Our Chief People Officer Charlene Young has focused on adapability, being grounded yet ambitious, and mentoring the next generation of leaders in this article for Software Testing News – read it here or below:
Sustaining success and teaching tomorrow’s tech trailblazers
Successful entrepreneurs have many traits in common, but perhaps one of the most important is their ability to adapt to changing conditions: flexing to meet evolving consumer demand, responding to external challenges, and always striving to be first to adopt new trends (or, even better, to create the trend themselves).
There is perhaps no sector where this is more true than within digital transformation, where there are external factors such as public sector reform and national financial constraints to deal with – but also the rapid innovation which is seeing our technologies advance at a rate never experienced before. So, how do leaders navigate the pace of change required to attain and retain success? And what can they do to prepare the next generation of leaders for the relentless pressures of staying at the top of the game?
Focus v flex
Adaptability may be at the heart of leadership success – enabling the best entrepreneurs to embrace change, drive innovation, and forge a path through even when the way forward seems unclear. But battling with the need to flex at a moment’s notice is a non-negotiable requirement to stay true to your original goals. Trying to be all things to all people, and changing your business strategy so much that it bears no resemblance to the company you originally launched, throws up a myriad of concerns: burning out from attempting to do too much too quickly; losing your brand identity and with it the trust of your clients; and ending up having a huge variety of average digital solutions rather than a streamlined number of brilliant offerings.
Leaders must be absolutely sure what their business is (and stands for) at its core, and retain their focus on delivering exactly that, being flexible when needed but retaining a strong identity and purpose.
Grounded but ambitious
No one starts a business to be mediocre, or moderately successful. The aim is always to reach the top (and stay there). Yet, this is another paradox of leadership: that it requires infinite ambition, combined with the sort of grounding which enables entrepreneurs to throw out unfeasible ideas, put on hold those which the company is not yet ready to implement, and mould others to fit the current market – especially in a sector as ever changing as digital transformation.
There are so many options out there, that transformation leaders could spend their lives flitting from one idea to the next – constantly innovating, constantly dreaming. But none of these ideas become reality in that scenario. Leaders need something (or someone), whether it’s an internal or external presence, to rein them in: empowering them to explore ideas, without getting so carried away that they sideline the core purpose of their business. Whether that presence is a mentor, a senior member of their team, or their own innate sense of grounding, it needs to identified and listened to, in order to strike the right balance between dreaming and reality!
Tomorrow’s trailblazers
Company leaders may often be singled out for recognition, winning awards or having their name and face associated with the success of their business. But in reality, there is almost always a dedicated team working to make it all happen – which should serve as a constant reminder that we are all part of something wider. Alongside recognising and rewarding those within the company, the best leaders also realise their place within their industry, their community, and the world.
Leaders often feel a responsibility to form networks and partnerships, not only to benefit the company but also to ‘give back’, and within that comes the opportunity to mentor the tech leaders of tomorrow.
With the escalated rate of advancement we are currently experiencing, it is even more essential that tomorrow’s trailblazers learn all of the lessons they can from today’s success stories. The generations who have grown up in the digital era may be well placed to learn the technical side of the job – as adept as they are at navigating new technology – but these abilities are of little use if not also combined with the leadership skills needed to sustain a business. And that is surely the ultimate hope of every company founder: to bow out at the right time knowing they are handing over to someone who has all of the strategies, characteristics and strength required to take the baton and run with it, continuing and building on the existing success.
Finding a balance
If it had to be summed up then, leadership is all about finding a balance: being flexible without diverting completely from the company’s original identity; generating new ideas constantly without trying to explore all of them at the same time; supporting your own team while also being aware of the need to nurture the leaders of tomorrow. Equally, there is a need to balance hard work and self-wellbeing; authority and approachability; and commercial awareness and technical know-how.
Perhaps this is the core lesson that these future digital transformation entrepreneurs need to hear: that no matter how adaptable, skilled and knowledgeable you are, if you don’t find the right balance then you will struggle to find success.