Expert opinion: Key practices to instill and inspire alignment

Strong leadership is more than a competitive advantage and it separates the world-class companies from the rest, whether in situations of crisis or opportunity. Today, the role of leadership is to steer companies towards extraordinary levels of growth. However, no steering and acceleration will work if there is no alignment at the top. 

In the VUCA environment, an unrelenting focus on talent and leadership is how top companies stay on top. At Aon Hewitt, we strongly believe that top team alignment is both about developing capability of individuals within their own specific leadership roles, and helping the leadership team to be effective as a cohesive unit, who are aware of themselves, conscious of their strong impact on others and have a shared vision and sense of excitement for the organization’s future. Aon Hewitt Top Companies for Leaders build cultures that embody the comprehensive and consistent leadership practices required in todays (and tomorrow’s) VUCA environment. They get the key practices right to instill and inspire alignment in their top teams. Here are a few principles that are followed:

They have a passion for leadership development and invest in face time, coaching, and mentoring. In top companies, when new senior leaders join from outside, incumbents are held accountable to ensure performance and retention of the new leaders.

HR and leadership practices intentionally support the execution of the business strategy. In top companies, overall organizational outcomes hold a weightage of 50 percent on a leader’s performance; higher than the leader’s own function or business unit.

Programs are varied and build with the active involvement of senior managers. GE uses an ‘Integrated Learning’ approach to leadership development using programs that infuse logic and linear thinking. Their goal is to build adaptive leadership capable of navigating uncertainty through a process of mindfulness and reflection. This comprehensive approach elevates and honors the human dimensions of the leadership journey like learning styles, personality traits, and passions to help participants connect with who they are to how they lead.

Leaders are adaptable, innovative, resilient, entrepreneurial, and employee-centric. Leadership value proposition of IBM focuses on encouraging employees to be leaders, innovators, work in the company of experts, build a career of choice and help invent a new IBM.

Sustained results are bigger than the efforts of any one individual. The team, organization, and communities are top of mind in day-to-day work. At Mahindra Group, ‘Rise’ is not just a slogan but the touchstone with which they align thinking, strategy & implementation. For example, in the leadership context, at the recruiting stage, they look for people who fit their values and display the ‘Rise’ competencies of innovation, out-of-the-box thinking and in-depth engagement. 

The first step to make a change is for leaders to remove their ego and collectively align themselves. In this context, it is important to be “self-aware”.  This is the capacity for introspection and a clear perception of the personality, strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation and emotions. Firms that achieve both top quartile engagement levels and better business results than their peers have one thing in common — the presence of an Engaging Leader, who’s core belief is about the importance of personal connection. Engaging leaders step up, by opting to proactively own solutions; energize others, by keeping people focused on purpose and vision with contagious positivity; connect and stabilize groups by listening & unifying people; serve and grow by empowering, enabling, and developing others; and stay grounded, open, candid, and authentic in their communication and behavior. 

Leadership is a contact sport and the top team needs to be thoughtful about human relations. The buck stops with the top teams in making or breaking the alignment.