Leadership Power Comes from Your Team
What is a real leader? Angela Ahrendts formerly CEO of Burberry’s and more recently a senior executive at Apple where she led the recrafting of Apple Stores and the roles of its 70,000 retail associates. She leads in a unique way. Apparently, her employees were captivated by her style and even wanted to take selfies when she visited stores. How many senior execs get that kind of reception? She was treated like a rock star and the associates were her fans. How do you build that kind of affection and commitment in today’ world? So many employees feel marginalized and with today’s social media they feel that they have a voice in their private lives. However, when they go to work there’s no voice, no one is listening and in some cases they leave.
Ms. Ahrendts says that many managers are too hierarchical and are out of sync with employees. Being a coach instead of being a boss can make a huge difference. Communications in this hyper networked world is where things happen. She did a weekly 3-minute video that was streamed to 70,000 employees. They would rather watch that than read a lengthy email. Engagement scores rose by multiples due to her open and direct communication. Ms. Ahrendts was careful not to let corporate polish the videos too much so that her message was insincere or fake. She was of the school of servant leadership and showed them that she could be humble and genuine so a deep connection could be made. No easy to do, but possible.
An Article in Fast Company, by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, April 2022