Leadership development

Leaders and their organisations need to do more with less – this requires a new way of thinking, increased creativity and agility, as well as the ability to develop trust, deep and fast. Everything is compressed – time, structures, resources, work processes, work cycles, complexity, experimentation and rapid decision-making. Decisions are being pushed down from senior managers to all levels of the organisation, putting more pressure on less experienced leaders to make decisions that can have a profound effect on the organisation. Leadership development plans need to be sufficiently agile to enable leaders to pivot fast and adapt quickly to ever-changing contexts.

More than ever before, today’s and tomorrow’s leaders need to be resilient – to continue to focus on the goals of the future despite the obstacles of today, to have the emotional stamina to routinely deal with complex situations and ever-present change. Leadership development programmes that enable leaders to develop resilience strategies can have a profound impact on organisational health and performance.

Authentic leadership is key to building trust throughout the organisation. Leaders need to understand themselves and their own sense of meaning and purpose and be able to communicate this in a way that connects them to others. If a leader is playing a role that isn’t a true expression of their authentic self, followers will sooner or later feel they have been tricked. When they are authentically expressing themselves, followers will feel inspired.

More than ever before, employees crave meaning and purpose – they want to know that they are making a worthwhile contribution not only to the organisation, but also to society at large. They want work that is interesting and meaningful. They want connection with their peers – more challenging to accomplish in virtual and hybrid environments. Hybrid leaders need to be able to link employees’ individual responsibilities to the overall organisation’s purpose and vision and to create a culture of collaboration and connection.

Emotional intelligence is critical to leadership now and will continue to be in the future. Leaders need to understand themselves and their personality and preferences and how to manage this to be effective. They need to be hyper aware of themselves and their contexts to be able to get the most from themselves and those whom they lead.