Product details

This chapter is excerpted from 'Leadership in Disruptive Times'. Disruption is happening everywhere and in every aspect of our lives. It is happening at a scale and speed that is unprecedented in modern history, impacting diverse industries, from financial services to retail, media, logistics and supply chain, manufacturing, education, professional services, health care, and life sciences. Leaders are finding it challenging to navigate the near-insurmountable challenges resulting from the impact of these disruptive events on their operations and have to reinvent their operating and business models to ensure their survival. Not every disruption is driven by advances in technology, as we have seen in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic since early 2020, where organizations all over the world face an uncertain future in a global business environment that is highly disruptive and increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (collectively known as VUCA). We face a new era of radical uncertainty and disruption brought about by other challenges such as climate change, financial crises, terrorism, Brexit, demographic changes in the labor market, health/disease risk, mass migration, and rapid developments in digital technology and its impact on transformation at the workplace. The management of shocks and crises is becoming an everyday occurrence. Organizations also need to be agile and leverage opportunities and drive innovation to remain competitive in the face of challenging conditions. The right leadership is critical for organizations to thrive in a disruptive business environment. The book aims to answers the following questions: How should we define leadership in such an environment?; Are the current leadership practices and competencies still relevant in the face of such disruption?; How can leaders set themselves up not only to survive but also to thrive as they navigate the challenges of disruptive events and crises?; and What factors have helped organizations to successfully manage the disruptive challenges when implementing digital transformation at the workplace?