Executive Education: Three Leadership Skills for Navigating What's Next

Executive Education Insights: Jim Roach, the executive director of TCU Neeley Executive Education program, provides practical strategies for leading with purpose amid rapid change and continuous transformation.

What is possible will move much more quickly as we rush toward the future. New technologies, shifting expectations and evolving business models are creating opportunities that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. This new landscape can be truly exciting and energizing.  It also can be tremendously daunting for a host of reasons.  How do you identify the opportunities that matter most?  Can you pivot fast enough to pursue them?  And what happens if you get it wrong?

It can be overwhelming to wrap our heads around an uncertain future.  The wide range of daily new pronouncements and prognostications makes things even more complex.  In the end, it all depends on how you choose to think about it.  And that, of course, may be the biggest challenge and opportunity of all. 

Often, it helps to step back and re-center around your own compass, your purpose as a leader.  I’ve had the chance to lead many executive education sessions over the years, leading discussions on exactly this question. These descriptions almost always include variations of “impact,” “service”, and “making things better” – for their teams, their customers, their organizations and their communities.

Because what is possible will move much more quickly, the future will also bring a far greater array of opportunities for individual leaders to make an important impact and scale their impact in ways that simply weren’t possible before.  Seen in this light, leading uncertainty can be tremendously energizing and exciting.

To that end, there are three key skills that leaders can leverage to navigate uncertainty and lead purposefully as they help create what comes next.   

1. Reframing uncertainty as opportunity. Uncertainty can be reframed as a new opportunity to provide value to your customers, employees and communities.  To make this shift, leaders need to be self-aware of their beliefs, assumptions and values.  They need to think flexibly so they can ask different questions, incorporate new perspectives, and challenge their own assumptions.
2. Slowing down to move fast. Slowing down to think first is tremendously important.  Critical thinking and purposeful decision making become even more important in a world of continuous transformation.  How does what we see interact with or impact our strategy?  What is now possible for our key stakeholders?  What assumptions are we making?  Which ones aren’t true anymore?
3. Context setting. During uncertainty, it’s impossible for leaders to provide all the answers and complete certainty about direction.  Adaptive leaders can provide important context and guidance on so that others can move forward and act independently.  This provides an important lens to view things from and can include things like:
   • Guiding principles around the company’s vision and purpose.
   • Key thoughts about what you are ultimately trying to accomplish including desired outcomes for your key stakeholders.
   • The values and operating principles that will provide guidance for direction and decisions.
   • What tradeoffs are we willing to make and what are the things that we are not willing to tradeoff.

Choosing how you think and lead in uncertainty represents a tremendous opportunity. The future is uncertain and leading in uncertainty can be difficult and challenging.  But it’s also a wonderful opportunity to make an important impact. 

-Jim Roach, executive director of TCU Neeley Executive Education