5 Challenges for Future Leaders
“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.”
Theodore M. Hesburgh, former President of Notre Dame University (1952-1987)
The pandemic has imposed unprecedented and, in many cases, unimaginable challenges on leaders. Simultaneously, society has also started to demand more from companies. Remote working, technology, and the economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have saddled leadership with a problematic but decisive role in the success of businesses and the wellbeing of their employees and teams.
Leading people will always be a challenging ongoing journey where the most important thing is to be proactive and attentive, but above all, to accompany change and evolve with it. So, looking to the future, what are these challenges, and what tools do leaders need to respond effectively to them?
- Question the status quo, anticipate and drive change
Leave old habits and beliefs in the past, but make sure not to forget them. It is the first simple step for leaders to start questioning the status quo and allow teams to anticipate change and be more prepared to respond to them with an innovative mindset. Particularly in a post-pandemic period, the expectations of employees and stakeholders are even higher on how future leaders will respond to the transformation.
David Lancefield and Christian Rangen (Harvard Business Review) visualise four essential actions for “transformational leaders”. The first should be the change of mental models, which implies developing an innovative way of thinking, answering complex challenges and having the courage to make the most difficult decisions to ensure that no opportunity to evolve or uncover innovative things for the business gets lost in hesitation. Secondly, they have to work on the organisation’s limits, establishing how they can anticipate problems and react, which can only be achieved through close leadership of employees, customers and stakeholders, integrating them into every step of decision-making processes. In a third phase, transformational leaders should share leadership, integrate and harness the team’s collective intelligence and energy, promote leadership on multiple fronts, and avoid focusing on just one individual. This choice will help build trust in the leadership and ensure that each member feels they are essential to the team and that their skills matter for the business’ success. Last but not least, Lancefield and Rangen believe that a leader prepared for transformation must put into practice the empowerment concepts they promise their teams: creating actual conditions for the development of their teams, freeing them from repetitive tasks, investing in upskilling and reskilling, increasing their responsibility and autonomy in their roles, being clear about what the tasks are, and ensuring that the process is transparent.
- Be agile, resilient and focused on innovation as a response to technological transformation
Resiliency is the ability of people or things to recover after something unpleasant happens and that cannot be dissociated from an innovation-based mindset and the need to be more agile to overcome obstacles. Future leaders must implement an agile culture and methodology, which means embracing and adapting to change and turning uncertainty into real growth opportunities with the right set of tools.
As for the future, leaders should implement a culture of innovation that will enable future leaders to make the most of less positive experiences and turn them into the engine for real change.
Companies, and their leaders, must be increasingly agile and resilient, driving innovation, digital transformation, able to share a vision with purpose, inspiring and mobilising their teams for change in an entrepreneurial culture of continuous improvement.
- Build purpose and be more emotional
The physical remoteness of the teams, the forced isolation to prevent the progression of the pandemic, the management between personal and professional life, the impact on the physical and mental health of the workers have forced leaders to be much more attentive to their teams and to develop a much more human and empathic side, in order to overcome moments of anxiety or uncertainty. Likewise, future workers expect leaders to be more flexible, intelligent, and empathic and prepared to listen to their own needs, particularly those who suffered more significant pandemic consequences like traumas, loneliness, or burnout.
In the future, leaders will have to be genuinely present, closer and will be forced to develop their soft (or more recently termed “power skills”) even more and be emotional leaders rather than formal leaders.
The definition of purpose, both for employees and for the stakeholders of an organisation, will be a fundamental pillar to keep teams united, develop a strong sense of belonging to the company or organisation’s culture, and ensure business success.
- Promote essential values for the future
Promote and develop diversity, inclusion and sustainability, as core leadership values will be critical in meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing society, the digital and technological transformation and the unknown challenges that may still arise from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
More than knowing how to integrate, an inclusive leader must take advantage of the value of each member of his/her team, thus promoting a mindset of diversity and innovation. Moreover, inclusion also means knowing that all members feel represented in the organisation’s values and feel aligned with its purpose.
From a broader perspective, leaders must be responsible and follow a line of thought based on the 3 P – Profit, People and Planet Future. They should not forget the balance of each one’s health and the place of change that they can represent globally, contributing to a better and fairer world. Leaders must promote diversity, inclusion, and sustainable strategies to positively impact every community, society, and environment.
- Continue to attract and retain talent
Attracting and retaining talent was a challenge long before the pandemic, but the health crisis reinforced those long-existing demands. The future talent, who is now finishing their training, may not join a company with a long-term perspective, which is one of the biggest challenges for future leaders. The talent of the future is looking for organisations aligned with their purpose, and that can offer flexibility, an innovative mindset, inclusivenessand have a positive impact on society and the world.
Attracting new talent, but above all convincing them to stay, will depend on the leadership’s commitment to all the above factors, putting people at the centre more than ever. As before, wage advantages are no longer a decisive factor for those looking for a new professional challenge, especially for the new generations. Therefore, wellbeing policies are even more critical in the pandemic context and will be determinant to retain talent. The future will test leaders on their ability to use technology to favour their teams to guarantee more flexibility and a better conciliation between personal and professional life, which will be fundamental to retain talent for as long as possible.
