MODERN LEADERSHIP
Colouring Outside the
lines: saying goodbye to
beige leadership
By Janine Garner
W
hat colour is your leadership
style? Shades of beige,
or a riot of ideation and
colourful innovation? The time of
beige leadership values and the selfpropagating disaster that shadows
them have an ever-shortening
life span as innovation, business
structure and cultural and societal
changes evolve at an increasingly
rapid speed. Take these statistics to
heart as an example of the need for
50 ModernBusiness
May 2016
active change from a lack of colour
in the workplace.
According to a Gallup’s State of the
Global Workplace worldwide survey,
only 13 per cent of employees are
actively engaged at work. To put
it another way, approximately 180
million employees in the 142-country
study are disengaged — yes, they
are going to work and going through
the motions of doing their jobs, but
they are unlikely to be collaborating
and making positive contributions to
their employers and organisations.
Engagement levels vary across
different global regions, with the
Gallup report sharing that the US
and Canada have the highest level
of engaged workers (29 per cent)
followed by Australia and New
Zealand (24 per cent).
Philosopher Charles Handy talks