Page 17 - Mar-Apr-2020 - Reporter

lead people through these changes. They must be able to see the vision Ability to appeal to a greater diversity of people
for the organization and guide it towards success. That’s why we need Thomas International (Assessment and Strategy tools)
to understand what traits are consistently linked with successful leaders polled 180,000 people across the world on what skills are
within the industry. perceived to be more important for the future of leadership.
81% believe soft skills are significantly more important to
Looking at the issues we have identified, it is fair to say that we need predict the success of leadership. As the population of Canada
our leaders to be: continues to change and the mix of the workforce becomes
Strategic, knowledgeable, able to influence and negotiate, able to a greater diversity across age, race and other groups, these
inspire, able to have vision and direction, adaptable, able to realise soft skills become ever more important. A leader increasingly
opportunity, able to appeal to a diversity of people, competitive, needs to demonstrate their ability to lead more diverse
technologically proficient, prepared to change themselves and savvy teams; they need to be able to integrate differences, to
about using social media channels. What do some of these look like in be aware of biases and to be able to cultivate trust with all
practice? people.
In summary, leadership is not really changing. Successful
Prepared to change themselves leaders are still individual who can inspire and are trustworthy
A leader needs to be prepared to change themselves, because what and competent. They are also those who can represent the
worked yesterday in the building materials industry (and it certainly organization; are media savvy; can energise and galvanise
suffers from a reputation as an old school industry), might not work people; are motivated and enthusiastic; and have both
tomorrow. We have discussed the speed of change in the industry. vision and direction. However, the industry is changing and
Outsiders to the industry might not agree; however, everything including as a result the leader’s ability to evolve, react, adapt and
sales channels, manufacturing processes, construction processes, change is key to their ongoing success and the success of the
buyer behaviours, technology, and the demographic of the work force organization that they lead.
is changing. That is a substantial amount of change for one industry. It Stephen Borer is Director of TalentSphere Staffing Solutions.
is not just the ability to manage transformation that is important. Good TalentSphere is Canada’s only agency specifically focused on the
leaders need to be self-aware enough to manage change in themselves. building materials industry. Stephen and his team have placed
The characteristics of many leaders include traits such as being over 500 candidates into the building materials industry many
conscientious, extroverted and self-confident. All of these are great traits, of them in leadership positions. The team is always happy to
but you never want too much of one of these traits. Self-confidence, for provide references from manufacturers, distributors, retailers
example, in the extreme is narcissism. Self-awareness is therefore a or buying groups from within the industry. Contact Stephen at
hugely important trait for a leader. They should realise their own strengths sborer@talentsphere.ca or call him on 778 807 9777 ext 701.
and weaknesses before they look at others.
In my opinion, the strongest leaders that I have interviewed are the
ones who can demonstrate how their leadership has evolved. They can
demonstrate how they have worked on improving their weaknesses and
have invested in growing their strengths to complement the needs of the
business that they lead.

Knowledgeable
Knowledge, experience and relationships are obviously important
to the building materials industry. However, as we know, the industry
is changing. It is introducing new ideas, absorbing new technologies,
changing the way companies go to market, changing manufacturing
processes, changing the way negotiations are run and changing the
makeup of the employee population. Hence, it could be argued that
new, fresh ideas from leadership might be what the industry needs. I
personally think a balance is probably the solution. It might be valuable 10% OFF orders placed by April 20/20*
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Whilst the President of the United States might need to communicate compliance.
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www.lbmao.on.ca LBMAO Reporter - March-April 2020 17