Leadership in Chaos: 7th edition.
Leaders Digest

Leadership in Chaos: 7th edition.

By 12th July 2024 July 16th, 2024 No Comments

Leadership in Chaos: 7th edition.

choices, the middle, self-beliefs.

“I can’t understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ideas.”

John Cage

Émilie Mario

Change: choices.

Evolve or die. That’s the opener for PwC’s recently released 26th Annual Global CEO Survey. They heard from 4,410 CEOs from 105 countries. The data, not unsurprisingly, reflects the chaos leaders face today. For starters, 40% of global CEOs think their organisation will no longer be economically viable in 10 years’ time, if it continues on its current course. Meanwhile they also face the chaos of today’s global economy, which nearly 75% believe will see declining growth during the year ahead. Leaders are dealing with 5 broad chaotic forces: climate change, technological disruption, demographic shifts, a fracturing world and social instability. Chaotic change and uncertainty is the new normal.

A thought for leaders: To thrive in a chaotic world of change, we have to embrace it. That means making tough choices. Choices driven by vision, imagination and passion, that will reinvent and reimagine. Change is choice (more on choices in our manifesto below). You can’t go left and right at the same time. You have to decide. Do you want to change? And, are you willing to do what is necessary to make it happen?

Émilie Mario

Performance: the middle.

Middle management matters. A lot. A recent McKinsey study found that organisations with high performing middle management, deliver up to 21x total shareholder return over a 5 year period. So, creating the right atmosphere for them to be “force multipliers” in an organisation is critical because it pays off financially. According to McKinsey, these 5 practices will help:
  1. Setting them up to succeed (right structure & right span).
  2. Ensuring they focus on the right things (less bureaucracy & admin).
  3. Up-skilling them and building their capability (to grow).
  4. Supporting them and avoiding burnout (give them meaning and purpose).
  5. Measuring and managing success (focus, feedback and incentives).

A thought for leaders: We hear a lot about leadership teams (right talent at the top etc) and too little about the middle. The engine of organisations. Leaders should be dedicated to ensuring their collective success. Organisations with good manager cohesion, who perform in similar ways, have x2 the organisational health of those that don’t. It’s not just for a month or with one or two managers. The key is system-wide consistency. Their success means a healthier, wealthier workplace. #Winning.

Émilie Mario

Resilience: self-beliefs.

We all question ourselves, and struggle to silence the critics in our heads. The ones that tell us we don’t know anything, we’re not enough. It’s damaging, but it’s difficult to ignore. Beliefs can be self limiting and self sabotaging. But there are things we can do. One is called Functional Imagery Training (FIT), which includes; focussing on your values, engaging your senses to imagine better futures, thinking of best case scenarios and developing a cue (e.g. “stay in the light, get it done”). Another, as acclaimed performance coach and doctor of psychology Dr Julie Gurner discusses here, is breaking the imaginary rules we learned as children. Rules about what we’re capable of and what we deserve, that hold us back today.

A thought for leaders: Remember as Dr Gurner says, confidence and self belief stacks. As you silence the critics, and take risks and move forward, it builds. You grow. But equally, if you listen to the critics, if you’re held back by the imaginary rules, you’ll hesitate. And hesitancy can equally hold us in a negative loop that builds on itself. Remember to hold your nerve. Do the thing. Say the thing. Be the thing. Each action, builds new beliefs. Each decision, makes you bigger and stronger.

Émilie Mario

   

Leadership Principle: Choose Consciously and Wisely

The only thing you ever truly control in life is NOT the situation, but your response in the moment to the situation.

Dig a little deeper into this principle here.

You can follow Flow Group on Linkedin here.

P.S. Our featured artist this month is Émilie Möri (b. 1978), a French-Swiss photographer. She grew up in a family of printers. Her experience in the field of silk-screen printing reveals her passion for colours, image composition and artistic expression. She uses her photographs to compose representations – real concrete utopias intertwined with her emotions according to the notes and drawings she imagines beforehand. Currently, her experiments revolve around feminine ataraxia, dreams and timelessness.