Leaders must let go of industrial era paradigms to succeed

livemint.com:

The difference between successful and not-so-successful organizations eventually boils down to the degree of authenticity within them. This is the delta between what leaders profess and what the organization’s unsaid behavioural expectation is. Here are some examples.

Almost every organization proclaims how it values its employee’s mental health, physical well-being and family time, and yet many actually reward supposed workaholics who are at work regardless of hours or weekends. It is now a scientifically proven fact that multi-tasking or doing more than one demanding job simultaneously is suboptimal, and yet, multi-taskers who are apparently juggling several balls are lauded as heroes. Similarly, it has been established that eight hours of sleep is essential for good health and cognitive sharpness especially in critical decision-making.

Indeed, every hour of sleep deprivation from the eight is supposed to be the equivalent of having a drink of alcohol. While an employee would probably get fired for being drunk on duty, leaders who work 16-hour days are routinely extolled. Elaborate ‘Delegation of Authority’ documents are periodically crafted and issued.

But on the ground, there is dilution of power and diffusion of decision-making. While there are constant proclamations of desired qualities like ‘agility’ and an ‘ownership mindset’, actual processes are becoming excruciatingly twisted and the ability to take initiative increasingly corralled. On one hand, there are declarations on the virtues of ‘collaboration’ and ‘one team,’ etc, but appraisal mechanisms pit one colleague against the other in fratricidal bell curves.