Organizations can’t grow if their leaders lack people skills

Many organizations are undergoing massive change and transformation. (Thanks, AI!)

But there is one constant: leaders need people skills, according to Matt Andersen, CEO of Westlake Securities, growth strategist, and author of Intentional Growth: A Proven Guide to Higher Performance and Better Outcomes for Your Company.

Andersen spoke with HR Brew about what HR leaders can learn from his book, and why people skills are important for growing a business.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are some HR takeaways from your book?

A huge portion of the book is really geared towards taking a look at components of the business, tying it back to the management team and the leader themselves…A lot of the book actually focuses on the psychological, interpersonal, cultural dynamics that HR leaders would be hugely in tune with and absent having health in those areas, growing an organization is impossible. You’ve got to have a good culture. You’ve got to have leadership that’s prepared. You’ve got to have a management team and key employees that are all aligned to that same outcome.

Why are leadership and people skills important for growing a business?

If you’ve got an organization that [has] stated growth and objectives to [grow] the business, but you’ve got half the management team that, at the end of the day, isn’t wanting to go through that effort, maybe psychologically they’d be uncomfortable, or maybe they’re not capable, or there’s been some misalignment or detachment…those are the things that really stall an organization from growing, and a lot of those key aspects are non-negotiable.

What advice do you have for leaders hoping to improve their people skills?

Going through the process of an honest self-assessment in terms of: If they want to grow the business, are they really prepared to do that? And, if they’re not, there’s business coaches or CEO forums, there’s definitely places that they can go to connect with other CEOs or leaders that have been there and done that.

When it comes to team organization…there’s several operating systems out there, and whether it’s OKRs (objectives and key results), or KPIs (key performance indicators), or “rocks” and EOS (entrepreneurial operating system), having and selecting a system is super important, so that people have clarity as to what expectations are. And, so those two things are really at the forefront of a lot of what we cover in the book.

How do you think AI will impact leaders?

For many many businesses out there, AI will enhance the speed, maybe elevate the deliverable, but probably won’t replace the actual human…I was actually talking…to a group of about 50 people, and I actually pointed to my book, and I said, “AI is not going to change the paper, the ink, the cover, but it is going to change everything that happens inside of it and the production schedule.”

It’s important for people to be in tune with where the productivity or output quality increases are with AI, but I do think that there are certain aspects of almost every business that really do require that human touch or human interaction, and that will probably never be replaced exactly. It is going to be figuring out where we all fit together.