The workforce is rapidly changing. As it grows more multicultural, younger and more female, businesses are feeling the effects of "the power gap" --- the growing distance between frontline managers and workers from different backgrounds. The result? Misunderstanding, miscommunication, missed opportunity and loss of market share.
As Jane Hyun and Audrey S. Lee show in "FLEX: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences," the key to managing today's diverse workforce lies in "flexing" -- the art of switching between leadership styles to more effectively communicate with and lead people who are different from you.
Portrait of a Fluent Leader
Fluent leaders consistently demonstrate a core set of beliefs and mind-sets that guide their actions in the workplace and in their communities. These collected traits, along with an intentional focus on improving their management skills form the basis of the tremendous influence, admiration and respect given them by their teams and, for some, by their clients and suppliers.
Fluent leader flexing is about having the ability to switch behaviors and styles in order to communicate more effectively with those who are different from you. It may help to think about flexing as "stretching" your interpersonal style or "reaching out" to meet someone else partway.
Self-aware leaders know it is easier to spot points of commonality in others if you refrain from positioning your way as the only way to get things done. This is a critical component of flexing across the power gap.
You can retain your value system and still stretch your style to meet someone different from you partway. In fact, one common theme about fluent leaders is their astute sense of self and strong personal moral core. Their behaviors are rooted in a value system that they stand by, regardless of whether it is aligned to their company culture.
There are critical traits for a fluent leader that encompasses the attitudes and behaviors needed to flex up, down and across. Fluent leaders have a good grasp of their own power gap preference. In practice, this typically means that they are self-aware enough to realize that they are more comfortable with less hierarchical structures, or that they prefer a certain communication style.
Adaptability is a key component of fluent leadership, indicating an ability to adapt to stretch your styles and preferences and sometimes exercise other styles in order to better interact with others. Fluent leaders are not rigid, constrained or trapped in a single-mode way of thinking. This is a fairly conventional definition of an innovative mind-set.
Fluent leaders are comfortable owning a leadership identity and effective at managing up, down and across the organization, as well as with customers and vendors. They can turn failures into teachable moments and maintain an ability to see the promise of their teams.
Source: Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences