Confidence in chaos: the emergence of the post-Covid leadership model

No industry was immune from the lockdown’s impact. And the executive search business was no exception.

It demanded an agile pivot from a reliance on in-person meetings, interviews, all of which sometimes involved complex travel and diary arrangements. The flattening of those encounters to the two-dimensional world of Zoom brought both drawbacks and advantages.

Yes, it saved time, travel and streamlined the process, but it did test the mettle of executive search firms. It favoured those with deep and robust data bases of candidates and referees, and the most experience and knowledge of specialized sectors and individual companies.

Online encounters allowed more chances to meet, and a greater range of stakeholders to be involved, creating a more inclusive experience for all concerned. Furthermore, it minimised the barriers of geography and allowed the talent net to be cast more widely – a particular advantage for a firm such as ours with 27 offices worldwide.

Finding the right match of talent to client relied even more on insights into leadership styles and potential, with data-driven tools like our unique LeaderFit assessment suite helping organisations evaluate their leaders’ capabilities and identify future growth opportunities.

“Another key emerging issue is trying to ensure the cultural fit of a candidate, beginning with a first understanding of the culture where they’ll be placed. Clearly, making that match is so much harder for remote candidates in a virtual process, requiring more structure and diligence around the subject.”, states Katja Hartert, Partner at Odgers Berndtson Germany.

Up to the future challenges?

Understanding the kind of leadership that can thrive in a post-pandemic environment that is sure to continue to be challenging and disruptive remains key.

Even before the pandemic hit, we had measured just how well leaders were measuring up to a world characterised by disruption, from technological to social to geo-political.

The Odgers Berndtson Leadership Confidence Index, published in 2020 and based on global research, revealed the state of confidence in business leaders facing disruption.

Whilst 88% of businesses agreed the accelerating pace of change in the business environment will continue to speed up, only 15% of executives were actually confident in their leaders to deliver.

The survey also revealed the type of leaders that were likely to cope with confidence, and those findings have been firmly confirmed during the pandemic as we saw which leaders had the leadership mindset, particularly the vision and preparedness for change, which separates the confident from the less so.

Hybrid challenges

The pandemic has highlighted certain specific challenges in the new working environment. For example, one obvious question for today’s leader is ‘can you lead in a virtual world?’ With the prospects of a hybrid world being a probability for the short to medium term at least, this is a key point.

Leaders need to be able to talk authentically, openly, and very often empathetically with members of their team online, and communicate with other stakeholders like suppliers and partners.  

It takes something special to be able to see and understand the nuances and contexts of communication when you are operating online.

Openness to change, a key trait for the confident leaders identified in our pre- COVID survey, must also come with being open to learn and grow. It is about having the humility to admit that you don’t, in fact you can’t, know everything about everything in such a fast-moving world.

Learning comes both informally from internal voices in the organization, especially across generations, but also coaching and personal independent programmes that set a course and monitor the progress of senior leaders.

We have certainly found increasing demand for our leadership services business in a post-Covid world.

Daniel Nerlich, Partner at Odgers Berndtson Germany, adds: “Finding and placing great leaders is still our job number one, but we are increasingly supporting clients in other important ways. That might include onboarding, integrating new leaders, HR transformation consulting, and leadership team development.”

Soft is stronger

As Deloitte points out, ‘the response to the pandemic is showing that leadership qualities traditionally considered “softer” traits―empathy, compassion, reflection, openness, and communication―are at least as effective as traditionally “stronger” traits of leadership―dominance, risk- taking, and a more assertive take-charge style.’

This is particularly true in a world where leaders are increasingly expected to create and communicate an organizational purpose that goes beyond solely enhancing the bottom line. This is something that is, for example, increasingly important to attract and retain valuable new talent in a tight market.

Drivers of diversity

Another important reputational and organizational issue which predated Covid is diversity and inclusion. This has to continue to move up, and then stay on, the boardroom agenda. Here, senior leaders will be in the spotlight as expected drivers of change.

This challenge is formidable, as our recent Odgers Berndtson Germany Diversity and Inclusion survey revealed.  Our evidence is that diversity is increasingly becoming a reality in corporate practice at the lower and middle levels.

There is a rather less diverse picture on the management floors of German companies. And no agreed path to change.

So, clearly there is work to be done. Only when diversity and inclusion is properly embedded will organizations reap the full advantages of a workforce proven to deliver an uptick in collaboration, innovation and engagement, not to mention smarter decision-making. All of which feeds through to enhanced financial results as Gartner reports.

There has very clearly been a new appreciation of the value of good leadership in the past two years. We have also seen that leadership is being defined in new ways, with a clear break from what worked in the past.

If you would like to discuss your talent requirements and senior leadership issues in a post-Covid world, and beyond, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.