在新的一年里，重塑团队优秀领袖的9大黄金法则

New year, new leadership style? If you want to reinvent yourself as a leader for 2024, here are nine resolutions to try:

1. Be a ‘hold-the-door hero’

Imagine the scene. You’re in an elevator, on your way to an important meeting. As the doors start to close, you spot someone else rushing to get in. At that moment, you have a choice…

We should all treat this as an opportunity to be a ‘hold-the-door hero’, according to Steven Van Belleghem, a customer experience expert and author of A Diamond in the Rough. “A positive action like this not only makes you feel good on a human level,” he says. “It also sets an example of being empathetic and helpful to the rest of your team. This mindset can quickly spread to create a more customer-centric culture, so your team will go the extra mile to deal with unusual customer requests.”

2. Be a strategic thinker

In the coming year, leaders will inevitably need to navigate a competitive landscape that is being upended by emerging technologies and economic headwinds. As a result, no leadership skill will be more important than strategic thinking, argues Professor Michael D. Watkins of IMD business school in Switzerland and author of The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, due to be published in January 2024. “Agility is critical in the face of geopolitical strife and social unrest,” says Watkins, “and effective strategic thinking underpins it, enabling business leaders to pivot rapidly and turn uncertainties into opportunities.”

3. Be a loving leader

Yetunde Hofmann, founder of the Solaris Executive Leadership Development Academy, believes that leaders are often guilty of forgetting the people in their people strategy. They can also fail to recognize the unique realities and lived experiences of their employees. So, they must resolve to fuel their leadership with love. “As I see it, love is the unconditional acceptance of the self and others,” Hofmann explains. “It enables leaders to go beyond the basics and create an environment where everyone prospers and belongs, without condition, empowering others to perform at their best.”

4. Breathe through stressful times

Although organizations are increasingly aware of how badly stress can impact their workforce, many leaders still don’t understand how to deal with the problem, either in themselves or others. According to London-based psychotherapist and breathwork teacher, Carolyn Cowan, a practical resolution for managing stress can improve not only the quality of your leadership, but also your quality of life.

She recommends trying this simple breathwork practice when you are feeling overwhelmed. Sit up tall and straight, use your right thumb to block your right nostril, and inhale deeply through your left nostril. Exhale fully out of your mouth. Repeat for three minutes. At the end, take a deep breath and interlace your fingers, stretching your arms over your head, palms up, like a big yawn and hold your breath for 10-15 seconds, if you can. “Exhale and be still,” she concludes, “and just notice how you feel.”

5. Inject some fun into training sessions

Ever since the Covid-19 lockdowns forced many organizations to start delivering training via screens, many leaders have fallen into the bad habit of rolling out virtual training sessions. These are boring at best and, at worst, completely forgettable and ineffective, according to Frank Devine, culture change specialist and author of Rapid Mass Engagement. Devine argues that leaders should try to inject more fun and human connection into their training sessions in 2024. “Let’s learn from the arts and media,” he says, “whose best output touches us emotionally, provides vivid memories and the quotes, ideas and scenarios we will exchange with our friends for years.”

6. Accept your ‘bad boss’ traits

No leader reading this will wake up in the morning and say to themselves: “Today is a great day to ruin my people’s lives.” And yet, time after time, that’s exactly what is happening in practice, due to well-intentioned bosses getting things wrong. “The reality is all leaders have a mix of traits, some bad, some good, and some great,” explains Debra Corey, HR expert and co-author of Bad Bosses Ruin Lives. So, it is important to accept the bad boss traits you have. She adds: “Without realizing it, you may be an ‘Avoider’, an ‘Unappreciater’ or possibly a ‘Micromanager’, but by starting out the year honestly assessing your traits, you can develop a plan to equip yourself with the skills to become the great boss you want to be.”

7. Take time to look at the evidence

“Our people are our greatest asset” may be an overused phrase in leadership. Nevertheless, Rob Briner, associate director of research at HR membership network Corporate Research Forum, argues that what leaders don’t see is that their greatest asset is not their people, but their people’s behavior.

“An organization’s HR practices – such as selection, reward, and performance management – have the greatest impact on employee behavior, but aren’t always particularly successful at producing the behavioral results leaders want,” Briner says. He recommends that leaders adopt an evidence-based approach, gathering and using the most reliable and relevant information from within and outside the organization to better understand whatever behavioral problem they’re really trying to solve.

8. Help more, by helping less

Many leaders will enter the new year with ideas of having more time for themselves. But before they know it, they’re snowed under helping their team with a seemingly endless list of tasks. “Every time we offer to help there’s a risk that this reflex response may actually be robbing team members of valuable learning opportunities, had you encouraged them to do the thinking themselves,” says Dominic Ashley-Timms, CEO of performance consultancy Notion and co-creator of the STAR Manager online development program.

He adds: “Learning to sense when a question might be more helpful to someone’s thinking means that they retain ownership for resolving problems themselves, which, in turn, builds confidence, resourcefulness and resilience. So make your new year goal to practice using more of an enquiry-led approach and watch your team members develop.”

9. Combine work with travel

Leaders will often start 2024 by looking forward to their own exciting travel plans. But they may not necessarily realize that embracing travel could help them to build happier teams, as well. Many organizations are offering workers the benefit of remote working to attract and retain the best talent – which means that employees could theoretically get to live and work wherever they want in the world. “Employees get tangibly more from their employment paradigm when leaders enable them to work remotely,” says Kayla Ihrig, author of How to Be a Digital Nomad: Build a successful career while travelling the world. “In turn, leadership benefits – all of the trust and infrastructure runs both ways, so leaders can also combine work with travel or familial demands.”