This week in thought leadership, why every leader must bring about change or risk irrelevance; some unconventional examples of engaging, branded content; and a virtual library dedicated to random acts of leadership.
Every Leader Must Be A Change Agent Or Face Extinction
From Forbes:
“In a workplace infused with top down, hierarchical, departmental silos, change management is the new requirement for leadership success. With a market comprised of fickle consumers and workplaces brimming with employee identity crises, leadership success requires more patience, poise, and time-to-think — and the ability to seamlessly connect the dots of opportunity. The marketplace requirements to compete are evolving so quickly that leadership is struggling to stay ahead of the course; unsuccessful efforts to be proactive and sustain organizational readiness will come at an extremely high cost. As such, the demand for leadership that is willing and capable of tackling change management head-on — already in short supply — is at a premium.
Change management is no longer a term that denotes only operational improvements, cost efficiencies and process reengineering. Change management has become a much bigger, more interwoven part of the overall business fabric — an embedded leadership requirement that plays into everything that we do, every day, and how we go about getting things done, regardless of hierarchy or rank. In the end, every leader must be a change agent.”
Our take: While we actively support leveraging an organization’s crowd to tackle business issues, changes that come from the top-down are often implemented more quickly and effectively than those that have to make the arduous climb up the ranks. The days of over-delegating managers are long gone, and leaders that travel down that outdated route are headed straight for disappointment.
3 Unconventional Examples of Engaging Branded Content
From Circle Studio:
“Branded content blurs the lines between advertisement and entertainment. By entertaining your audience, you’re able to get your brand’s message across without making them feel as if you are trying to sell them a product or service.
The best branded content sells without having to actually sell. It adds value to the lives of the audience and creates a remarkable experience that they’re willing to seek out independently. Here are three examples of companies that have created compelling branded content that both entertains and engages.”
Our take: Though the perspective in this piece is not a new one, the author does point to a selection of engaging content examples that broke the mold, digging into their unorthodox strategies and why they worked. It’s worth checking out in order to see if some of these less-than-common approaches are applicable to your own content marketing initiatives or product innovations.
Random Acts of Leadership
Typically we don’t include entire websites in our weekly roundup, but Random Acts of Leadership is chock-full of so much worthwhile, easily-digestible content that it’s worth perusing the entire catalogue just to see which specific articles truly resonate with you. It includes everything from in-depth research to quick leadership lessons, inspiration for business-savvy managers, thoughts on personal brand development, lessons on analyzing your own success and the value of attempted strategies, examples of the importance of boundaries and outcomes, and much more. Plus, contributors vary, keeping perspectives fresh and open-minded. It’s a great blog to subscribe to and utilize day-to-day.
The post Thursday Thought Leadership Roundup: Be a Change Agent or Die Out, Unconventional Engagement, and Random Acts of Leadership appeared first on via @Mindjet's Conspire #ideasquad.