Of course, in companies it is still about the growth of turnover and profit. But growth nowadays includes the shift toward sustainability. In the supply chain keywords are ‘green and environment’.

In relationships keywords are ‘respect for all stakeholders’, meaning employees, customers, shareholders, customers of customers, government and even society as a whole.

For corporate leaders of today manoeuvring is more complicated than it was say ten years ago. They have to find answers for big dilemmas like: what is more important, internal or external orientation?  Employee or customer interests? Focus on shareholders or environment? How do you create your vision? How do you motivate your staff?

Such and similar choices determine leadership in 2012.

There are many managers but the real leaders provide overview and insight to their staff.

(S)he does not prescribe anymore but shows the direction, (s)he offers people a clear vision and certainty, and has transformed from being a boss to being a beacon.

What are the twelve requirements for top Leaders?

1 – Social Basis

CEO’s today look for a social basis in their organisation because they realise they will not have any chance to lead and direct their organisation toward their ideas, mission and vision without a broad social basis. And this social basis is determined by the trust employees have in their leader.

2 – Trust

Trust is a keyword in the new leadership. The leader is as effective as the trust that employees have in their leader is big. Being consciously aware that trust is vulnerable, new leaders explicitly manage expectations. You will only receive trust by first giving trust to your people and by being transparent. Being transparent about your ambitions, your choices and decisions, but also about your doubts.

3 – Vision

Vision is the word that new leaders use as their guideline. A clear vision for overcoming and going beyond daily obstacles and dilemmas and reaching further as every day’s hectic. A vision is grounded in the companies’ history and reflects its fundamental values. The vision gives meaning and purpose to you and your employees.

4- Independent

Everybody has opinions and the CEO needs a social basis for the vision, but the ultimate decision and responsibility is always at the CEO. And as a leader you need to be consistent and especially independent in that! In this complex reality and the fact that everybody wants something else from you, the leader is an independent thinker who makes own assessments with a backbone, within the boundaries of the social basis and aware of the temporary position the leader has.

5 – Balance

The leader is a master in the balancing act between the different stakeholders, between the different goals of the company and between long and short term decisions, between entrepreneurship and management. The leader ‘thinks in triangles’ because a triangle is always in balance.

7 – Connecting

To keep the balance and to keep the social basis on a broad level the leader is a champion in connecting. Connecting groups, different interests and even connecting dilemmas. The leader requires of middle management that they excel in connecting skills, especially in entrepreneurial cultures.

This also means that the leader allows others to be successful, and that (s)he backs up for the mistakes that are made by others, of which everybody learns. Today’s CEO’s are open for what happens to and takes place at all stakeholders and they have the guts to say sorry if things are not 100% executed well.

8 – Team as tool

De power tool of the leader is their team. The larger the organisation the smaller is the personal scope of the CEO. This means that the part that (s)he can influence directly, needs to fit as a tailor made suit. A good team, including the leader, cooperates effectively and works together toward a common goal, not different individual goals. Because individuals and teams have similar needs and have similar conditions for development, the synergetic effects of a top team create a large added value to the goals of the organisation, for the team members and the leader.

9 – Execution

Most of the CEO’s manage change processes; it might be to put customers first or to make the organisation more external, market oriented. It might be a merger process or a company culture project, it could be creating a new market approach or a brand management project.

The successes of all these big processes are in the execution. Results are answered by questions like: does this change process contribute to the result under the mark? Does it consolidate the business case? Are the employees remaining the moral owners of the organisation?

A simple to-do list for effective execution is:

Start with the ‘what’, then the ‘why’ and then the ‘who’! Then take a break, think carefully about your answers. And then go to the ‘how’, for yourself and for your organisation. Thinking carefully about the why, what and who prevents that coming at the ‘how’ question, thus the execution, the why and what questions keep coming back. Because this is why so many change processes fail.

10 – Predictable

Predictability in the decision making process is important. For connecting, for a social basis, for a team, for the employees and for the quality of the execution. This predictability should mainly come forward from the vision.

But too much predictability is not good; there should always be some space for unexpected renewal. This indeed is a thin line; the more the position and vision are owned by the employees, the more you will create space for improvisation, creativity and innovation.

This is the paradox of stability, of which the leader in 2012 is very aware.

11 – Communication

Another power tool of the new leader is communication. There is no other skill as important as open communication. Using the right words, appealing and motivating images and catchy one-liners are today indispensable. Today the leaders communicate directly with their people at lunches and coffee breaks to hear what they are thinking and they send blogs through the organisation over the heads of their middle management. The new leader gives regularly inspirational speeches for large groups of employees about the vision, goals and results and the way the company is progressing. Some do it even daily.

12 – Stay small

Stay close to your business and understand what is going on. That is what it is about, the new leaders say. Stay connected to your employees, know what they are doing and be sincerely interested in your people. It is all about the feeling, the new leaders say. Not only aimed at the here and now, but also focused on values, the hard financial, but especially the so called soft values; the results will be visible over a longer time period.

13 – The X-factor        

In spite of this balancing act where items as team, communication, vision, trust and connecting play the leading role, there is also something like the X-factor. All new leaders have it at their disposal. They are strong, calm, self-controlled and they show trust in a way that makes it easy to trust them.

They communicate in a clear way and they thought deeply about their own strong and weak points.

Having to do with many different stakeholders means per definition many disappointed stakeholders, not everybody will always be happy. They know it and they show it.

These leaders, especially the younger ones, have the guts to show their vulnerability as a person and as a leader. They talk openly about their fears that have to do with their heavy final responsibility. They live the paradox and they show their strength through their vulnerability and convince, bind and connect people by being authentic.

Because only someone who knows clearly what (s)he stands for, who clearly knows where to go to, can make her/himself a subject for discussion and dialogue without being sabotaged.

Self-confidence becomes tangible in this way.

The X-factor of modern leadership has everything to do with acknowledgement of own possibility for failure and uninhibited willingness to keep on learning on the job.

‘This makes the new leader nearly a normal human, but then still, just a bit different!’

(based on www.nieuwe-leiders.nl and MT, Dec. 2011)