Leadership Development ~ A Business Imperative In Today's Complex VUCA World

In 2010, IBM interviewed over 1,500 CEO's worldwide to learn what their top challenges were and their strategies for addressing them (Capitalising on Complexity: Insights from the Global CEO). Two challenges emerged at the top of the list: 1) escalating complexity, and 2) building the creative capacity in leadership to deal with it. These same two themes remain in IBM's 2012 and 2014 studies as well.  Complexity will only continue to escalate, as well as the leadership challenge to deal with it.

Let's bring this closer to home. It is no surprise then, that the environments in which we work and live are becoming increasingly more complex. We are experiencing the mix of mounting challenges, multiple polarities and problems and complex situations with hidden points of leverage.

Within organizations these complexities require leaders to decide when and how they need to evolve and transform themselves to meet these challenges head on. It requires different ways of thinking, acting and being ~ a higher level of consciousness. Failure to adapt and evolve results in the ways of the Dinosaurs. Einstein said, "The solutions to our current problems can't be solved from the level of consciousness that created them." They can only be solved with a higher order of leadership consciousness, one that is more elaborate than the complexity we face.

The VUCA model identifies the internal and external conditions affecting organization's and their leaders today. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Briefly.....

Volatility ~ the nature, speed, volume, and magnitude of change that is not in a predictable pattern. Think of turbulence with increasing intensity and persisting for longer periods than in the past.

Uncertainty ~ the lack of predictability in issues and events. These volatile times make it difficult for leaders to use past issues and events as predictors of future outcomes, making forecasting extremely difficult and challenging.

Complexity ~ there are often numerous and difficult to understand causes and mitigating factors (both inside and outside the organization) involved in a problem. This layer of complexity, added to the turbulence of change and the absence of past predictors, adds to the difficulty of decision making. It also leads to confusion, which can cause ambiguity.

Ambiguity ~ the lack of clarity about the meaning of an event or the causes which leads to an increasing challenge of accurately conceptualizing threats and opportunities. It can be the ‘who, what, where, how, and why’ behind the things that are happening that are unclear and hard to ascertain.

Clearly VUCA puts the effectiveness of leadership at a premium. How are leaders individually and collectively evolving to meet these challenges? Does the organizational culture match and reward this premium?

Within the executive and senior leadership team ranks there is much dialogue around the level of leaders individual and collective development, that must, at a minimum, keep pace with the rate of change and increasing complexity. Not to keep pace is to become less effective and relevant. Let me again ask, "how are you and your leaders evolving to meet these challenges? What are your organizational and leadership development strategies and tactics in developing more agile and conscious leaders? How are you fostering a culture that rewards behaviors and retains agile leaders in a VUCA environment?

Mastering leadership is not easily developed. In fact, it is uncommon and rare. Why is that? Here are three possible reasons:

• Bookstores, social media, conferences and workshops are full of the latest secrets to leadership success. Much of it reduces the development of leaders to a set of quick-fix skills and steps. We're busy people and we are accustomed to getting things right away. We'll use those new skills and steps for a couple of weeks, but we'll always revert back to our old behaviors, thoughts and actions. There is no sustainable growth or development. 
• Developing leadership effectiveness often gets sidelined because we resist the vulnerability of learning and changing. Additionally, we carefully guard our credibility and want to be seen as a highly capable and strong leader. To be viewed as effective others turn to and expect us to get things done and we do. Mostly, we respond automatically reacting to people and situations. So what's wrong with that? It is a leadership blind spot we call Too Much Autopilot! Autopilot helps leaders get things done. It is about doing things the way we've always done them and getting the same outcomes. However, autopilot and growth don't go together. If we want new outcomes we have to disengage the Autopilot. It takes courage to face the truth about ourselves.
• Most of the development of leadership effectiveness is driven towards skill and competency development. That's good and needed, but growing as a leader is more than dressing the part or raising your EQ or getting smarter at a leadership competency like delegation, time management, communications. Leadership growth encompasses all of these and more. It requires transformation. To be the best version of yourself, you need to understand that the development of your leadership effectiveness into mastery is a profound process and requires a restructuring and transforming of oneself into a higher form. Then you will begin to understand why it is not for the faint of heart. Why it is rare and uncommon and a journey with no shortcuts.

The VUCA inherent in today’s business world is the “new normal”, and it is profoundly changing not only how organizations do business, but how leaders lead. The skills and abilities leaders once needed to help their organizations thrive are no longer sufficient. Today, much more is required of our leaders. 

Executive and leadership coaches and other talent management professionals can help leaders succeed in today’s VUCA environment by providing a confidential and partnering relationship that helps the leader understand "autopilot", turn it off and see the possibilities of change. It is this new awareness and consciousness and the partnering relationship that takes leaders through personal transformation. The commitment to develop effective leadership as a strategic priority, in this VUCA world, must be made because of its dramatic impact on leaders and organizational performance. What is your destiny? Are you ready, willing and able?

I hope this article has been helpful. What are your thoughts? How would you begin to break through and begin shifting your focus and behaviors in achieving new and different outcomes? We would love to hear from you with comments or questions. Send me a note via email at brad@aperiocoaching.net or on Twitter @bparcells. 

In Latin, Aperio means to reveal, uncover, to make clear. Coaching is a powerful process of coaching leaders through personal transformation that enables the leader to reveal and illuminate their authentic leadership style.