The world’s uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity challenge leaders and staff more than ever. Thought patterns and methods from ten or even five years ago no longer work in leading people – and they will work even less effectively tomorrow. We predict that individual leadership will be one of the most important leadership skills of the future. By reading this blog, you will understand what factors enable successful individual leadership. The article concludes with the key business benefits of individual leadership for organizations.
Definition of Individual Leadership
Individual leadership refers to a management style that takes into account the needs, strengths, goals, and motivational factors of individuals. Through individual leadership, the aim is to enhance each person’s expertise and success in their work. Individual leadership is especially important in today’s and tomorrow’s diverse work life, where employees’ backgrounds can vary significantly, thus emphasizing individual working methods.
Additionally, it is important to clarify that individual leadership is not an activity that occurs separately from the organization’s internal operations and external market forces. On the contrary, we believe that individual leadership is particularly emphasized in the midst of everyday change and challenges.
“In time of change, the impact of individual leadership and interpersonal collaboration on renewal is greater than the efficiency gains sought through structural organizational changes.”
How is Individual Leadership Enabled?
Performance Management as a Foundation
The foundation of individual leadership is that every employee knows and understands the significance of their personal contribution to the organization’s overall success. As expectations for the quality and productivity of work are high today, the leader must create conditions for autonomous, self-managed, and team-oriented work. From a performance management perspective, the core of individual leadership is to strengthen mutual trust among people, share responsibility, and facilitate learning and development of work duties.
The Leader’s Capability for Individual Leadership
“A modern leader must engage with and care for individuals at the individual level more than ever before.”
Even though innovation and agility in change are sought, leaders are still often recruited from those who have followed a traditional promotion path. Mathematical reasoning, financial expertise, and skills in business analysis continue to be emphasized in leader selection. As a challenging perspective, are numerically oriented individuals the best for leading people? Could your organization benefit from more human-centered inspiration and enthusiasm even if a person does not entirely fit the traditional profile of supervisors?
In individual leadership, those who are suitable for leading people tend to succeed best. Or conversely, the work task is just right for the manager. Understanding an individual supervisor’s mental abilities, behavioral traits, and interests significantly facilitates success in a leadership position. Based on our experience, the cost-effective JobFit self-assessment for leaders saves time, money, and team spirit when it is conducted early enough.
The Leader’s Reflective Ability and Skills in People Engagement
An individual leadership approach is based on effective dialogue and thus challenges leadership in many ways. A leader’s good self-awareness and self-management skills support an effective individual leadership approach. Recognizing one’s own attitudes and behavioral patterns and their impact on people around them enables a flexible approach in interaction and communication situations. Successful individual leadership requires valuing others and maintaining a presence and listening approach in conversations.
Every employee is unique. Individuals’ motivation to work, the way they absorb information, and their desire to commit to the organization vary among individuals. A skilled leader strives to recognize these differences and leverage them in their leadership work. For example, an employee at the beginning of their career seeks a lot of feedback and guidance in their work, while an experienced veteran is satisfied if there is possibility for independent work. For some individuals, career development opportunities are central, while others may be more motivated by a good work community and a balanced combination of work and leisure.
For team success, it is important to recognize individuals’ strengths and tailor tasks so that each team member can utilize their strongest skills for the benefit of shared success. This enhances productivity and improves employees’ motivation and commitment. People perform best when they primarily operate within their areas of strength. If a leader does not fully recognize the strengths of individual team members, previously mentioned JobFit assessments can be used to adapt tasks also at the employee and team level.
What Everyday Challenges are Associated with Individual Leadership?
The individual leadership approach undoubtedly places demands on managers’ work. The primary challenge is the lack of time for supervisors. Regular slots for individual conversations and meetings should be scheduled in advance, and interactions should occur as part of daily leadership. Occasional chats or team meetings or annual development discussions are not enough to energize individual leadership.
To tackle the challenges of time management, we have favored integrating individual leadership approaches into existing calendar entries. The good news are that supervisors and leaders already have numerous scheduled appointments, where they can influence ‘how’ the appointments are handled.
A simple question is this: “how can I increase individual leadership in the next employee meeting?”
Quick wins in individual leadership can be achieved after even very swift steps. Greater organizational-level and operational culture benefits require planning, sustainability, prioritization, and courageous leadership renewal. This will serve not only the leaders themselves but also the team members and the entire organization’s success in the future.
What Benefits Does Individual Leadership Bring to Organizations?
- Leaders ensure that capable individuals are taking care of business-critical tasks.
- Employees can utilize their strengths and work in a positive atmosphere.
- Employees’ experience of the meaningfulness of their work is enhanced.
- Trust and commitment to the organizations are strengthened.
- Through individual leadership, organizations can establish “strike teams” that operate flexibly and adapt quickly to changes in business and the market.
- In the long term, the success of individual leadership is reflected in higher job satisfaction, lower absenteeism and turnover rates, and increased employee productivity.
Learn more
Writers
Päivi Frantsi, PhD Economics and Business Administration, Licentiate of Psychology, Myth Shatterer
Päivi is an experienced and enthusiastic trainer for people and work communities, and she relates to the challenges of humane life with curiosity. She knows how to use her professional expertise in supporting communities and individuals to succeed and reach their goals. Päivi has trained superiors of large masses in finding new kinds of dimensions and levels of doing in their work.
Pekka Hämäläinen, Professional Trainer and Coach, Guarantor of Result-making
Pekka’s strengths are in advancing organizational resiliency, executing goal-oriented leadership and team coaching and improving personnel performance. His training and coaching career entails experiences in successful working life development projects as well as achievements in sports in World Championship Games and in the Olympics. He also has Farax, Profiles and Genos certificates. Pekka knows how to put together a winning team, and how to utilize the strengths of each player in achieving a common goal.
Antti Äikäs – CEO, PhD Candidate Sport and Health Sciences, Effectiveness Expert
Antti is an interdisciplinary developer of working life and an effectiveness expert. He’s an expert in planning and managing programs that improve work ability and health, and in evaluating their effectiveness. During his career, Antti has helped company managers of various branches in connecting personnel development to their company strategy and key figures.
Freia in brief
Freia Ltd is a Finnish management consulting company established 2020. We help corporate leaders in the areas of leadership development, work ability management and worksite health promotion with business in mind.
References
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- Bolden R., Gosling J. & Hawkins B. 2023. Exploring Leadership: Individual, organizational and societal perspectives. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press.
- Freia Ltd. Time for leading people Webinar in Finnish 30.3.2022.
- Helsingin Sanomat 9.2.2022 Time for leading people Johtamisliite.
- Hoppen, Dan 2019. How to Be a Better Manager by Individualizing Your Approach. https://www.quantumworkplace.com/future-of-work/how-to-be-a-better-manager-by-individualizing-your-approach
- Hurtienne, L.E. and Hurtienne, M. (2024), “An introduction to equity leadership: meeting individual employee needs across organizations”, European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 48 No. 5/6, pp. 609-624. https://doi-org.ezproxy.jyu.fi/10.1108/EJTD-01-2023-0010
- Northouse, PG. 2022. Leadership: Theory and practice. 9th edition. Sage Publications.