The ODI Skills Programme for Management and Leadership Development, focuses on strengthening emotional intelligence and coaching skills and aims at middle management level. It is a practical programme covering two unit standards with a total of 12 credits. Learning is immediately applied in the workplace, both in terms of emotional intelligence skills as well as the coaching of line managers, with active coaching from the skills programme facilitator.

Marius says: “The programme really helped me to better understand important management skills and apply it in the workplace. It supported our farm team to get closer as a team and improve the operations performance of the farm. Going forward I will focus on improving further on the skills learned, and specifically:

• Listening more intently to my team’s opinions, inputs and ideas
• Providing regular positive feedback and giving recognition
• Coaching my supervisors based on the process and emotional intelligence skills I learned

I facilitated and coached Marius. It was highly satisfying to see him absorb the learning and making a real effort to apply the skills learned in the workplace. At the beginning we discussed the management approach of “being hard on standards but soft on people”. With a very small team on the farm, caring for a large amount of pigs, best practice standard operating procedures, with people fully and always adhering to it, are important. But the focus of management should be equally strong on caring for people; in a small team it is even more important that there are:

• teamwork,
• ownership of work,
• participation with ideas for improvement, and
• every person always giving his/her best, also when no one is around.

Marius has developed significantly over the last few months and is effectively applying the learning in terms of emotional intelligence skills and coaching, with the results of that effort also visible in the operations performance of the farm.

Rooipoort farm was recently again awarded the prestigious annual Topigs/Norsvin trophy for best Sow Unit.

Looking at the current team spirit and operations performance of the farm, it looks like Marius and his team will not let go easily of the trophy in 2021!

Author: Johan Benadie – Director at ODI

To read more about ODI’s Management and Leadership Development Coaching Programme, click here.

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However, it is during these worst of times that we have seen many extraordinary things emerge to become the best of times.

With consumer income and confidence plunging, the unemployment rate rising, the GDP rate falling and our economy in junk status, there’s little hope of good economic news anytime soon.

Economists and historians point out that such circumstances can, however, be an opportunity for innovation and innovative leadership. Tough times can make for good startups and boom times can sometimes be fatal to entrepreneurial success. Inventors and innovative entrepreneurs should be smiling. That timeworn proverb about “an ill wind that blows no good” truly applies in an economic downturn. What do Lindt chocolate, the Rubik’s Cube, French perfumes and a pair of Wellies have in common? They’ve all had increased profits during a recession (source: New York Times blog 2009).

Many hard pressed consumers’ needs and priorities have changed.  As households budgets are squeezed, people are looking for cost-cutting measures from their desperate situations. Domestic trends toward internet shopping, board games that supplant high-cost entertainment systems, inexpensive household comforts, new gadgets that enhance consumers’ homes — which will be with them for a while and entice inventors and entrepreneurial minded people.

Today, we have great power at our fingertips, but we also need to solve problems that we did not need to face in the last decades. Everywhere we turn, and every day, we are faced with circumstances and challenges that we did not confront before.

A lot has been written about the accelerating pace of change and globalisation. This has been fuelled by the rapid technological innovation that has transformed our environments in business, politics and personal lives.  Just look at EDCON now and previously Blackberry, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Stuttafords and soon SAA.

These changes have placed new demands on how we must think in order to thrive. People need to break old behavioural habits and establish new ones. We need to let go of our comfort zones and become more comfortable with ambiguity and contradiction. We need to reframe our questions and assumptions and look through a new lens and be open to new paradigms.

As leaders, we cannot rely on only cognitive (IQ), technical and analytical skills. Although these are powerful, it proceeds in a linear fashion. We need a new way of thinking – proceeding largely in the unconscious. It is a non-linear mode of thinking, emotion derived, able to integrate diverse and multiple information. It allows the consideration of ideas that seems unusual or even bizarre. It fuels creativity and leadership. It is more an art than a science. Leaders in this mode have a high degree of self -awareness, self –regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. These components are visible in individuals with a high degree of emotional intelligence.   Leaders with this high degree of Emotional Intelligence, have seen their performance, influence, persuasiveness and optimism soar even in the face of failure and doom.

I want to end with the full opening paragraph of a Tale of Two Cities, so evocatively and beautifully expressed by Charles Dickens and so relevant to our times and situation:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

 Sources:

• Leadership insights – Harvard Business Review (Article collection)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• Elastic: Flexible thinking in a constantly changing world by Leonard MLodinov

Author: Gerald McKinnon – Director at ODI

From the comfort and safety of your home, you can now learn how to develop your Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), by signing up to NQF5: THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Enrolment is free of charge, if you register during level 4 of the COVID-19 lock-down period. To register for this online programme, please email e-support@odi.co.za

The post Leadership for our times… appeared first on ODI.

The topic of discussion was “How smart leaders are adapting to the next normal”. The guest was Grant Schreiber – a South African author, editor, publisher  and founding editor of Real Leaders, a leadership magazine that focuses exclusively on sustainability and ethical business.

The following is a summary of the discussions and opinions.

What are smart leaders doing now? Showing lots of Empathy! They have the ability to understand the emotional make-up of other people and have the skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions. People are going through lots of emotional trauma and grief, and leaders – now more than ever before, need to have that “generosity of spirit”.  They need to have an “extended family mentality”.

Leaders are becoming more human. People will ask,” Where were you during the lock-down”? “Did you help?” Leaders need to be real advocates for helping people and society.

Business and society are now firmly linked. Philanthropy and charity should be embedded in the purpose and values of organisations. Companies need to re-look their values and values need to reflect more of serving mankind and not only shareholders, staff and customers.

Leaders are realising that they cannot work on their own to resolve issues. They are gathering a team of problem-solvers around them, because they realise people need help. They are not swamped by these emotions but they come up with clear solutions.

Leaders are encouraging staff to WFH, the new acronym for “WORKING FROM HOME”, where possible.

The world has moved towards digitalisation. One can see this by the increase in online traffic and this will continue. Communication via Zoom, Skype, WeBex, Gotomeeting and Whatsapp is booming – becoming the new norm for socialising.

Leaders are looking at supply chains and asking how it can be changed to accommodate this new world of work? The challenge is – how do you influence people by sitting at home? A large part of leadership is influence.

There is now a proliferation of studying and learning from home opportunities, more so than ever before. Learning and studying from home will become the new norm.

In every crisis there is opportunity. There are many examples of this. During the war, Coca Cola wanted to distribute their products to the frontline. To do this they opened up distribution hubs. After the war this served as distribution centres and gave them an advantage over others.

We must not embed the words “social distancing”. The correct word is physical distancing + social connecting. #Togetherapart

This is now our Kairos moment – a propitious moment for decision and action as we enter the new normalcy. Some brave decisions are required from leaders. Old habits and old behaviour need to change and bold new decisions are required.

From the comfort and safety of your home, you can now learn how to develop your Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), by signing up to NQF5: THE IMPACT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

To find out more, click here.

Author: Gerald McKinnon : Director at ODI

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