No company can truly thrive without effective senior leadership.
In today’s ruthlessly competitive business world, companies which take full advantage of senior leadership potential are likely to gain an edge on their competitors. This is because they present themselves to their target clientele as businesses which are truly united, directed by a clear vision and driven by positive and powerful cultural values. In this article, we delve deeper into the value of senior leadership, exploring a number of influential leaders’ views and discussing the leverage exercised by the senior leaders at K2.
What is the value of senior leadership/management generally?
Lara Abrash, Chair of Deloitte US, describes senior leadership as a body which “defines and amplifies the culture of an organization – serving as both the nerve center and the heartbeat to direct and inspire individuals and teams”. Debra Bass, Global CMO and President, United States, Nuvo Group, highlights that “importantly, the top management team sets a tone which has implications for building positive or negative company culture”.
Shindy Chen, former CEO of Scribe, sees the role of senior leadership as defining the ‘Why?’ for their employees – unpicking it, reiterating it, embodying it. This provides employees with “the clarity to work with confidence and autonomy to solve problems and deliver great work”. To this we would add that in tandem with defining the ‘Why?’, senior leadership set strategic targets to ensure that a company remains true to its purpose. They are also responsible for ensuring that those targets are hit.
What value does the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) bring to K2?
In addition to its culture-, purpose– and target-related roles, K2’s SLT delivers value in a further three key ways. Firstly, due to its members being spread across the globe (the UK, South Africa, Singapore and the USA) the SLT has a truly international perspective, ensuring that it is fully in touch with employees, partners and clients across all nine of K2’s global offices.
Secondly, each member of the SLT is an experienced expert in their particular global mobility field. As part of the leadership body, they have a recognised and respected platform through which they can effectively share their knowledge, to the benefit of the company.
Thirdly, the SLT is very closely connected to the rest of the K2 Family (our collective term for K2 employees). Each member has line management responsibilities; they make themselves available to answer any questions that anyone may have (e.g through regular ‘Town Hall’ meetings); and they work alongside everyone else as opposed to having their own office. This means that the transfer of ideas between the employee body as a whole and the SLT is a regular and streamlined process, enabling K2 to maximise its innovative potential.
We are proud of our SLT, of its members’ commitment, talent and power to inspire. Together, our senior leaders form a powerhouse of knowledge and experience which they use to keep K2’s course true as it strives to become the relocation industry’s global mobility provider of choice.
