There’s quite a bit to get into with the key insights from Mindshop’s Business Leader Insights Report, and so we’ve split the six insights in half for a post each. In this third post analysing Mindshop’s Business Leader Insights Report, we’re delving into the first three key insights of the report.
These three insights focus on how your reset plan will address emerging insights, including the intrapersonal challenges that affect your leadership and how to work on them, embracing the new and flexible workforce, and ways to boost resilience within yourself and your team.
Insight 1: Lack of time and focus continues to negatively impact leadership effectiveness
With how much has been uncertain and unprecedented in the past year, business leaders acknowledged that their biggest barrier to effectiveness is lack of time. The second and third most common barriers were lack of focus and energy levels.
Mindshop found that many leaders recognise that although they’re feeling busy, they’re actually not necessarily being productive. Being distracted by a combination of emerging challenges from the ever-changing business landscape as well as the additional stress that thing brings on, affects leaders from working smarter not longer.
With these factors having a huge influence on the feeling of there ‘not being enough time in the day’, it’s essential for business leaders to recognise the point where the added pressure and stresses have built up too far that it leads to procrastination and a lack of focus and critical energy stores; which in turn is good for no one.
Mindshop’s Tips for Overcoming ‘Lack of Time’:
- Use a system to prioritise tasks like ‘must, should, or could’ to ensure productivity, not just the feeling of being busy
- Don’t push for more business running on a system that can’t or shouldn’t be handling it. Reduce your stress levels by making 2022 the year where you make the tough decisions on delegating or saying no to low-value tasks that take up valuable time
- Don’t gold-plate everything and trust your intuition to make quick decisions without waiting for everything to be perfect.
Insight 2: Attraction + Retention Success Balances on Embracing a Flexible Workforce
Mindshop found that 65% of business leaders believed that work from home arrangements would continue into 2022, but acknowledged that not all roles and industries can operate this way. This is where the concept of the hybrid workforce comes into play. This newer and increasingly popular way to run your business isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds, with getting the balance of benefits and drawbacks just right.
Such benefits include less need for office space, improved talent pools, and retention opportunities, whilst the drawbacks include challenges with communication culture and technology difficulties.
A forced work-from-home during COVID lockdowns has found that whilst some workers certainly prefer it, many thrive from being in the office space. Only 39% of business leaders surveyed felt confident in their attraction and retention strategies. Having awareness and acknowledgement of this and adapting and remaining flexible is the key to maintaining good attraction and retention strategies for 2022 and into the future.
Mindshop’s survey indicated that new habits amongst the workforce based on 2021 have been driven by travel requirements and attendance in meetings. With an enforced reduction in travel, 50% of leaders now admit that they will be travelling less going forward. On top of that, 69& of leaders said they didn’t want the majority of meetings to remain virtual; acknowledging the downsides of everything being done virtually.
Mindshop’s Tips for Embracing a Flexible Workforce:
- Continue to develop new habits and communication styles to accommodate, engage and remain connected with your workforce
- Find opportunities in the hybrid workforce such as new talent pools, reduced office space, and time/money saved from less travel.
- Understand the working preferences, be it virtual or in the office, of your team and reassure them of your flexibility and desire to cater to each individual’s needs.
Insight 3: Lock in New Work/Life Habits to Boost Resilience
Given the unprecedented set of challenges faced by business leaders in 2021 (working from home, uncertainty in the business world, and added personal anxieties), there was variation in why some thrived in this environment and others struggled.
Mindshop found that of those surveyed, business leaders believed the most significant contributor for overall success in 2022 would be personal resilience. Reflecting on why those who struggled to adapt to the enforced changing work environment, many felt personal resilience was a big factor.
Finding, establishing, and continuing to practice a good work/life balance is key to maintaining overall business success. Give you and your team enough mental breathing space, energy, and agility to have success by ensuring a good work/life balance.
Mindshop notes “Addressing the factors that contribute to personal change success, becoming more comfortable with technology, and having a growth mindset are other keys to boosting resilience. Try to avoid another ‘groundhog’ year.”
Mindshop’s Tips for Boosting Resilience:
- Reshape the work week and provide your team with more flexibility and time to spend with family, learning new skills and mental health breaks
- Work on reviewing your beliefs, capabilities, and readiness for success in personal change, and analysing how you respond to adversities to identify what’s stopping you from getting there.
Stay tuned for next week’s post where we’ll cover the remaining three insights from the report that covers identifying opportunities for personal leadership development and business success, the key point of what your strategy and vision for 2022 should look like, and the importance of not losing sight of what makes you profitable.