Adaptive to Change:


Developing the Skill Set of Tomorrow's Leaders
by Pete Blazek & Dennis Stevens


The executive leaders of tomorrow - today's mid- and senior-level managers - are in a challenging but exciting period of corporate change. Adapting to that change with new perspectives and aligning everyday actions with strategic goals are core skills managers will need to succeed as leaders.

There are three main reasons catalyzing the need for new leaders to have adaptive skills:

  1. The speed at which change, fueled by technology, occurs in the world is accelerating. Where it took the fax machine 22 years to get 10 million users, in contrast, online company Napster took just six months. Company leaders no longer have 'reasonable' amounts of time to adapt and assimilate these changes.
  2. The ability to execute meaningful change in an organization is becoming increasingly difficult. In response to the speed of change, a flatter organizational chart or a matrix reporting structure is often built - decision making authority becomes decentralized. When change occurs, resistance is met because employees often assume someone is at fault, fear some loss of power, or will be embarrassed from uncovering their "dirty laundry." Project teams gathered to perform change are temporary and cannot sustain change. Structural conflict results in defensive behaviors, turf wars and political blame games.
  3. Increased social complexity of the work place is making effective communications more difficult. Globalization, cultural differences, outsourcing, multiple time zones, different cultural priorities, personality preferences and individual work styles are all contributors. Additionally, email and other new technologies are replacing interactive communication at a time when social complexity requires more interaction to achieve understanding and agreement.
Speed of change, structural conflict and diverse interactive communication are the new challenges faced by today's managers. One way to develop skills for these challenges is to recognize that every decision, even if operational in nature, has social and strategic implications. Managers should continually strive to improve the communications critical to sustaining positive change. Tomorrow's leaders must recognize that new models are needed to understand and manage organizations.

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Pete Blazek and Dennis Stevens lead Synaptus, a consulting firm that helps executives improve business performance by connecting strategy to execution. For more information, please visit www.synaptus.com.