Growth Strategies for Leaders in a Rapidly Evolving World
Original article can be found on Human Capital Leadership Review.
Navigating change as a leader can feel like a full-time job right now. From understanding economic shifts to listening to employee needs, the real challenge goes beyond adapting to these changes, but finding new opportunities within each one.
When I joined Sharebite as SVP of Growth earlier this year, I didn’t rush to make changes. Instead, I spent the first 30+ days listening, learning, and understanding what worked and why. Then, I made targeted tweaks where needed and left successful processes untouched. The best decisions often involve taking a step back and deciding when to make changes—and when to leave things exactly as they are.
In over 20 years of leading sales and marketing teams, I’ve learned what makes a difference in achieving success. The gist? Long-term success isn’t determined by getting what you want, but by helping those around you achieve their goals.
Ultimately, I want to help leaders turn challenges into opportunities and guide their teams to success.
Put in the Work to Understand Today’s Intergenerational Workforce
Leading an organization or a large team has never been easy, but it’s undoubtedly become an even bigger challenge in the past five years.
Challenges that stick out? Navigating unique employee preferences, shifting workplaces from in-person to remote and everything in between, and understanding the impact of generational differences on our teams.
Let’s turn these challenges into opportunities. Here’s how.
- Set aside extra time to give each team member your full attention. Find out what motivates them, the hours they feel most productive, and what success means to them. Another strategy is to send employee surveys, offering an anonymous forum for feedback and ideas to improve. Your team will notice when you go the extra mile to make them feel valued and supported. But remember, this personalized approach has to fit into a results-driven framework. We need to support individual strengths while staying focused on hitting our goals.
- Find out which office, remote, or hybrid setup works best for your team. The traditional five-day office workweek is a crucial catalyst for productivity for me, but that might not be the case for the generation who started their career during the pandemic with a virtual setup. One person’s couch is another’s cubicle. Just make sure that the setup you choose keeps everyone focused on delivering results.
- Embrace flexibility. Whether it’s nontraditional work hours, summer Fridays, or fun incentives, options and perks can significantly boost engagement. Test various options to find what works, but always ensure that flexibility doesn’t compromise productivity. Flexibility should enhance performance, not replace accountability.
Balance Work Preferences to Elevate Team Outcomes
Maximizing your team’s potential includes finding effective ways to mix work styles and preferences.
At its core, outstanding leadership is about forging genuine connections with each team member and understanding their unique needs. For example, Sharebite operates fully remotely. There’s no popping into someone’s office for a quick question, or catching up at the lunch table. That’s why I’ve made it my mission to maintain a virtual open-door policy for everyone on our team. It might be a metaphorical door, but I want to hear from everyone about what’s working and what needs improvement. I also set up video calls with employees across the company, even those outside my team. It’s important to me that everyone knows I’m here to help and that they feel comfortable reaching out. Building these connections helps them know they have the support they need to succeed.
These calls quickly became a game-changer when members of the growth team told me that internal meetings were cutting into their key selling hours. We had clearly overdone the “virtual face time” in our remote setup. So, we trimmed down meetings and swapped some out for emails and asynchronous memos. The result was a team with more time to focus on their work and a genuine sense that their feedback was valued.
Cultivate Individual Preferences Toward High Engagement and Performance
Communication is just as essential as understanding — it always prevails as the glue that holds an organization together. Especially when it comes to clearly communicating how each individual’s work contributes to the broader organizational mission and goals. Why does your team’s day-to-day matter? No one comes to work energized if they can’t answer that simple question.
To win over the next generation of top talent, you don’t need to speak their language (who can keep track of words like ‘rizz’ anyway?). You just need to create an environment that allows them to share their ideas and preferences — and then you need to listen, and show you take them seriously. It’s about building a dynamic and supportive workplace, where success is measured by achievements and creativity rather than just hours on the clock.
So, listen up and lead with an open mind. Support your team’s growth and be flexible with varying needs. And remember, you’re not just achieving short-term goals—you’re setting your organization up to be strong and resilient for years to come.
Adam Landsman is a seasoned executive with 20+ years of experience in SaaS and food-tech sectors, working for a variety of purpose-driven organizations. As former Head of Corporate Sales at Seamless (Grubhub), his work helped to facilitate its merger with Grubhub in 2013. Most recently, at CLEAR, Adam led strategic partnerships and enterprise sales efforts, contributing to its 2021 IPO. Currently, as SVP and Head of Growth at Sharebite, Adam spearheads growth initiatives for the mission-driven corporate meal benefits platform. His expertise spans startup scaling, partnership development, organizational leadership, and market expansion. Additionally, since Co-founding and launching ReMission Foundation in 2011, Adam has served as its Executive Director, focusing on driving innovation in cancer research.