Hierarchical leadership: beginning of the end

More than 6000 people from 12 countries were asked to share their perceptions regarding effective leadership, communication and the link between the two. Fact that 41% of respondents think that leadership should come mainly from organization and all its employees is the key finding of this year’s research. On the other hand, only 25% of respondents believe that it should come just from the CEO’s. Only one out of four thinks that leaders overall are effective, and more than half of the respondents stated that they have purchased less or stopped purchasing products because they were disappointed by company’s leaders negative behaviour.

These findings basically marked the “beginning of the end” of bureaucratic top-down approach to leadership that occurred because of its collision with our fast and ever-changing reality where people exchange tons of information in real time on various platforms. Leadership is now mainly in the hands of influential title-less leaders, and that kind of collaborative communication environment empowers individuals disregarding their place on hierarchical scale.

KLCM’s top five traits of an effective leader occurred to be intrinsically linked with their communication patterns. Therefore, it turned out that an effective leader has to lead by example (63%), communicate in an open and transparent way (61%), admit mistakes (59%), bring out the best in others (58%) and handle controversial issues or crises calmly and confidently (58%).Another interesting uncovered fact is that 61% of respondents see male leaders as most likely to navigate the world in the following five years, that is a seven-point increase in regards to last year’s results. However, female leaders were judged to be better in three of the top five traits of an effective leader than their male colleagues.

“This year’s KCLM study showed a significant increase in social media credibility regarding impact of creating public opinion by corporate leaders. People want their leaders to be “personally present” when communicating towards their targeted audiences. Nonetheless, when it comes to creating corporative image, among preferred communication methods remain news releases, TV and print interviews, corporate websites and leader’s in-person appearances and speeches. Advertising impact is losing its influence in the current situation”, emphasized Marina Culic Fischer, Managing Partner in Dialog komunikacije – an exclusive affiliate of Ketchum in Croatia.