The Rapid Evolution Changing Corporate Leadership

My friend usually started our lunch meeting with by sharing the great things happening in his business – customer satisfaction, growth rate, employee engagement, and expansion opportunities.

This lunch was different. As he sat there looking at me, defeated, he said, “John, in a matter of 10 minutes everything changed.”

He began to give me a laundry list of bad news, “First, it was a blog post dragging us through the mud. Then, a user complaining on Twitter. Next, we didn’t make it on a top 20 industry list. If that wasn’t enough, a relatively new employee unexpectedly quit. Shortly after, I received an email from one of our biggest customers that said they were moving in a different direction immediately. It was one blow after another — each punch harder than the previous one for both myself and my team.”

My friend’s leadership skills were being put to the ultimate test. As I listened to him empathetically, a thought struck me –

“although the core characteristics of being a leader remain the same, what my friend was failing to do was to look at leadership with a different, modernized lens.”

Our world is evolving at a rapid pace. No longer can organizations rely on a brand, products and or services to separate themselves from the competition. Rather it’s people and the experiences they create along with brand, products and services that set organizations apart. This rapid evolution is causing a shift to happen that leaders have to adapt too. It’s called the “people economy”

This “people economy” is driven by 3 factors – Demographics, Social, Economy.

I am happy to report my friend has been able to fight back at the punches that were swung his way in that 10-minute span. Knowing these 3 factors of the “people economy” won’t help leaders today implement changes to their behavior, but knowledge is the first step.

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