Leadership in a Disruptive and VUCA World

Leading in a Disruptive VUCA World

“It is evident that conventional leadership development practices are no longer adequate. Organisations globally need to incorporate the next generation leadership competencies in order to address the development needs of their rising leaders. This expanded group of upcoming leaders need to have a broader skillset, one that equips them to think and act globally in a VUCA business environment. They must do so while embracing cross-cultural diversity and cultivating collaborative relationships within and outside their walls. These are the hallmarks of the mindset needed to develop effective global leaders.”

– Prof Sattar Bawany (2016)

NextGen leaders for a VUCA world: Transforming future leaders for success.

Introduction of VUCA World: What It Means and Why It Matters

Leadership is the process of influencing people to achieve results and prepare for the future. Effective leaders have always made the difference between success and failure. Leading in todays VUCA World (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) is becoming increasingly difficult, yet leadership today is increasingly important.

VUCA is an acronym that emerged from the military in the 1990s. It describes the “fog of war” — the chaotic conditions that are encountered on a modern battlefield. Its relevance to leaders in business is clear, as these conditions are highly descriptive of the environment in which business is conducted every day. Leadership as usual, including creating a vision, is not enough in a VUCA world.

• Volatile: Things change unpredictably, suddenly, extremely, especially for the worse.
• Uncertain: Important information is not known or definite; doubtful, unclear about the present situation and future outcomes; not able to be relied upon.
• Complex: Many different and connected parts: multiple key decision factors, the interaction between diverse agents, emergence, adaptation, coevolution, weak signals.
• Ambiguous: Open to more than one interpretation; the meaning of an event can be understood in different ways.

The Impact of the Disruptive, VUCA Driven Business Environment 

Leading in a world that is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) not only provides a challenging environment for leaders to operate and for executive development programs to have an impact: it also provides a much-needed range of new competencies.  The new reality is resulting in the realisation that new and different capabilities are needed to succeed.

In a disruptive VUCA World, more and more leaders and companies recognise that they must proactively disrupt, or risk being disrupted.  But business-as-usual leadership, where big visions are followed by detailed road maps and action plans, do more than stifle disruptive innovation. They represent liabilities to success.  Leading disruptive innovation involves adopting principles that fall outside the traditional training of managers and leaders.

New leadership competencies such as cognitive readiness are required to navigate disruption. This means uncovering one’s deeper motivations to drive meaningful opportunities for others; pushing personal boundaries to challenge one’s own assumptions; taking steps into the unknown with the view that failure isn’t failure at all but rather a stepping stone to learning and progress; and tuning into surprises as a kind of portal for gaining new insights and uncovering opportunities.  To lead disruptive innovation successfully requires that we disrupt the most fundamental mindsets and behaviours that have led us to our current success.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of this Masterclass, the participant will be able to better appreciate and/or understand the context of leadership today’s VUCA business environment and how to develop the mindset and agility to achieve sustainable organisational results during these turbulent times.

The programme incorporates a number of unique features and works on a number of levels. It is specifically aimed at enhancing and developing the skills, knowledge and behaviours of the participants.

The participants will develop their understanding of Leadership Effectiveness and how it will lead to a creation of a sustainable competitive advantage for their respective organisations through the development of an organisational climate that will contribute towards enhancing employee engagement and productivity during challenging times when operating in a disruptive VUCA business environment.

Professor Sattar Bawany is Chief Executive Officer of The Centre for Executive Education (CEE Global)

Prof Bawany is concurrently the Strategic Advisor & Member of International Professional Managers Association (IPMA) Board of Trustees and Governing Council, the Managing Director and C-Suite Master Executive Coach with Executive Development Associates(EDA) and Master Facilitator with Action Management Associates, Inc. (AMAI).

He has over 30 years’ international business management experience, including 20 years in executive coaching, group facilitation, and leadership development and training with global management consulting firms. In addition to his business and consulting career, Prof Bawany has over 15 years of concurrent academic experience as an Adjunct Professor teaching senior executives international business strategies and human resource courses at various leading universities. He is currently the Adjunct Professor with Curtin Graduate School of Business (CGSB) and the Paris Graduate School of Management (PGSM).

He is a member of the Duke Corporate Education (CE) Global Learning Resource Network (GLRN). The Financial Times and Business Week continue to rate Duke CE as the world’s #1 provider of customized corporate education services.

Prof Bawany is a Professional Member of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). He is also a Practicing Member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and International Association of Coaching (IAC).

The SCOPE is an Action based learning approach to solving real problems that involve taking action and reflecting upon the results, which helps improve the problem-solving process.

“VUCA” was coined in the late 1990’s, the military-derived acronym stands for the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—terms that reflect an increasingly unstable and rapidly changing business world. This new VUCA environment will require HR and talent management professionals to change the focus and methods of leadership development.

Leading in the future have seen a common theme emerge - managing challenges in a business environment that it is disrupted and predominantly digital. Technological advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, sharing platforms and the Internet of Things are fundamentally altering business models and industries. These changes are often not only alien to businesses; they are taking place at unprecedented speed. How do we equip and transform the next generation of leaders with the relevant skills and competencies to meet these challenges?

This series of Leadership Masterclass is designed to assist leaders to be VUCA ready and navigate these challenges in a disrupted world.

The “V” in the VUCA acronym stands for volatility. It means the nature, speed, volume, and magnitude of change that is not in a predictable pattern. The “U” in the VUCA acronym stands for uncertainty or the lack of predictability in issues and events. The “C” in VUCA stands for complexity where there are often numerous and difficult-to-understand causes and mitigating factors (both inside and outside the organisation) involved in a problem. The "A" in the VUCA Acronym stands for Ambiguity which is the lack of clarity about the meaning of an event or the “causes and the ‘who, what, where, how, and why’ behind the things that are happening (that) are unclear and hard to ascertain.”

VUCA leaders must have foresight to see where they are going but must also remain flexible about how they get there. They must be self-aware about their strengths and weaknesses as leaders, adaptable, open to change, and be knowledgeable about their organization beyond their function. They must work collaboratively and be excellent communicators to thrive in a complex VUCA environment. Above all, VUCA learners must develop learning agility and be able to learn fast because change is constant.

This Masterclass Series leverages upon findings of longitudinal and ongoing research by CEE and our strategic partners globally including Executive Development Associates, Inc. (EDA).  EDA has conducted a biennial survey to track the growth and evolution of executive education and development trends, every two to four years since 1983. The EDA Executive Development Trends Report, which is used by organisations to benchmark their own executive development practices, shows that the shifting markets and impact of technology are pushing executives to learn new skills and make changes in their approach. Since 2009, critical thinking, the ability to recognise assumptions, evaluate arguments, and draw conclusions, has topped the trends as a key development needs for senior leaders. In 2016, we see the connected, but the more advanced level of mental skills of cognitive readiness gain in importance. Cognitive readiness, defined further in the 2016 Trends Report, is the mental, emotional, and interpersonal preparedness for uncertainty and risk in the VUCA Business Environment which is crucial for Leading in a Disrupted World.”

To lead successfully in the VUCA World, leaders need to “L.E.A.P.” through the fog and demonstrate the cognitive readiness competencies and also possesses the following traits:

• Liberal: open to new behaviour or opinions and willing to adapt or discard existing values if and when necessary to adapt to the new world
• Exuberant: filled with lively energy with sense of passion and optimism in engaging the team and other stakeholders
• Agility: proficiently change and evolve the learning organisation with nextgen leadership competencies including cognitive readiness, critical thinking and emotional & social intelligence amongst others.
• Partnership: Build trust-based partnership with teams (intra & inter) as well as externally with other stakeholders including customers and suppliers.

The life of a leader has plenty of demands and pressures. Having the skills to handle them would seem to be a pre-requisite for success. We have identified several specific skills from a wide array of emotional & social intelligence competencies, as the ones that differentiate successful leaders from other people. Fortunately these skills can be improved with the proper training and coaching.

There are two things we can say with certainty about the future: it will be different, and it will surprise. Now, more than ever, leaders have to navigate unfamiliar, challenging times, a quickening pace of change, increasing expectations, and a rising tide of rapidly-evolving conditions in a VUCA world. This new and different environment is challenging leaders to find new ways to lead their organizations and achieve sustained success. And, because of these circumstances, there is a thirst for leadership, yet leaders face a whirlwind environment laden with remarkable opportunities and daunting challenges through which to lead their people and organizations.

 Therefore, leaders need an array of emotional & social intelligence competencies to be successful, and the good news is, that these can be developed with the right development support including training and coaching. Research have clearly proven that emotional & social intelligence competencies can contribute to a leader’s success. You may be able to prepare yourself for success by building your abilities in these areas. There are proven methods to do so.

We believe today's leaders of organisations are seeking new ways of developing capacities in their organisations to learn and re-learn. This 90 Day Action Plan would include an action learning approach to facilitating the implementation of a workplace learning strategy to assist a group of managers in enhancing their capacity to learn and respond to organisational issues more effectively.