Superman can lift cars over his head, bounce bullets off his chest and crush coal into diamonds with his hands. He’s capable of freezing people with his breath and melting objects with heat beams from his eyes. If the occasion warrants it, the superhero can even alter the orbit of the planets.
In addition to his limitless strength and power, Cleveland’s favorite caped crusader also showcases the qualities of an excellent role model. He’s compassionate, trustworthy, humble and fair. He uses his intelligence to successfully execute strategic plans and, much like our city’s leaders, strives for “truth, justice and a better tomorrow.”
Not all heroes wear capes, but there’s one thing they all have in common — they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. We expect so much from our leaders in government, education, business, arts, entertainment, sports, health care, and community and nonprofit groups. We ask them to take on challenges that may call for superpowers to solve. And we still demand more.
Our leaders require the skills and attributes of Superman — at least symbolically. According to a NeuroLeadership Institute poll of executives, “50% of the skills leaders need today are skills they don’t have yet.” The other 50% are skills that were always needed, but not to the present and future levels necessary. The major challenges are many, from global unrest and domestic political uncertainty to economic instability and possible recession.
Ten years ago, we couldn’t have even dreamed about the technology challenges leaders are facing today, not to mention a plethora of poverty, health and education concerns. We also look to leaders to solve workforce obstacles, such as employee attraction and retention, and labor and supply shortages; interpret and implement diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) efforts; and prevent and react to environmental crises. And all the while, we expect our leaders in the private and public sectors to be beyond reproach and of admirable character.
Cleveland’s real crusaders — whether they’ve shown an impressive presence in the city for decades or have brand-new nameplates on their office doors — have their work cut out for them. Luckily, they each have unique superpowers of their own to keep the region moving forward.
Cities And The Public Sector Need Help
Stretch Armstrong, the iconic action figure toy whose arms could be pulled from about 15 inches to 4 feet, may not have had all the qualities of a full-fledged superhero. But Stretch illustrates what Mark Cassell, professor of political science at Kent State University, thinks about a challenge our cities and their leaders have been facing and will continue to wrestle.
“Competitive federalism is seeing communities and school districts constantly compete for what seems like a pot of zero-sum money,” Cassell says, adding that conflict can lead to deficiencies and questionable allocations of resources. “It’s a crazy situation. Some exurbs and outlying suburbs have a low crime rate but end up paying their law enforcement officers more than cities that have high crime rates.”
Cassell, an expert on public sector transformation, also sees cities, including Cleveland and Akron, struggling with the effects of hybrid workers. While that work arrangement may be fine for businesses and organizations, Cassell says downtown areas that rely on restaurants and retail are taking a hit when employees stay home. Also, office buildings that are converted to residences can be problematic if a city’s tax base relies at least partly on retail.
Another problem Cassell identifies is our negative perception of the public sector. He says he believes leaders and managers must have the ability to hire “the best and brightest teachers, police, social workers and others.” That can be accomplished, he says, with competitive wages and offering work/life flexibility.
“We’ve had 40 years of erosion of public sector workforce,” says Cassell, who teaches in KSU’s Public Administration program. “It has cost us. Leaders have to figure out how to attract and keep the best. The public sector is important and adds value. It’s essential to making cities function.”
What kinds of political leaders and others at the top do we need to carry out those goals?
“We need less charisma and more competency,” says Cassell. “We need people who not only care, but have a set of skills that allows them to implement the tasks they are given. We don’t think enough about training leaders. And just thinking that someone is a really good leader and that they’ll show us the way is not the right approach, either.”
Tech Acceleration And Artificial Intelligence (AI)
“Over the next five to seven years, AI will get increasingly lifelike. It’s come a long way in a really short time,” says Bryan Buck, a partner with ON Partners, a national retained executive search firm with headquarters in Hudson. “If what they say is true, we aren’t decades off from a peer-like relationship with some of this technology.”
ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model, is credited with starting the AI explosion. At its most simple form, think of having an online conversation with the non-human “Nicole” or “Chad” who wants to help you return a pair of shoes that doesn’t fit. At its current highest level of sophistication, ChatGPT can also deliver data from space. ChatGPT’s competition is already fierce, and some soothsayers say most AI may be free to everyone someday.
Buck is in an insightful position. ON is transforming its AI data approach to further its own refinement of executive recruiting services that spans many industries, including technology, retail, automotive, industrial, restaurant/food and more. But the firm’s mission also is to connect its clients with the world’s best VP, C-suite and Board-level leaders. And those leaders are facing a deluge of AI and all of its ramifications.
“It’s like self-driving cars. In certain applications they are really good. But there will be niche situations where they are not perfect and they will still need human intervention,” says Buck. “That’s the challenge leaders are going to face today, tomorrow and over the next several years. When is it OK to take your hands off the wheel and when do you need to engage?”
Buck says he believes chief people officers (human resource officers) are trying to create a better, more diverse workforce. AI, he says, is invaluable in accomplishing that goal with more accuracy and efficiency in a shorter period of time. But the gap between human reality and AI reality is called disappointment, he says. A good leader’s vital discernment skills include trusting but verifying, but also deciphering reality.
So, say there is a fire in one of your manufacturing plants, and the AI data gives you an idea of what that means to your business (i.e., supply chain implications). But, Buck says, “context still matters.” A strong leader is one who understands the strengths and limits of AI and “will pick up the phone or have a cup of coffee with someone” to get the total, unbiased picture of that disaster.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion And Belonging (DEIB)
You can’t fake it. Employers just can’t one day announce they are hiring minorities and under-represented individuals in their fields and expect qualified candidates to come knocking on their door, according to Jared Daly, president of Cleveland Society for Human Resource Management (Cleveland SHRM). Cleveland SHRM is a chapter of the International Society for Human Resource Management, with more than 300,000 members in 165 countries. Cleveland SHRM’s 600 members represent human resource professionals from the greater Cleveland area.
Daly says leaders of nonprofits and company heads, particularly those experiencing labor shortages, need to know the groups of people who have high rates of unemployment and determine how to find “the untapped workforce.” Then they can build trust and sincere relationships.
Otherwise, you can boast all you want about being an organization that embraces DEIB, but not everyone is going to buy your story. It’s a real challenge for many leaders, Daly says.
“Why does the United States send ambassadors to foreign places? It wants to build trust. Your organization needs to send ambassadors to groups that are important to you, and that can include African Americans, Latinos, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities and in some instances, women, for example, who are underrepresented in the construction industry,” says Daly. But you can’t just go out one day and expect people to trust you. It can take weeks, months, years. Forming partnerships is important.”
Daly understands leaders don’t always have the time (or skills) to form those bonds.
“And that’s when leaders should assign people to represent them. They should say, ‘This is a commitment of mine. And I’d like you to carry it out for me.’ It’s not authentic if it’s not a long-term commitment,” says Daly.
In his role as coordinator of employer engagement services for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, Daly works with a team that educates others about hiring people with disabilities. The team is currently focused on working with the entertainment and hospitality industries to expand their hiring practices. Hiring expansion is any circumstance that makes for better leaders, better organizations and a better city, he says.
How important is DEIB? According to a recent report from Stanton Chase, companies that embrace diversity are 70% more likely to add new markets. Want to attract young workers? The same report showed that 75% of GenZ would think twice about working for a company if they believed it didn’t practice a fair amount of DEIB.
Sustainability and Viability
Sustainability and viability have different definitions for leaders based on their affiliation, needs and goals. To a leader in the development and construction industries, they might mean determining how to build green without cutting into profits. To a manufacturer, they may mean making environmentally safe products that more and more consumers are demanding without taking a financial hit. To an accounting firm, they might mean how to continue a respected 100-year-old presence in a community without sacrificing its ability to stay in the black.
Most conscientious leaders are also now concerned about environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. The practice is taking on more importance as potential funders and investors want answers to a variety of questions. What energy saving practices have you implemented in your firm? What are the working conditions for people in the factories that produce your product? Is the company a good corporate neighbor? And is the leader of a particular organization respected in the community?
A plan or a program that doesn’t match an investor’s beliefs will not likely get support from that individual or foundation with deep pockets.
Perhaps nowhere are sustainability and viability more personal — and touch more people directly — than the medical and health/wellness world.
“We have to be very sensitive about the impact on patients and providers. But we also have to create and sustain a delivery model that is viable and sustainable,” says David Sylvan, chief strategy and innovation officer, University Hospitals (UH) and president, UH Ventures. “We can’t prioritize profitability over patient outcomes and patient experience. We must continue to make adjustments while we offer vital services to the populations we serve.”
To be both successful and responsible, medical leaders must embrace several imperative skills and traits, according to Sylvan.
The first is digital literacy. Remote doctors’ appointments are not new, of course, but an increase in this modality may help with efficiency and perhaps allow the consolidation of physical spaces used for health care delivery. Systems and medical professionals who excel at this type of offering will be greatly needed, and we can further differentiate ourselves.
“Do we always have to have these close encounters? How can we safely and intelligently transfer some of these offerings to remote or in-home care?” asks Sylvan, who lists less resistance to non-traditional delivery care models as the second skill health care leaders need. “We have a generation of providers that perhaps is a little more resistant to the pace of change, and a next generation that is more technologically fluent. But we always want to make sure that proficiency isn’t at the expense of in-person care and the humanity that underpins care delivery.”
Leading medical professionals also must possess “relentless inquisitiveness,” says Sylvan. Some individuals are born forever curious. But the ability to always question, and a thirst for more knowledge, is also something that can be taught, he says. Innovative health care systems, including UH, have “mechanisms in place” (with both formal programs and informal opportunities) to expose leaders and emerging leaders to situations where wondering why and how is encouraged.
“Nothing is guaranteed. But in a decade, I do believe health care delivery is not going to look like what it does today,” predicts Sylvan.
Arts And Culture
Cleveland’s arts and culture scene historically has been the envy of many other cities. In addition to the priceless contributions to education, creativity and the nourishment of our souls, the economic boost the region receives from museums, concerts, theater, etc., is impressive. According to the City of Cleveland Planning Commission, “the arts contribute more than $1.3 billion annually to the regional economy.”
“Cleveland also has one of the most publicly and privately supported arts communities in the country,” says Jeremy Johnson, who has been president and CEO of Assembly for the Arts, a regional arts council, since 2021.
Last fall, Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) awarded more than $10.75 million in grants to 300 nonprofit organizations for 2024. However, there has been some grumbling about who got what and how much. Johnson says he believes people’s concerns about how our sector is being supported should be put to rest with this year’s announcements that a half million dollars through the Assembly of Arts “will be put on the streets for individual artists.” Another $3 million will support the City of Cleveland’s “transformative public art project led by artists across the county.”
In addition, an expansion levy to extend the so-called “cigarette tax to support the arts” will be on the ballot this November. The current levy expires in 2027.
“We are full-steam ahead, and I am very optimistic,” says Johnson. “But the most important trait our leaders need now is to be unifiers.”
Leadership Expectations
Leaders who surround themselves with the best IT people, financial officers and senior managers will generally look good if they don’t do something really unfortunate to expose any incompetencies. Honest, fair leaders often recognize that idea and frequently give credit to their staffs.
We have entered a stage, however, when we really expect more from our leaders and we want them to be All Things to Us All the Time. And that includes personal attributes such as being empathetic.
“We did a poll last December and found that 71% of human resource leaders now report directly to the CEO, president or executive director. That’s up 10% from the year before,” says Kelly Keefe, president of ERC, a provider of HR solutions. “I believe that leadership is realizing the importance of HR policies and procedures and, at least in Northeast Ohio, we are headed in the right direction.”
Keefe says with employees expecting flexible hours, hybrid work arrangements, competitive benefit packages, etc., “leaders realize they can’t just keep doing what they were doing.”
“It’s going to be hard (for leaders) to meet people where they are if you don’t know what they are looking for. A tool we use is an engagement survey that helps us understand what drives your employees, what makes them stay at your organization and what would make them leave,” says Keefe.
She says she believes the importance of a leader’s empathy level “depends on what the employees are looking for,” how important it is to them and if other qualities matter more. Different companies and organizations want different things in their leaders, she claims.
Perception helps. A leader may not be the kind (or have the time or opportunity) to give daily inspirational messages to a staff member, or personally talk with an employee who is a new mother juggling her job and parental duties, but there are ways for a leader and/or a company, organization or institution, to be more empathetic.
“A company may make nuts and bolts, and that’s not necessarily glamorous. But if you say that a portion of the company’s profits making those nuts and bolts goes to creating a well in a third-world country, that gives purpose,” says Keefe.
Also, the word “trust” keeps surfacing in many discussions about what leaders, companies and organizations need to work on in 2024. But it’s not just having your clients, customers or patients trust you. Leaders are nervous about turning their backs on those closest to them.
According to PwC’s most recent Global Leadership Forecast, less than half of leaders trust their managers “to do what’s right,” and less than a third trust their senior leaders. The stat begs the question, how can others trust you if you don’t trust your right-hand people? One suggestion from PwC as to how to build trust is for leaders to always share “the why” behind everything they do.
Hybrid and remote work have exposed a weakness among some leaders that wasn’t always apparent in the past. Employers and directors have just about given up on insisting all employees come into the office five days a week. (C-Suite Outlook 2024, compiled by The Conference Board, showed that just 4% of CEOs in America said “they would prioritize a full-time return to the office.”
That decision generally necessitates more leadership communication via digital environments. Whether it is a video call for a team meeting or a one-on-one between an employer and employee, effective communication skills are paramount.
It doesn’t always come naturally. Some leaders have traditionally enrolled in public speaking courses. Today, others find they need training to be their best on screen for conference calls, as well as knowing how to properly email, text and message without embarrassment or facing lawsuits.
