• You are here:
• Home
•  / 
• Gyan Gurus
•  / 
• Leadership
•  / 
• Story

Advertisement

Gyan Gurus - Leadership

Leadership in HR  (View Comments)

Radhakrishnan B. Menon is the founder, MD of LBW Consulting Pvt. Ltd., a Leadership Development Consulting firm.

Posted On Monday, May 03, 2010 at 05:00:52 PM

“What does HR really do ?”, “Why do HR people make things complex ?” “Do HR folks contribute to the business ?”.

Despite the fact that HR has earned its rightful “seat at the table”, the above maybe, typical but unwarranted doubts cast over the HR Profession. Being a die-hard practitioner and a raving fan of HR , I attribute these aspersions to a single point – the need for or sometimes lack of HR Leadership.

Leadership in the HR function is manifested in many ways. My intent is not to dwell on the text-bookish elements of it, but to highlight certain super ordinate success factors that make HR a formidable and value creating function.

In the interest of HR, through this article I address the HR folks.

Business Imperatives: The fact that you are a strategic business partner that enables business delivery is an imperative. My note of caution here is that sometimes you tend to get carried away by trying to pitch in on areas like tonnages, SKUs or advertising campaigns ! That’s not business partnering, it’s trying to show off that you know it all. It becomes ironical that HR leaders discuss business intricacies while their functional counterparts are struggling to either get or retain talent. You need to first get your house in order and then maybe involve in other business aspects. Your role foremost is to create a strategic HR Roadmap that facilitates business delivery. Create this Roadmap with inputs from your business counterparts. Focus on the business “impact” areas especially the structure and people processes that enable growth and high performance. However, knowing certain areas like Finance  or understanding the market place are absolute pre-requisites.

Domain Expertise: You need to obtain a high degree of HR mastery. Whilst it is common that you start off being a specialist, work yourself to becoming an HR generalist. You should be equally at home in developmental HR and employee relations areas. Futuristically, I foresee  employee relations gaining premium - the soul will come back to the work place!

Relationships: Your role is all about Relationships. You cannot whine about “not getting along with so and so “. To me, an HR professional complaining about people is like a fireman complaining about fire !! Period.

Marketing: Success of every HR initiative will depend on your “marketing” abilities. No harm creating a hype (and some noise !) on new initiatives but be balanced. Innovate and create excitement that would invite involvement and “buy-in” from all stakeholders. Launch every new Joinee, as if you are launching a new product and treat each team member as you would your customers. In a larger sense, HR leaders need to enact the role of a “Brand Ambassador” of their organisation.

Peer Champion:  Over the years, I have experienced that success in HR is best achieved when your peers take ownership of HR . Build strong relationships with your peers, win their trust through your commitment and actions. Involve them at every stage, value their views and empathise with their issues and together create practical solutions that are sustainable.  In Team sports, the latest mantra is to “play for each other”and that is the essence of business partnering . Consistency in your outlook will bring in reciprocity from the peers.

Be Original: Use your imagination, be original, create excitement. People today are a bit bored with the usual – be it a performance review  or a birthday cake, bring in some fresh thinking. Communicate with zest, leverage web technology to the hilt and make it interestingly interactive. Original thinking adds to creative thought and eventually you can  play a significant role in idea generation and innovation in the organisation.

Be good “finishers”: There is a perception that HR leaders are good starters but not so good “finishers”. Thumb rule is to do things only on “need-to-do” and not “nice-to-do”basis. Ensure that the initiative taken, achieves its desired intent. Here in, comes the importance of being strategic and the focus on execution abilities.

Tough Love: Be it restructuring or discipline or organisational integrity, you are its custodian. Apply “tough love” – hard but humane, tough but tender and fair but firm.

Coaching Cap: Wear your coaching cap as you lead your profession. Your leadership role is all about unleashing potential and maximizing performance. Be the activist in creating high-performance teams and what better way to do it than bringing out the best in others and yourself.

Invest in yourself: There is the maxim of the “cobbler’s shoes” ! HR folks tend to  develop others but do not invest in themselves. Make it a point to pause and attend to your own and your team’s personal and professional enrichment.

To sum it up, I recall an apt saying “ to lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart”.

Most Searched Tags

Advertisement

Thought Pool

Here's your chance to be our 'Student Journalist of the Month', a contest for aspiring students to pool in their ideas and views on burning issues in the Human Resource space. It's simple! Post your article here and you could be the winner.

Topics of the month

• The need for CSR
• Role of EQ in a successful career
  

Terms & Conditions