Recession Recession Recession.

Its the word being thrown most around organisations atm, but how should it directly affect leadership styles used in organisations, and the leadership development programmes it offers to its employees?

A drastic change is the answer, and you’re the person who will deliver it.

2 years ago, companies invested heavily in graduate recruitment – practically living on campuses, running assessment centres every other weekend. The claims they made about the quality of their workplaces and career development were ‘exagerated’ at best. Not only has this produced a generation of disspointed twenty-somethings, but the same ‘salemen’ approach towards internal leadership has also fallen flat upon its face. Employees have discovered that the managements commitment was merely a policy decision rather than a sincere movement.

The recession has proved this to be true – and has alienated a huge chunk of the white collar workforce. What does modern loyalty to a company count for, if rounds of redundances are chopping away indiscriminatorily at the workforce? Loyal, productive and skilled labour is being lost alongside lazy workers. While we can’t change this set of unfortunate circumstances, we can adapt our leadership approaches to compensate for this disasterous management.

1. Make a visible and solid investment into leadership training.

Just one sincere and ambitious investment to increase confidence in the commitment to leadership could be enough to turn the tide. Everybody appreciates that we’re near the bottom of this recession now, and as a result, employees are looking for ‘signs’ of recovery and rays of light. Show them the light in the form of a visible investment in their leadership skils.

2. Cater to generation X and Y by forming accelerated leadership programmes. All the big professional firms do it, and you should do so too. Generation X and Y cover the 20-35 year olds in this country, and the younger they are – the more impatient they are. To avoid experiencing the high turnover that many big companies have been experiencing with the recent Generation Y, you need to give these young and amibitious employees a good reason as to why they should stay. Putting them on a ‘path to management scheme’ not only ties them into the company, but firmly places a carrot in front of them.

These schemes don’t ‘cost’ much money at all – making them perfect for times like these with tight budget constraints and the demand for ‘more for less’.

3. Manage people as similarly as before. In response to this recession and the fresh challenges it brings – many managers have felt inclined to change in some way how their communicate or deal with their staff on a day to day basis – and from what I’ve seen, the change has been merely for changes sake. I’ve heard reports of a manager whom brought in his hunting rifle to work and pretended to shoot people for were underperforming – or another who announced ‘Lowest performing employee today loses their job’. Your employees are not stupid, and will fully appreciate the need for them to work hard if you only communicate with them transparently and honestly. Don’t think of using any novelty recession-related motivational techniques like the above!