Building leaders for change when change is the new normal

Building leaders for change when change is the new normal

Business is becoming ever more complex and moving at greater speed, yet not many leaders feel that their organisations are adjusting or preparing quickly enough to handle the next level of change and complexity they are facing.

To make it worse, economic weakness, increased competition, changing consumer behaviour, advancing technologies along with emerging disruptive business models are becoming the new business normal that everyone must quickly adapt to.

When change is the new normal, what are the implications for leaders during such volatile times? What does it take to respond to these challenges?

What surprises me the most is that there are still some executives who are hoping and waiting for things to return to “normal” when, in reality, that is never going to happen. You cannot just sit around and wait when change is the new normal. It comes with a call to action for companies, and leaders alike, to adapt and reinvent themselves.

Success now requires leaders and organisations not just to do things better, but rather to excel at the ability to do things differently. Certainly, those that fail to transform will be left behind by their competitors.

I’d say leadership is critical in this new normal. In fact, leadership has never been more important, nor has it ever been harder when it comes to creating long-term success and helping organisations to survive in this unpredictable climate.

Moreover, when changes are difficult to forecast, leaders must be agile and nimble, yet strong enough to identify opportunities for growth, and determine selective capabilities to seize that opportunity — the ones they need to develop and those they need to source from the market.

In other words, leaders must be resilient. Resilience is not a high-profile feature of leadership in the same way that vision, communication, or strategy appear to be, but it is rapidly becoming clear that resilience is going to be a required feature for future success.

Resilience involves the ability to find a way to embrace disruption, handle uncertainty and move from one’s comfort zone to accept the unfamiliar. Resilient leaders are good listeners. They do not try to know everything, but are willing to seriously listen to people with different skills and experiences, from all levels. They value new knowledge and ideas based on quality and value, not on who supplied it.

Resilient leaders work with options, not solutions. They work with several possible plans, rather than throw all their resources into a single plan. This gives them flexibility, and the ability to adapt quickly.

What’s more, they know how to assess risk, and are not afraid to select one option over the other when needed. At high levels, strategic planning for plausible future risks and obstacles will help a company build plans that will survive and help it bounce back from adversity.

At the individual level, leaders will be able to use their experience and skills to avoid or survive setbacks, and to focus on a better future even if the present looks difficult.

As the great thinker William Pollard once said, “To change is difficult, not to change is fatal.” The reality has set in that change and uncertainty is the new normal and it is here to stay. The only way to survive is for leaders to be equipped with the ability to adapt and become resilient. They need to be prepared to lead in a very different context and with different expectations.

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Arinya Talerngsri is Group Managing Director at APMGroup, Thailand’s leading Organisation and People Development Consultancy. She can be reached by e-mail at arinya_t@apm.co.th or https://www.linkedin.com/pub/arinya-talerngsri/a/81a/53b

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