Yalla is a common word in the 22 Arabic countries denoting “come on,” “let’s get going,” and mostly meaning “hurry up,” but it also gives you the impression of being flexible and ready to take action.
In my work, I meet leaders operating under challenging environments, which requires persistence, flexibility, and commitment. These leaders are putting together resilience, efficiency, and effectiveness and demonstrating an agile management style that I call “Yalla management style.”
Today, the world is going through extreme emergency conditions inherited from the COVID19, economic crisis, rapid geopolitical changes, conflicts, and climate change. The Yalla style provides some lessons for leaders who are operating in an agile context in any country:
1) Define priorities. Identify and communicate the three to five most important ones. Early in the crisis, those might include employee safety and care, financial and fund liquidity, community needed services, and operational continuity.
2) Know what you cannot do. This part is easy. None of us can make the perfect program due to the many challenges that might face us. Put a realistic goal and work accordingly.
3) Know what you can do. This part is tough. But as the legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, put it, “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” Think about how you can prepare your team to think and act differently, in light of harsh fund conditions.
4) You can’t plan everything in advance. Instead, focus on the right tools and surround yourself with the right relationships. Condition yourself to adapt to new or uncertain situations quickly.
5) It’s important to respect cultural intricacies and make sure you understand the relevant politics very well.
6) Worry less about dramatic impact than about concrete results, and believe in the power of expertise and the value of experience. “be a problem solver.”
7) The most powerful contributions often come from the most unexpected places. “Keep your eyes open.”
8) Ask for help as needed. Identify team structures and assign individuals to support critical efforts.
9) Remember: It’s human nature to gravitate toward people with work styles similar to our own. But there will always be (and we benefit from) personality diversity in the workplace.
10) Finally, You are flexible to a certain extent, but not entirely.
We all want to be part of a great success story. To run, start, or play a senior role in an organization that changes the impact of a crisis. To launch a program that helps all the people. To be the kind of managers who creates jobs, and builds an organization bursting with energy and creativity.
Which means that all of us, no matter where we are in our career, have to wrestle with the big question of leadership: Whats is our management and leadership style?
There are many management and leadership styles, All of them have achieved tremendous success and impact, and none of them has done it in precisely the same way. But I’ve been able to identify this management style”Yalla management style” that capture different approaches.
Remember each of us has to figure out which style of leadership fits who we are and what we are trying to achieve.
