Transforming next-gen leaders

It is evident that conventional leadership development practices are no longer adequate. Organisations globally need to incorporate the next generation leadership competencies in order to address the development needs of their rising leaders. This expanded group of upcoming leaders need to have a broader skill-set, one that equips them to think and act globally in a VUCA business environment. They must do so while embracing cross-cultural diversity and cultivating collaborative relationships within and outside their walls. These are the hallmarks of the mindset needed to develop effective global leaders – Prof. Sattar Bawany (2016), as quoted in ‘2016 Trends in Executive Development: A Benchmark Report’

Introduction

The rapidly evolving demands of the 21st century include everything from climate change to demography, shifting customer requirements and expectations, the rise of technology, globalisation, new markets, and new attitudes to work. Leaders must now operate in a way that inspires and engages people, while simultaneously addressing changing customer requirements and delivering results. Finally, all of these needs to be achieved with a sense of urgency, as the experienced leaders of the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation continue to retire at pace (Hagemann&Bawany, 2016). 

A company’s leadership pipeline is expected to deliver its ‘next generation’ of leaders who are capable of leading now. The payoff is a supply of leadership talent that simultaneously achieves targets, strengthens and protects ethical reputation, and navigates transformational change in pursuit of a bright, competitive future. Because customers’ changing requirements are so significant, and customer focus is a ‘hot topic’ for executive development leaders, investing an appropriate amount of time, energy, and other resources to develop the capabilities of high potential leaders in these areas will be very important. Mentoring, feedback and coaching, and training programs are all potentially valuable ways to address this need. 

In essence, the heart of the managerial challenge that confronts today’s managers is learning how to lead in situations of ever greater VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) globalised business environment, allied with the needs to deal with scale, complexity and new organisational forms that often break with the traditional organisational models and structures within which many have learned their ‘managerial trade’. So the basic assumption that past experience is the key for future managerial success is more open to scrutiny than ever.

Leading in a VUCA world

Leading in a world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) not only provide a challenging environment for leaders to operate and for executive development programs to have an impact: it also provides a much-needed range of new competencies. The new reality is resulting in the realisation that new and different capabilities are needed to succeed. 

In particular, leaders today must deal with:

Volatility in economic conditions, including a slowly recovering economy and looming interest rate increases, and changing customer requirements.

Uncertainty brought about by increasing globalisation, as well as regulatory and legislative changes.

Complexity driven by revolutionary technology changes impacting organisational products, and ongoing demand for increased innovation in a climate of rapid technological evolution. 

Ambiguity brought about by the generational shift accompanied by Baby Boomer retirements and Next Gen Leaders rising to take more and more senior roles. All of these factors combine to create an extremely dynamic climate that puts pressure on leaders to excel. 

Building the NextGen Leadership Pipeline

Talent management and retention is perennially at the top of CEO’s most pressing worries. A company’s leadership pipeline is expected to deliver its ‘next generation’ of ready-now leaders. The key to ensuring an organisation has the leaders it needs when it needs them, is to accelerate the performance of future leaders including high potential employees, so that their skills and leadership abilities are as strong as possible when they are needed particularly as leaders transition from role to role.

A company’s leadership pipeline is expected to deliver its ‘next generation’ of ready-now leaders. The payoff is a supply of leadership talent that simultaneously achieves targets, bolsters and protects ethical reputation, and navigates transformational change in pursuit of a bright competitive future. Unfortunately, some Boards and CEOs neglect their talent management accountability – consequently, their pipelines run dry. When this occurs, the downward spiral of competitive capability becomes discernable, the edge is lost, and the ‘magic’ disappears. The competition begins to outwit, outflank and outperform these companies.

Executive and leadership training programs may be strengthened, broadened and deepened to include inspiring and engaging others, as well as Cognitive Readiness and Critical Thinking skills. These capabilities can be addressed by incorporating specific activities and exercises designed to increase awareness of their impact and importance in familiar techniques, such as case studies or applicable business simulations.

Additionally, opportunities for application and practice can be provided in experience based approaches where participants work to apply the concepts and skills directly to real business issues, while colleagues and facilitators provide feedback based on behaviours they observed during their work together.

Because customers’ changing requirements are so significant and customer focus is a ‘hot topic’, investing an appropriate amount of time, energy, and other resources to develop the capabilities of high potential leaders in these areas will be very important.

Development of High Performance Organisation (HPO)

We are operating in a hypercompetitive VUCA business environment. The world moves faster today when compared to 20-30 years ago. Companies feel the pressure to decrease time to market and improve the quality of products while delivering on ever-changing customer expectations to maintain competitive posture – that is, be adaptive and nimble. Driving results in High Performance organisations (HPOs) is difficult even for companies who have the benefit of dedicated and knowledgeable employees and business leaders to leverage.

Today, people often point to the importance of various leadership competencies including cognitive readiness (critical and strategic thinking skills), emotional and social intelligence, managerial coaching and leading team for performance, effective negotiation and conflict management and cross cultural communication and diversity management in driving results and achieving organisational success in a high performance organisation (See Figure 1).

Leadership is all about the ability to have impact and influence on your followers so as to engage them towards achieving results of your organisation leveraging a repertoire of Leadership Styles, Ontological Humility, Servant Leadership (Level 5) blended with elements of Emotional and Social Intelligence Competencies (Bawany, 2014). 

Conclusion

There are two things we can say with certainty about the future: it will be different, and it will surprise. Now, more than ever, leaders have to navigate unfamiliar, challenging times, a quickening pace of change, increasing expectations, and a rising tide of rapidly-evolving conditions. This new and different environment is challenging leaders to find new ways to lead their organisations and achieve sustained success. And, because of these circumstances, there is a thirst for leadership, yet leaders face a whirlwind environment laden with remarkable opportunities and daunting challenges through which to lead their people and organisations. 

(Prof. Sattar Bawany is the CEO of the Centre for Executive Education (CEE). He is also concurrently the Regional Managing Director and C-Suite Master Executive Coach of Executive Development Associates (EDA) in Asia Pacific. CEE is the Strategic Partner of EDA in Asia Pacific. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.cee-global.com. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bawany.)

References 

Bonnie Hagemann, Sattar Bawany et al. (2016), Research on Trends in Executive Development: A Benchmark Report, published by published by Executive Development Associates (EDA); Pearson TalentLens and Performance Assessment Network (PAN), February 2016. 

Bonnie Hagemann & Sattar Bawany (2016), Enhancing Leadership and Executive Development – Latest Trends & Best Practices in Leadership Excellence Essentials, Issue 03.2016. 

Sattar Bawany (2014), “Building High Performance Organisations with Results-based Leadership (RBL) Framework” in Leadership Excellence Essentials, Issue 11.2014