Bill Gates summed up the future of leadership perfectly when he said “as we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”

While his vision for leadership is absolutely right, research has revealed that many leaders continue to fall short when it comes to empowering their staff - with almost 50 per cent still creating demotivating work environments.

A key reason for this is leadership has traditionally been one dimensional - leaders lead, and followers follow – a controlling approach that rarely fosters a culture that inspires staff.

However today, growing individualism is seeing the power shift away from leaders toward their staff and this coercive, egocentric style of leadership is being met with increased resistance.

So what does this mean for the future of leadership and how can senior executives transform themselves in to the leaders their organisation needs?

A new breed of leader

To lead an organisation to success in this new business environment, leaders will need to start to be more ‘altrocentric’.

An altrocentric leader is an influencer rather than a controller and is someone who puts the needs of their staff ahead of their own. They also display high degrees of empathy, maturity, integrity, openness and self-awareness and are skilled strategic thinkers that know how to create meaning for their teams and their workforces.

While this may sound easy, more than six decades of Hay Group research into leadership styles has revealed that despite changes in the business environment, leaders have typically done very little to change. However by investing in their own development, leaders can transform themselves and be the person their business not only needs to survive but thrive in this new environment.

The right self-image

The first thing leaders need to do is evaluate their self-image.

Self-image, as the term suggests, is how one sees oneself. It is the degree to which a leader might view themselves as a decision-maker, a team motivator, an expert, a coach, a change agent or a collaborator.

Begin by asking yourself a series of questions - what is my self-image; how do I see myself and my role; how does my self-image affect the way I lead?

Based on the responses, leaders will need to work closely with HR to help evolve their self-image until they see themselves as altrocentric - someone who works with and through others.

The good news for leaders is self-image is a learned characteristic and so it can be re-learned. So with the right level of investment, leaders will be able to adopt an altrocentric approach enabling them to effectively deal with this growing individualism storm.

The right motives

The second area of focus is encouraging leaders to reflect on what drives them and how these drivers play out in terms of their leadership behaviours.

Motives are the inner drivers that prompt us to behave or act in certain ways. Renowned psychologist David McClelland identified the three social motives as Achievement (the drive to meet or exceed a standard of excellence), Affiliation (the drive to create and maintain harmonious relationships) and Power (the drive to make an impact on and have an influence over others).

All three motives exist in all of us to a greater or lesser degree, but what differs greatly between individuals is our ‘motive profile’ - the relative strength of each of the three motives.

Leaders typically have a strong need for power however there are two very different kinds. ‘Personalised power’ is the drive to influence others in order to feel and be seen as strong, capable and influential and further one’s own interests, reputation or career.

The second kind of power is what we refer to as ‘socialised power’ where individuals use their power to make others feel stronger and more capable.

While it is hard for leaders to determine their own motive profile – as motives are typically non conscious – HR professionals can help leaders to do this by asking questions and helping leaders to reflect openly and honestly on what drives them and how these drivers play our in terms of their behaviour.

Asking leaders to reflect on the degree to which they derive energy from getting things done through others; how motivated they are by positional power and personal reputation and how driven they are to maintain harmony or to achieve excellence in all that they do – can help leaders determine their own motive profiles. Once leaders have an honest sense of this, they can work with HR to develop strategies that will move them along the spectrum from personalised to socialised power.

Leadership today is about influence, not authority. It’s about curating the collective talent of your organisation rather than creating a subservient workforce.

So if leaders want to transform themselves into the leaders their company needs they must consider targeted and personalised development that helps transform their self-image and shift their demonstration of power from personalised to socialised.