Finding leaders to cope with uncertain times

Jo Faragher

There’s no argument that businesses face a very different climate to the one they did a decade ago, but do the leaders of those businesses have the right skills to cope with these new challenges?

Research from recruitment process outsourcing company Cielo this week outlined the four key skills HR and recruiters should be looking for in future leadership teams. The company describes the new business environment as VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), an environment where change is the new norm.

However, the people we’ll need to lead businesses through all of these changes might not possess the qualities we might traditionally have associated with successful leaders.

One of them, for example, is emotional intelligence, which Cielo describes as “the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions”, recognising the impact of our actions on the world around us, and being able to see when someone is struggling emotionally. Think of some of the people at the top of scandal-hit businesses such as RBS, might some emotional intelligence have prevented things going so far?

Cielo also highlighted how future leaders will be less likely to be the “heroic” figureheads we’ve seen before such as Steve Jobs. They will be more invisible to the outside world and will focus their energies on putting together the right teams and motivating people to achieve a wider goal.

An important part of this will be a third key skill, the ability to identify what drives individuals and ensure that approaches to training or development are tailored, rather than assuming ‘one-size-fits-all’ will work. Finally, they will need to be totally flexible, able to adapt to new opportunities and threats, as well as helping their teams to do the same.

As Sue Brooks, executive vice president of Cielo points out, the challenge for recruiters and their HR partners will be in “identifying individuals with these traits and enticing them into a leadership position”. This could mean using different strategies for sourcing, adopting a more social, relationship-based approach than before.

It could also mark a new wave of opportunity for recruiters with a good eye for candidates with these next-gen skills.