And who's leading your team?........

One of my favourite words in German is "fingersptizengefuehle".

It translates as "fingertip feeling", and is one of five key areas critical to effective leadership culture. It refers to a leader's / leadership group's ability to understand their environment, and to sense emerging changes before they fully manifest.

It has never been more important - or complex than it is today.

We are all creatures of our functional, social and emotional environment. It determines how we feel, what we perceive, and in the end, what we do.

As leaders, it is our job to ensure those in our charge have environments that enable them not just to perform, but to grow - functionally through skills, socially through their circles of influence, and emotionally. It's the only sustainable route to long term achievement.

It seems to me that it used to be much easier. As leaders, we were the prime source of information, we tended to have our teams co-located in one place, or at least a limited number of places, and we m…