LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES. Taking on a VUCA world

It’s one of those super-crowded fairs at Pragati Maidan, stall after stall pitching tourist destinations, a lot of jostling and noise. It’s hardly the sort of place you expect to run into the head honcho of a large multinational hotel chain. When you spot him lounging at a stall at the travel trade mart SATTE, Dilip Puri, former Starwood India MD who is currently advisor to Marriott International, smiles disarmingly and says he is here because his market is here.

He is not the only one wading into the trenches. James Thomas, who leads the India business of Kronos, a workforce solutions company, is regularly out and about spending time with customers, partners and employees. “I find being in the trenches in real time on a regular basis very important and helpful. You get a sense of the heartbeat of customers and the market and its variations,” says Thomas.

Welcome to the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, where you will find more and more leaders doing things differently. In this age of rapid change – both external and internal – they can’t afford to remain closeted in their corner offices. The leadership playbook of yesterday no longer works and new rules and skills have to be employed.

Ask CEOs what their top challenges are and charting the unknown ranks high. “Unknowns are emerging more rapidly every day,” says Thomas.

“To lead today, one must know what to do when one does not know what to do,” says Santhosh Babu, managing director of OD Alternatives and a leadership coach.

The other challenge, he says, is that organisations are no longer linear. “Today organisations are living, adapting, complex systems much like an ecosystem in a national park.” This means leaders need to be adaptable and resilient.

For Charulata Ravi Kumar, CEO Sapient Razorfish India, a big challenge is that ‘leadership’ itself has evolved to a new role “redefined not by leaders but rather by the influx of a whole new breed of young, dynamic, entrepreneurial and innovative minds that are breaking norms”.

She emphasises the importance of changing leadership style from directing to guiding. “Leaders need to lead from the front, middle and the sides. They have to become one with the teams and shed the notions of hierarchy.”

So how do leaders cope with changing contexts and realities? A lot of them read extensively. Others hop on to knowledge forums. But Ravi Kumar says she has gained a lot more by “engaging in deep conversations with great minds and achievers than over-reading and attending too many knowledge seminars”. Thomas of Kronos endorses this. “Leveraging peer groups, networks and mentors help in gathering critical good counsel.” Also, as Ravi Kumar points out, “A leader need not be a vast ocean of knowledge. In fact, it is an unreasonable ask in today’s times when the pace of change and information overload is beyond grasp. What’s critical now is to seek out one who knows what to know and who can connect the dots across the many layers that this information and change are creating.”

Another big challenge for leaders today is meeting their teams’ changed expectations. Today’s employee is highly individualistic and has professional and personal ambitions. As Ravi Kumar says, “Over the last couple of years, the need and ambition to reach one’s professional and personal goals simultaneously now require organisations and leaders to look into both with equal zest.”

This is not about helping them balance their lives, she says, as it is about inspiring them to achieve their potential, “how we as leaders can support and push them to their goals differentiates between a boss and a leader”. Although Ravi Kumar stresses the importance of being guided by mentors, she adds, “Don’t forget to be led by your own inner self.” The last word, though, is reserved for Dilip Puri, who says to navigate through a time when disruption is the new normal, “Make sure you keep acquiring, developing and retaining people smarter than you — people who complement your leadership.”

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