Increase Your Human Resource Leadership Value
There’s never been a more important time for you to make a difference and demonstrate value. Emerging from the recession, you need to discover new ways to lead the organization. Human Resource professionals at all levels must develop leadership capabilities and understand the business requirements to best align their roles, objectives and priorities.
You play a key leadership role in developing systems and structures that reflect the organization’s mission, vision and values. So it’s critical to posses a clear sense of your role. Any lack of clarity in your role is what ultimately causes your business partners to demand nothing more from you than the traditional administrative Human Resource services.
How do you prevent this from happening? You should be motivating, inspiring, and committed; instilling the same in your people and organization. But commitment through words is not enough. Your behaviors and actions will have an impact on the people in the organization. People watch how leaders honor their commitments and how they act. The same goes for Human Resources.
Seek to increase your business acumen and offer creative solutions to business issues. Simply taking an interest in the business and the people you support goes a long way. You should be self aware of your strengths and weaknesses, continuously build additional competencies (e.g. influencing, strategic planning, partnering, and managing change) through thoughtful development actions, and understand where your strengths best align with the organization. Be a role model, fostering learning and development throughout the organization.
You should also be proactive, capable and persistent. It’s this persistence, along with consistency that creates a fully aligned culture. Whether you believe it or not, it’s your responsibility to assure and steward the cultural alignment with the company’s mission, vision and values.
Lastly, don’t buy into the notion that leadership is born. Yes, there are typical personal traits of effective leaders, but most of the competencies of leadership are in fact learned.
Your future value, as well as Human Resources’, depends upon the degree to which you lead the organization. Make sure you are prepared!
Jeff Moyer
HRACC President