Latest / Daily Influence / 653. Thriving in the New Labor Market Reality: Skills, Culture, and Influence Redefined

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653. Thriving in the New Labor Market Reality: Skills, Culture, and Influence Redefined · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
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• 0:39
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody Brian Smith here with the IM team series and your daily influence and today we are going to be talking about this new crazy job market that we are all living in and how.
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: technology is just really getting in the way a lot of where this market is and has become quite a disruption.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: I hear it from even in the trades.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: How difficult it is to hold attention.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Keep people engaged higher support.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I we want to slow this down a little bit because.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Here at I.A.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: and the I.M.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: team series, we're human focused.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Last week's last episode here, I talked about AI and how AI has become a new teammate.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And it is influencing this job market.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And look, the world of work didn't just change.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's completely unsettled.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Titles are lagging behind reality.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Outcomes matter more than hours, skills are replacing roles
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  [SPEAKER_01]: can keep up.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's so many things going on in organizations.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And in this new labor market, leadership isn't about control.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, it shouldn't have been about control ever.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It should have always been about what we are here talking about all the time, influence.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And today, I'm going to explore how leaders can thrive when work is redefined a new way to deal with this.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And careers can become self-directed and influence replaces instruction.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: So look, culture has always been one of those things that a lot of people look at as this soft
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  [SPEAKER_01]: part of the business.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not not even in this world where technology seems to be taking over.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And culture isn't reinforced by the roles.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's reinforced by behavior.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: So when jobs are shifting faster than job descriptions, which I don't like job descriptions, I think position guides are much more detailed because they give humans an understanding they guide them in what their areas
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But culture can no longer live in titles and policy.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Leaders influence culture by what they reward, by what they tolerate, and what they model.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Not what's written down, so that means that leaders have to lead in action and behavior.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: middle managers are feeling the squeeze because they're expected to deliver outcomes.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes, they're asked to deliver these outcomes without really clear authority.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And then influence becomes their primary tool.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And how they deal with that sometimes is left to them to decide.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: the strongest cultures today are anchored in shared principles in decision clarity, not static roles.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if culture depends on structure, it will break.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: If it depends on behavior, it will adapt.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And it can be led to continuous improvement.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is really an important distinction for us as we lean into how we use structure to support behavior.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that we've always talked about here is skills-based development.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: What does that even mean?
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It means that when you have people in your organization, develop their skills so that they can grow and improve in your organization.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a new retention strategy, expand the knowledge of your team, allow them to understand more and they can do more.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Skills-based development gives people momentum, even as their jobs evolve.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: and organizations that invest in transferable skills see higher innovation because people feel safe, experiment and giving feedback.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: They begin to create these additional feedback loops about things that oftentimes get new perspectives.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's amazing when you work in a culture that has this behavior that evolves throughout your organization.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what also happens is retention improves.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It improves when people believe their future is expanding, not narrowing, when they don't feel stuck, when they don't feel bored, when they feel growth happened in the environment that they live in an amazing large amount of their time.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: we retain them by enabling capability by giving them a peek at where we're going and how we're investing in them to support that movement, that continuous feedback, that growth that we're all hoping to get from our organizations.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And lastly, today, intentional influence should be responsible, but intentional influence in a world where people leave themselves becomes an ecosystem.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a ladder.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's who we are as an organization.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the we that we come together and we help each other move us forward and upwards as an entire organization.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just this ladder you climb.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: People are leading themselves more choosing projects, learning paths, and their exit.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Leadership shifts from directing work to creating clarity, alignment, and trust when we lean into allowing people to do this.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: When we build those people up in our organizations, in what influence looks like today, or what it probably should look like in a positive
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  [SPEAKER_01]: is helping people connect to their strengths, building on those strengths, giving them an opportunity to understand what meaningful outcomes actually are contextually.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Even if the path isn't linear, you can help them to understand that, so they feel good about the path they're on.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: The leader's role is no longer to manage effort, but to shape environments where effort becomes compounded through behavior of your team.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: The new labor market isn't a threat.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a test.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a test of leadership.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a test of individual responsibility.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a test of individual influence.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a test of whether leaders can influence without titles, build trust without certainty, and develop people without rigid paths with skills, replace roles,
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  [SPEAKER_01]: and agility replaces performance.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Influence becomes the defining leadership advantage.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: That's today's daily influence.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, lead intentionally, adapt courageously and influence responsibly.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have a great day.