A New Management Style for a New Workforce

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Jane Hyun explains the importance of changing management style to fit an evolving workforce.

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JANE HYUN

Jane Hyun is an internationally renowned executive coach and leadership strategist to Fortune 500 companies, top MBA programs, and non-profit organizations. In addition to coaching professionals to maximize their potential and advance their careers, she advises senior management teams and diversity councils on building effective dispersed, multicultural teams and the critical role of the global talent pipeline. The firm's Cultural Fluency Roundtables and Bamboo Ceiling® Series leadership coaching programs has garnered praise from global Fortune 100 companies in the U.S. and in key global markets.Previously, Jane was Vice President of Human Resources/Talent Development at JP Morgan, and Director of Recruiting at Deloitte & Touche and Resources Global.




A graduate of Cornell University with a degree in Economics and International Studies, she is active with the Cornell Women's Alumnae Council. She is also an Advisor to the Toigo Foundation and the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force/Center for Talent Innovation, researchers of recent Harvard Business Review studies "Leadership in Your Midst" "The Sponsor Effect" "The Athena Factor", and "Off-Ramps and On-Ramps." She has led research with the Conference Board Research Working Groups.Her firm's approach to global business and talent development has received international recognition, and she has appeared in a variety of media outlets, including CNN, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Time, Fortune, CEO, and Crains. she is the author of the groundbreaking book, Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling. Jane lives in New York City and enjoys helping people reach their full potential in the workplace and community. She is currently completing her next writing project, Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Jane Hyun: So, flex is the art of switching between leadership styles in order to better effectively communicate with people who are different from you, so different from you generationally, culturally and across the gender divide. It's about stretching your leadership style and not fundamentally changing who you are and about adapting to the people across from you so that you can get the best results.



Well, the workforce is changing and has been changing for a number of years. I believe multicultural workers make up 36 percent of the population. Women make up nearly half of the workforce and I think make up something like 70 percent of buying decisions and certainly millennials are increasingly a bigger part of the workforce as well. And so there are so many demographic changes that are impacting our workforce. I don't know if managers are always certain about how to work with this new workforce, how to better engage and motivate these new workers that are entering into the workforce. In addition to that there's a cost of not flexing. So for example, I think the Gallup study last year said something about 450 to $550 billion of loss due to disengaged employees. So you might have employees that you've hired into the organization that maybe had one foot out the door, that really don't feel motivated and engaged and don't feel like the organization is really speaking to them. And so for this and many reasons I think there's such a business case and an opportunity for an organization to create a value proposition for their employees if they can get this right.



The power gap is a pretty critical element in the art of flexing. The power gap is the amount of social distance that exists between yourself and people who are in positions of authority, and if you're the manager the distance that exists between yourself and your team members. So you can have a small power gap or a large power gap. If you have a small power gap, it's more of an egalitarian relationship where even as a manager you see yourself as more of a coach or as a guide and you have a very informal relationship with your colleagues. If you have a high power gap and you're the employee you see your leader as maybe more of an authority figure and there's a huge gap between yourself and that corner office. And so the way that we see the power gap play out in the workplace is pretty important. And as we think about the art of fl...

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