The chances are, you or your senior team leaders are facing one or more of these challenges.
Taken from recent research(1), the top ten leadership challenges facing leaders in our post pandemic and turbulent economic climate may come as no surprise to you. Yet organisations and leaders themselves are behind the curve in addressing them.
The list includes:
- A challenging business context
- A dynamic business environment
- Limited market growth
- Communicating strategic priorities
- True cross-functional collaboration
- Organisational readiness
- The pace of strategy execution
- Credibility gaps
- Interpersonal rigidity
- Limited self awareness
Enabling future fit leaders is becoming increasingly challenging and the way we have been developing future leaders doesn’t seem to be having the required impact.
In a tumultuous and uncertain work environment many leaders will struggle to deliver expected results. Leading in a challenging business context requires, more than ever, careful deployment of resources and improved processes balanced with engaged and high performing employees.
The challenge of a dynamic business environment in your sector brought about by new regulations, market and economic conditions makes the need to retain top talent and navigate revised organisational models and systems even more pressing.
Another challenge keeping many leaders awake is deciding on strategic shifts to maximise market growth. Shifting market or customer orientation, expanding beyond core products and services to extend market reach or realigning the sales effort become difficult in complex and uncertain conditions.
Communicating and aligning changing strategic priorities and initiatives effectively is also foremost in many leaders minds, especially when guaranteeing clarity, unity and execution across the organisation is imperative to success.
Influencing true cross-functional collaboration has become an imperative particularly where silos and competing agendas emerge, with the effect of limiting partnerships and the achievement of shared business goals.
Amid all these uncertainties, preparing the organisation for future turbulence is an on-going challenge for leaders. This is often most seen when leaders experience significant resource constraints, technological changes or new ways of working to address route shifts in business strategy.
For many leaders the pace of strategy execution will feel overwhelming, whereas for others it may feel glacial. The challenge here is being able to execute at pace through others. The challenge is about clarity of vision, creating alignment and commitment and supporting the performance of team members.
Along side these, for many leaders their credibility as perceived by others is also a key challenge. This challenge includes gaining the trust of key stakeholders or perhaps a new team and enhancing their visibility overall. When trust in leaders is at an all time low, strengthening presence and impact is essential.
For many leaders, shifting the way they interact with others and adapting their style to varying situations and stakeholders is a significant challenge. This interpersonal rigidity prevents them from building both satisfying and successful collaborative relationships. The challenge of flexing their approach in order to communicate and influence a variety of audiences effectively is critical to their success.
Of course a fundamental element and pillar in addressing all the challenges listed above is self-awareness. Understanding how others perceive them and recognising their impact on others can be a particular challenge for many leaders. This can be particularly true when in times of change or delivering difficult messages, so raising personal self-awareness becomes a fundamental leadership imperative.
None of these challenges will go away completely for leaders. What is certain is that erstwhile traditional methods of developing leadership credibility and effectiveness, doesn’t seem to have led to sustainable success in addressing these challenges. developing experienced leaders for a future that is unpredictable and uncertain has become even more critical.
To discover how we tackle these and other typical leadership challenges contact us direct at info@performance-equations.co.uk
We’d love to hear what specific challenges you or your senior team leaders are facing in 2025 and beyond.
(1) Center for Creative Leadership. Leadership Challenge Ladder, Technical Report 2024