DISRUPTIVE LEADERS: A SOURCE FOR GROWTH AND ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE

TALENT STRATEGY & MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT DURING A CRISIS

An individual’s ability to challenge conventional wisdom and discover creative possibilities is one of the driving factors behind an organization’s ability to transform by changing its business model, thereby creating new opportunities for growth.

An organization doing well is unlikely to admit it needs disruptive change.  This attribute is a primary indicator of how far a leader can go, which should be of interest to any company seeking to build its leadership bench strength.  

When a company is being disrupted, either internally or externally as with the COVID-19 crisis, leaders with fresh perspectives can bring agility and create new possibilities.  Now is the time to find out what your leadership team is capable of… doing more than just maintaining the operational routines.

The leadership skills of creative disruption are central to continued strong corporate performance. The abilities to disrupt and challenge are important in the context of a crisis, as companies are seeking new and creative ways to continue serving customers, finding new prospects and employees working in isolation from home are having to change their behaviors overnight. 

Companies should be thinking about who can step quickly into key roles on very short notice if need be. Crisis makes leaders, it’s proven fact in all aspects of human endeavors. It’s the creative thinkers, those willing to change course and move the company in a different way, not necessarily a different direction, who will be most successful post-crisis.

This is not to say that the attributes that companies most prize in executives… experience, resilience and a hard-drive for results—should be marginalized. Far from it. Resilient leaders are needed in these crisis times. Furthermore, when a company is looking for someone who can manage a P&L, the ability to execute on the most minute of opportunities is paramount. Which aspects of leadership matter most also depends on the type of business.  A brick-and-mortar company, might place less of a premium on disrupting and challenging than a digital start-up since even for some senior roles the ability to just keep an operation viable might be the most important factor.

Over the next several months as the COVID-19 crisis comes to an end, companies will be looking for fresh leadership, adding new blood to the bench.  The ability to disrupt and challenge during a robust economy is not high on the list of company priorities, when hiring.  

Now is the time to think outside the box, yet maintain balance. As companies make the trade-offs among the attributes they consider crucial when hiring an executive, hopefully they will consider seeking leaders who can disrupt and challenge the status-quo.

That said, having an appropriate diversification of competencies within the leadership team is critical for agility, in good times and bad. Furthermore, since the ability to disrupt and challenge has the strongest effect on leadership potential, it can be an internal negative influence if not properly balanced.  Any company seeking to develop its leadership bench, must also find the right level of disruptiveness for its long-term needs.

There are a few reasons that may have led companies not to prioritize leaders who can disrupt the status-quo. The first is simply not wanting to make changes when performance is strong, which has been the case for many companies for several years.  Another reason… although companies want “innovation,” they tend not to seek “disruption.” 

However, creating possibilities from new thinking is at the core of leaders who disrupt and challenge… something companies should pursue in good times as well as bad.  Coming out of this crisis offers the nearly perfect opportunity for leadership experimentation.

It will help companies as they seek new leaders and potential leaders to simply think about the specific leadership behaviors that most support new thinking and transformative change. 

Now is the time to be conducting departmental SWOT Analyses to better understand current internal and external circumstances of your company.  You might want to overlay your SWOT reviews with the desired leadership qualities, wherein you consider looking at problems from novel angles to unlock the potential for creative solutions, spotting hidden possibilities to provide exciting potential sources of competitive advantage. 

These leaders are also able to generate disruptive change and they can do so with little fear of destabilizing the organization. Leaders who have an eye on new possibilities and aren’t afraid to shake things up are those who can pivot most easily between challenges and opportunities. 

So here’s the gist of this commentary on disruptive leadership: By not setting a priority on finding people who have disruptive skills and qualities, while maintaining balance with critical leadership skills, most companies are missing out on a real opportunity to build their organizational resilience.  Finding leaders with the most potential to grow and drive change in the organization is how your company will grow out of this crisis and lay claim to new revenues and marketshare.

Companies that are willing to shift their approach to hiring will give their organizations the best chance of thriving in extraordinary times.