We suggested in part 1 that effective HR leaders excel in four areas, or attributes. What does this mean in practice?
1. Measuring the impact of ‘People’ initiatives
Effective HR leaders have a high degree of business literacy, including financial literacy. They have mastered the link between HR initiatives and the bottom line. Effective HR leaders are also good at measuring ‘People’ initiatives in a granular way.
2. Strategic HR leadership
Effective HR leaders design and combine HR initiatives with long-term business strategies in mind, and in the contexts of the industry sector and of larger growth trends. They always implement such initiatives in ways that make decisive contributions to the organisation’s strategic and financial goals.
3. Influencing senior teams
Top executives (including the CEO, CFO and COO) and Board members proactively seek out the input – even agreement – of effective HR leaders, about hiring and other key strategic issues. Effective HR leaders increase performance by being a valued and integral part of the senior leadership team.
4. Leading self and others well
Effective HR leaders motivate others and create teams that trust each other, master conflict and are committed to results and shared goals. They coach others and nurture talent, and model this for other leaders in the organisation. Personally, they sleep well, eat healthily, take regular breaks and energise themselves frequently with exercise, leisure time and laughter (sorry don’t want to get into discussions about what is and isnt a good healthy diet – too controversial, so lean proteins are out!). Those who excel at this Attribute tend to be good at managing their physical and emotional energy levels.
Holding yourself to the above standard is part of becoming a more effective HR leader. Conspicuous by their almost-complete absence in the above Attributes are the classic functional areas within HR, including recruitment, staffing, training and development and performance management. In our experience and from our research, these classic areas are not differentiators when it comes to how relevant HR leaders are to major strategic and commercial questions faced by organisations.
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