From the growth of digitalisation and globalisation to hybrid work arrangements employed during the pandemic, society is continuing to evolve. These changes have been accompanied by a shift in business’s approach to management. Understanding the rapidly changing business environment will be essential to ensure efficient and effective leadership going forwards.
Change 1: From engaging to inspiring
It is no longer enough to just engage with your workforce. The period of working from home during the pandemic has given employees time to reassess the workplace, question their relative position within it, and lose some of their normal focus on tasks and deadlines. As a result, inspiring and motivating employees now has a much greater role to play for managers.
In other words, employees now expect more from their leaders. Instead of the more basic ‘traffic-controller’ function of managers of the past, modern leaders are expected to be more invested in people and in their journey.
Change 2: From accepting to embracing ambiguity
One of the biggest revelations of the pandemic has been the changing perception of business as usual. COVID-19 has revealed that systems we thought had reached a point of relative stability can suddenly become volatile and unpredictable.
Modern supply chains which support globalisation and international trade were previously viewed as textbook exemplars of just-in-time logistics. This system was to some extent based on Toyota’s method of just-in-time production, and was promoted as best practice by leading professors at the world’s top business schools. COVID-19 has blown a hole in this approach to global trade. It has shown us that despite developments in technology and travel infrastructure, a more efficient supply chain is not always better. When risks that had been overlooked actually materialise, the textbooks sometimes need to be rewritten.
Recent events have shown the importance of not only accepting ambiguity but embracing it, and building it into modern systems to make them more robust and resilient. This lesson applies not only to supply chains but also to managing and leading organisations. Managers need to ensure that a margin of error is baked into each plan in order to reduce stress and increase flexibility. This is increasingly important to ensure success in a rapidly changing business environment.
Change 3: From professional relationships to genuine rapport
Another change precipitated by the pandemic is a shift from interacting with co-workers in a friendly yet superficial way to building a deeper sense of care and empathy. This is not to say that the modern workforce is kinder than before – I believe these capacities were always present. Leaders are expected to genuinely care for those under their command, rather than just bear in mind the practicalities and business implications of wellbeing.
Networking has long been a business buzzword. The traditional goal being to expand your number of LinkedIn connections. The change in workplace culture has brought a shift in the nature and purpose of networking away from ‘networking for networking sake’ towards a focus on building a genuine rapport with people.
This shift will also be reflected in changing expectations of business leadership. No longer are senior managers expected to keep employees at arms length, but rather genuinely engage with those under their command in a way that goes beyond what is required for baseline business practice.
The bottom line
The nature and practice of leadership is changing, most notably due to cultural shifts in a post-pandemic world. Many of these shifts revolve around human psychology and the extent to which seeing the person behind the professional is increasingly appropriate in the workplace. This is partly a response to the brutality of recent years, and the importance of authentic human connection that this has unveiled.
Sukhi R. is a graduate from Warwick Law School currently studying an MSc in Business with Consulting at Warwick Business School. She has a keen interest in the business psychology of consulting and plans to enter the industry in the near future.
Image: Pexels
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