Reference no: EM133094770

EMERGING LEADERS

The problem was bigger than the leadership capabilities of the senior managers. The company was fortunate to have an array of promising employees across the organisation who were working harder than ever, even taking on exciting side projects which they brought to fruition in addition to excelling at their daily work. Like operations manager Elfrieda Roos, who had recently pioneered an instant porridge product. Elfrieda was a mechanical engineer who had come to Namib Mills from the energy giant SASOL. She was flourishing under the leadership of a senior operations manager - one of many who was already past retirement age (Exhibit 6). Her situation represented a wider pattern identified by the consultant where younger, talented employees did not have many options for growth within the company. Then even if there was a path for them, leaders were not doing enough to nurture and encourage their development Pasta operations manager Talia von Maltzhan, another rising star who had previously worked at Coca-Cola as a product manager, had noticed the same pattern among operational employees. She had raised her similar concern with Ian at the 2018 year-end meeting. "We need to think like the younger generation", Talia had said. "The company needs to take their foot off the brake of change, especially with the young blood". At the time, the remark had annoyed Ian. He viewed generational divides over internal processes and work as inevitable - the company spanned five generations after all. However, overall, Ian did not see this as a weakness; he thought that having a diversity of generations kept balance in the organisation. However, now, he realised Talia's concerns were in line with the consultant's overall findings on the company's leadership, operations, structure and culture. They had to think beyond the senior managers to the rest of the team: the emerging leaders and junior employees in the learning stages. The younger staff coming into the company were millennials, and some were highly skilled in specialist areas that could be instrumental in the country's future. For instance, there was Helgo Horstehmke, a project manager of infrastructure, who was currently working on a bio-gas model for the poultry farm. Helgo had impressively managed and implemented a water re-usage project at the poultry farm. He was full of energy and had the organisational skills needed for introducing process innovation. Equally enthusiastic was Terri Nghimbwasha, who had joined the team as a driver. He had previously been the operations supervisor at DHL and had joined Namib Mills with the goal of starting a career path towards logistic management. He had taken the driver's post to get a foot in the door while focussing on his part-time studies in logistics. However, he had larger ambitions. In spite of the promising talent of these employees, leaders were struggling to manage them: they wanted growth and opportunities that were not always available. Vacancies at the higher levels came up, but given the flatness of the organisation, these spots were few and staff had to wait a long time for them to arise. This was in spite of the fact that a large portion of the senior managers were in their 50s and 60s - there was little talk of retirement or succession plans among them. Those managers, such as Talia, who were interested in recruitment and creating a succession pipeline, found that priority for recruitment activities was based on seniority, which slowed the process and created frustration. Beyond creating positions or roles to which junior employees could be promoted, there was the issue of training and upskilling these individuals to take on greater responsibility. There was no training or mentorship programme in place. Faced with what they perceived as limited prospects, junior and mid-level employees sometimes grew restless. The recent resignation of one of the pasta plant engineers seemed to confirm Ian's fears about the talent drain that would be imminent if they did not find a way to form a bridge between emerging leaders and senior management. Still, Ian told himself that there were countless opportunities for employees to stay motivated and stimulated through product and process innovation. He thought the side projects and productive management meetings had clearly demonstrated this. Plus, the diversity of disciplines required to keep the company running created different avenues for growth within the company. "Job growth is not up or down, it's also horizontal. However, we have to sell the concept to millennials as they are after fast growth. It's becoming harder to retain staff in a flat structure -especially with the economy under strain," Ian thought. However, perhaps there were limitations to this kind of lateral movement, given their uniquely structured organisation. Perhaps the greater problem was the company leadership culture as a whole. If Namib Mills had grown from a small family business, it had the culture of one: many managers were second-generation employees and they were a tight-knit group that engaged candidly with one another. This could make it difficult, even impossible, for outsiders or new talent - people who had the winning ideas and energy for the future -to break through.

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