on HRM online.

When we think about high performance, our minds often wander to superstar athletes or the intellectual geniuses. But we all have the potential to be high performers in our fields, we just sometimes miss the crucial support needed to raise our own bar.

“I think about hidden potential as the capacity for growth,” says Grant, a US-based organisational psychologist, author, podcast host and Professor of Management and Psychology at the Wharton Business School in Philadelphia.

In a recent visit to Australia, as part of an event hosted by Growth Faculty, Grant shared

some research-backed practices to help employers uncover hidden potential in themselves and their teams. Below, HRM shares a summary of some of his advice.

1. Identify your givers

All workplaces have givers and takers, says Grant.

“The givers are people who are constantly asking, ‘What can I do for you?‘ Takers are the opposite. They want to know, ‘What are you doing to do for me?'”

Givers are worth their weight in gold, as they’re often helping people uncover their own capabilities.

“[Givers] share their knowledge. They teach their skills, they mentor junior people, they volunteer for unpopular [tasks],” he says.

This could lead one to believe that you should exclusively hire and build teams of givers. But keeping toxic ‘takers’ out of an organisation has proven to be much more effective, says Grant.

“If you bring one giver into your team… more often people are like, ‘Great, that person will do all my work’. So effective hiring and selection is less about bringing in the givers and is more about weeding out the takers who destroy the collective potential of the group.”

Action point: Create reciprocity rings

Grant cites the work of Australian researcher Sharon Parker, ARC Laureate Fellow at Curtin University and Director at the Centre for Transformative Work Design, who has helped shape his research over the past 25 years.

Proactive generosity in a work context is relatively rare, Parker’s research found.

“It turns out that 75 to 90 per cent of helping behaviour starts with a request,” says Grant. “Somebody saying, ‘I’m stuck on this. Could I get your advice? Can you help me solve this problem?’ 

“But a lot of us don’t ask. We don’t want to be too vulnerable. We want to look competent and self-reliant. If you’re a giver, there’s an extra barrier which is that you like to be on the giving end of every interaction. You don’t want to be a burden to others.”

Cheryl Baker, co-founder of Give and Take Inc, and her husband Wayne Baker, professor at the University of Michigan, came up with a solution for this called the ‘reciprocity ring’. 

Essentially, you gather a group of people who don’t know each other too well and invite them to make a request for something they need but feel they can’t get/do on their own. The whole group is then tasked to use their collective knowledge and networks to fulfil each other’s requests.

For example, employees might seek exposure to a mentor, expertise to build something new, or support getting a pitch over the line with the executive team.

Grant refers to an example of a pharmaceutical company that conducted a reciprocity ring. One researcher was trying to synthesise a strain of PSC alkaloid, but they didn’t have the budget to continue the work.

“Someone from a different unit said, ‘I have some slack in my lab at the moment and this sounds like it would be a great learning opportunity for my team. We can do it for free.’ And that saved the company 50 grand.

“I think this is a great exercise… because when everyone is asked to make a request, the givers start asking [for help], and when everyone is expected to help, the takers start giving. In one study, we found that takers tripled their contributions during this activity.”

2. Challenge assumptions

Learning how to find a diamond in the rough is a critically underrated skill, says Grant. In one of his former roles, Grant was in charge of hiring a team of salespeople for a travel company.

“I remember one [candidate] stood out to me as being a horrible fit for the job. This guy who applied was a maths major and built robots for fun… it was probably the worst interview I’ve ever witnessed. Afterwards, I made the decision to reject him.”

When he was debriefing with the company’s president and going through the list of candidates, she queried him on this decision.

“[She asked me], “Why did you reject him?” I said, “To be perfectly honest, he didn’t make eye contact for the first 45 minutes of the interview. There’s no way he’s going to have the social and emotional intelligence to be good at sales.” And our President said, “You realise this is a phone sales job, right?””

This was somewhat of a ‘light-bulb moment’ for Grant. He had an idea of what a ‘successful’ sales representative looked like and didn’t take the time to consider if this candidate might have other valuable skills to add to the mix. Perhaps he was neurodivergent, quiet or introverted, all of which carry their own unique benefits to an organisation.

Action point: Rethink job interviews

Grant decided to give this candidate, and others who’d been unsuccessful, a second chance. He also changed how the interview was conducted. Instead of asking them questions, he gave them a chance to sell something: a rotten apple.

“We figured, if you can sell us a rotten apple, you can sell pretty much anything. My all-time favourite pitch was someone who came in and said, “This might look like a rotten apple, but this is an aged, antique apple. And you know how they say, ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away?’ Well, the nutrients that have formed in this apple during the ageing process mean you only need to eat one per week.’

“I hired him and he was the single best salesperson in our company, he broke multiple company records and he studied maths and built robots in his spare time. That was a great lesson for me.”

“When you ask for advice, people become more specific. They become more actionable. They give you suggestions that you can actually put into practice.” – Adam Grant

This experience has led Grant to believe that all job interviews should come with a do-over.

“There’s an entrepreneur, Guy Winch, who… at the end of the interview, asks, “How do you think it went?” And if you weren’t happy with your own performance, if you feel like the company didn’t give you a chance to shine, they invite you to try again. That is an incredible way to find people who have hidden potential.”

3. Normalise not knowing

Often, we think of imposter syndrome as a debilitating, chronic disease, says Grant. But, in certain circumstances, it could help us.

He refers to the research of Basima Tewfik, Assistant Professor, Work and Organisation Studies at MIT, who studies impostor thoughts, such as: ‘Am I good enough? Should I be here? Am I ready for the next step?’ 

“What the data suggests is that the more often you have those thoughts the better you perform. Basima studied investment professionals, military professionals and medical professionals, and [the results] showed that more frequent impostor thoughts lead to more persistence.

“And [it also leads to] better learning because you feel like there’s a gap between what other people expect of you and where you are right now. Also, you know you don’t know everything, so you become curious and start to let other people coach you.”

Action point: Encourage employees to stop thinking of impostor syndrome as ‘pathology’

While Tewfik’s research isn’t suggesting that Impostor Syndrome is a good thing, it does encourage employees to perhaps “dampen the initial stress and anxiety that comes with impostor thoughts by showing that there’s an interpersonal silver lining,” she said in an article for Harvard Business Review.

4. Consider the ‘second score’

The second score concept was first introduced to Grant by Sheila Heen, Thaddeus R. Beal Professor of Practice and Deputy Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project.

“When somebody gives us a D minus and says, ‘Your performance was terrible,’ we try to argue with that and convince them to change the first score. But we can’t change the first score because it has already been determined by the performance you gave yesterday.”

The second score, which you give to yourself, is about receiving an A+ for how well you took the challenging feedback.

“I think about this pretty much every day. Whenever someone tells me something I’ve done poorly or need to improve at… I’ve got to figure out how to prove myself and the best way to do that is to show that I’m willing to improve myself.”

Action point – turn your critics into coaches

Resist the temptation to tune out negative feedback, says Grant, as you don’t want to create a situation where “people are lining up to tell you comfortable lies instead of the unpleasant truth”.

We need to turn these “unpleasant truths” into important coaching.

To get people who’ve given you ‘negative’ feedback to coach you to do better next time, instead of asking for feedback ask for their advice, he says.

“The problem with feedback is people are backward-looking and will tell you what you screwed up yesterday. That doesn’t tell you anything helpful. What you want are coaches who look to the future and tell you what you can change.

“When you ask for advice, people become more specific. They become more actionable. They give you suggestions that you can actually put into practice.”

Need support uncovering your hidden potential as an HR professional? Take AHRI’s capabilities analysis test to learn where you can enhance your skill set and receive a personalised report outlining what your AHRI learning journey could look like. Learn more here.

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When Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, HR & Corporate Functions, thinks about what it meant to work in HR 20 years ago, she’s struck by the vast ways in which the role has changed.

“It’s very different now… now we’re trying to help shape how employees are thinking and feeling, [and determining] the right people strategies,” she told HRM on a recent visit to Australia from the US.

A huge part of the change in HR’s remit is the integration of technology with HR’s work. This is an exciting opportunity, says Coleman, as it means HR professionals are not only privy to but leading strategic conversations, and helping take their organisations into new directions with the help of powerful technology. Here’s how the Microsoft HR team is doing just that.

How the Microsoft HR team is using AI

Coleman feels lucky that she works in an environment where she gets to use technology as part of her HR practices each day.

“I really understand that it’s a privilege to work at a tech company. I get to use technology to help enhance the humanity that our HR team brings.”

Microsoft’s HR team has been able to save over 20,000+ hours since an AI HR chatbot entered its workflow around 12 months ago.

“Every question [for HR] goes into a funnel,” says Coleman. “At the very end of that funnel is self-service [based on an internal database]. An employee might want to take a leave of absence, for example. They’ll type that in and get access to a policy. 

“We want to push as many people as possible to have a really good employee experience at that self-service level,” she says.

This means the HR team isn’t getting bogged down in sourcing and relaying the same information over and over again.

“We want to focus on the things that take emotional intelligence, judgement and humanity to do.” – Amy Coleman, Corporate VP, HR and Corporate Services, Microsoft

As employees’ questions become more complex, so too does the technology solution.

“Say you want to take a sabbatical and you’re also getting ready to go on maternity leave, so it’s a bit more of a compounded problem. You might be able to get some of the information from our internal site, but perhaps you can’t get everything you need, or you need to validate your findings. That’s when you go into the second level of the funnel.”

This is where Microsoft’s AI-enabled HR chatbot is introduced.

“This is like a virtual assistant that can start to reference some of our policies. I know a lot of industries have had these types of chatbots for a long time now – like in the airline or travel sectors. But we’re continually investing in ours to help it really [understand] the person who is asking the question.”

The idea is that future iterations of this technology should be able to offer bespoke responses based on information in the employee’s profile. For example, say an employee wants to work part-time for a period and is seeking information about the financial implications of doing so. The chatbot could be trained on that employee’s data set, so it could provide bespoke information based on that person’s current salary.

The third stage of the funnel is where Microsoft applies both human HR expertise with AI.

“If you weren’t able to get an answer to your question at stages one or two, now you talk to someone in HR and we then look at how those people can apply AI to answer your question faster and give you the right information.

“We’re trying to make it as personalised as possible and as accurate as possible – take some of the human error out of it and allow the HR professional who’s interacting with you to be more about [having] empathy and an understanding of the context.”

Reinvesting time into leadership development

With the time that has been freed up by using this technology, Coleman says the HR team is reinvesting in high-value HR tasks, such as coaching leaders. 

“So let’s say that employee now has information about their sabbatical, maternity leave and pay. Now the HR team might step in to support with setting up a coverage plan with their manager. So helping out in more of a leadership development or coaching manner. We want to focus on the things that take emotional intelligence, judgement and humanity to do. 

“So if I think about where I’d tell my HR team to spend their time, I would be asking, ‘How do we get our leaders and managers to help us scale [our HR initiatives]?’ We have somewhere around 20,000-25,000 managers at Microsoft. That’s an opportunity for HR to be coaching at that management and leadership level to help us drive responses around how we deal with change.

“If we get great leaders who can help us move and lead through a transformation or learn how to utilise adaptive skills or show empathy… that’s where we’ll meet our magic.”

When you think of adaptive, empathetic leadership, many minds would turn to Microsoft’s own CEO, Satya Nadella.

When speaking at the AFR’s Workforce Summit last week, Coleman spoke of the cultural transformation that Nadella brought to Microsoft’s culture through his focus on growth mindset, encouragement of experimentation and “personal leadership at scale”.

He’s humble, relatable and embraces two-way dialogue with employees, says Coleman.

“We were really intentional with Microsoft’s cultural transformation. We have cultural lessons that we’re always trying to reflect on and learn from. And personal leadership at scale is something we want to take with us,” she says.

This important work is where she sees HR adding value.

“We want our leaders to connect with people in really authentic ways, to create followership and to [understand employees’] perspectives. I think that’s super important, whether you’re leading a project team or you’re the CEO.”

Another key piece of cultural work that Microsoft’s HR team is now freed up to focus on is embedding a growth mindset in its leaders.

“Part of that is about learning to say what you don’t know. How can we help leaders who’ve been trained and educated to need to know everything to feel okay about not knowing something.

“Sitting in that [vulnerable] space can be really hard for leaders, so we need to have empathy for that and help them.”

Help your organisation build future-fit leaders and managers, or learn more about your own leadership style with AHRI’s short course.

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