Network Leadership As a Key To Change Management and Ways Of Its Development

22/ 02/ 2017

Author: Svitlana Nemyria, CEO SHL Ukraine, certified coach at CCU, AMA, MDI The growing complexity of organizational environment and content of work, the increasing requirements to results and deadlines for achieving them demand for new leadership behaviour. How is it possible to achieve the desired goals in conditions of constant working environment and organizational structure changes? To cope with the arranged, it is not often enough to have leadership and management competencies. And to develop network leadership is highly in need. Network leadership means establishment and use of mutually beneficial relationships outside of your team. Thanks to this approach, the manager is establishing productive relations between different departments, effective distribution of funds and talent, is committed to the development of the company and, consequently, achieves his own business goals. Companies that develop their leaders, quickly achieve business results, increase competitive advantage, significantly improve the level of involvement of the employees. What are the main organizational and substantive reasons for the effectiveness of leadership development programmes? According to CEB research, duration and number of participants in the program do not affect the performance of the potential development programmes. Formalization of stages and necessary events is increasing the effectiveness of programmes almost twice. One example of formalization is the high potential model of leadership. According to the report «Improving the Odds of Success for High-Potential Programmes», high potential model from CEB consists of three parts: 1) Aspiration (to rise to senior roles) 2) Ability (to be effective in more responsible and senior roles) 3) Engagement (to commit to the organisation and remain in challenging roles) Each part is important for success of a candidate on managerial position. Since engagement depends on the mission, values and benefits of the company, and aspiration can be caused by quite different motivators, we should talk about what the company can influence and it is the development of competencies (ability). CEB researches indicate that 50% of training programmes are not effective because knowledge is not applied in practice in daily work environment. That is the reason why SHL Ukraine uses 70-20-10 method for many years, where 70% of competency development obtained from its absorption in the workplace, solving new challenging tasks using new models of behavior. The other 20% are developing relationships (includes observation of more successful employees, regular feedback from colleagues/supervisor, working with individual coach/mentor), and 10% are received in training for the necessary additional knowledge. To develop network leadership competencies, we recommend to apply in the workplace the following development steps: use the existing working relationships outside of your team for a more rational and efficient performance of work, assist other employees in establishing contacts (inside and outside the organization) that can help you better perform functions, expand the existing network of contacts (actively meet and maintain a relationship with the related departments) that improve the demonstration of Building the network competency, implement principles and practices that encourage others to find and develop new ideas, to bring information, problems and questions to the team to make it think more broadly, maintain dialogues and discussions in the network of contacts, to encourage experimentation and thought over risks, which will help to development of Energizing the network competency, provide team members independence and powers, to determine how to carry out the work best, create situations that contribute to the appearance of informal leaders, which would affect to development of Creating interdependence competency, assist team members to receive the resources and support from other sections of the company, istribution tasks with other leaders that can develop Enabling the network competency. Thus, network leadership is necessary for daily personal and team development in order to achieve more effective and qualitative business results.

Author: Svitlana Nemyria, CEO SHL Ukraine, certified coach at CCU, AMA, MDI

The growing complexity of organizational environment and content of work, the increasing requirements to results and deadlines for achieving them demand for new leadership behaviour. How is it possible to achieve the desired goals in conditions of constant working environment and organizational structure changes? To cope with the arranged, it is not often enough to have leadership and management competencies. And to develop network leadership is highly in need.

Network leadership means establishment and use of mutually beneficial relationships outside of your team. Thanks to this approach, the manager is establishing productive relations between different departments, effective distribution of funds and talent, is committed to the development of the company and, consequently, achieves his own business goals.

Companies that develop their leaders, quickly achieve business results, increase competitive advantage, significantly improve the level of involvement of the employees. What are the main organizational and substantive reasons for the effectiveness of leadership development programmes?

According to CEB research, duration and number of participants in the program do not affect the performance of the potential development programmes. Formalization of stages and necessary events is increasing the effectiveness of programmes almost twice.

One example of formalization is the high potential model of leadership. According to the report «Improving the Odds of Success for High-Potential Programmes», high potential model from CEB consists of three parts:

1) Aspiration (to rise to senior roles)

2) Ability (to be effective in more responsible and senior roles)

3) Engagement (to commit to the organisation and remain in challenging roles)

Each part is important for success of a candidate on managerial position. Since engagement depends on the mission, values and benefits of the company, and aspiration can be caused by quite different motivators, we should talk about what the company can influence and it is the development of competencies (ability).

CEB researches indicate that 50% of training programmes are not effective because knowledge is not applied in practice in daily work environment. That is the reason why SHL Ukraine uses 70-20-10 method for many years, where 70% of competency development obtained from its absorption in the workplace, solving new challenging tasks using new models of behavior. The other 20% are developing relationships (includes observation of more successful employees, regular feedback from colleagues/supervisor, working with individual coach/mentor), and 10% are received in training for the necessary additional knowledge.

To develop network leadership competencies, we recommend to apply in the workplace the following development steps:

use the existing working relationships outside of your team for a more rational and efficient performance of work,
assist other employees in establishing contacts (inside and outside the organization) that can help you better perform functions,
expand the existing network of contacts (actively meet and maintain a relationship with the related departments) that improve the demonstration of Building the network competency,
implement principles and practices that encourage others to find and develop new ideas,
to bring information, problems and questions to the team to make it think more broadly,
maintain dialogues and discussions in the network of contacts, to encourage experimentation and thought over risks, which will help to development of Energizing the network competency,
provide team members independence and powers, to determine how to carry out the work best,
create situations that contribute to the appearance of informal leaders, which would affect to development of Creating interdependence competency,
assist team members to receive the resources and support from other sections of the company,
istribution tasks with other leaders that can develop Enabling the network competency.