Survival skills for future leaders

Nellooli Rajasekharan
Jun 29
6 min read

The world of work has changed forever. What started as a scramble to adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic has become a permanent shift for many organisations. Unprecedented shifts to more remote and hybrid work have become the new norm. It has changed how, where, and when people can work and enhanced global collaboration. As the dust settles, one thing is clear: business success in the future belongs to leaders who can navigate this new landscape with agility, empathy, and vision.

1. The New Profile of Leadership

The pandemic was a stress test for leadership everywhere. Some leaders faltered, while others thrived, guiding their organisations through uncertainty with resilience and innovation. Throughout these unusual times, it became clear that certain leadership traits and approaches made the difference between success and failure. What made the difference? The answer lies in a new set of survival skills that will define successful leaders in the years ahead.

2. Rethinking where work should be done and how

A big question for any organisation today is: Should we stick with remote work, bring everyone back to the office, or find a balance between the two? Leaders must weigh the benefits—cost savings, flexibility, access to global talent, and retention —against the challenges of building culture and collaboration from a distance.

Leaders have to consider the following aspects related to remote work:

How viable and effective is remote work compared to working onsite for different functions and processes? A one-size-fits-all approach will be sub-optimal.

How long should the organisation resort to remote work? Will it be a wait-and-watch strategy or a permanent move?

How can effectiveness be increased in the new modes of working?

For organisations, adopting remote work can result in substantial savings on overhead expenses, leading to reduced costs for office space, utilities, commuting, and other related expenses.

Staff members have also discovered the benefits of remote work. They can choose areas with a lower cost of living, have more flexible schedules, save commuting time, and enjoy more personal time. Many now expect this flexibility as a given, almost a right.

Leaders must strike a delicate balance, crafting new structures and policies that serve both organisational goals and individual needs. Staff members may opt to continue working remotely and choose a new employer if such opportunities are not provided. Leaders will need to carefully balance these conflicting expectations and develop new structures that are viable and sustainable, with adequate consultation with staff members. Managing hybrid work requires a significant shift in the way leaders think and approach business practices.

3. Communication: The New Leadership Superpower

Talk Straight

Forget the water cooler chats and reading body language in conference rooms. In the virtual world, clarity is king. Leaders must master the art of straight talk—communicating openly, honestly, and frequently to keep teams aligned and motivated. Virtual communications rely heavily on how things are said and the written word. Some subtlety of communication will be lost, and it must be compensated by absolute clarity, frankness, and sincerity.

If done well, this can lead to increased commitment and productivity among staff members. This can also help reduce apprehensions and negativity that tend to increase with remote working. This will also allow leaders to neutralise the rumour mill and miscommunication within teams.

It is also about how leaders listen. Empathy and active listening have never been more important. The pandemic left many grappling with loss and stress, both personal and professional. Leaders who demonstrate genuine care, offer support, and create safe spaces for open conversation will foster trust and loyalty, ultimately leading to outstanding performance.

Have more empathy

There is an increased need for leaders to provide emotional support, in addition to professional help. Coaching and counselling skills will be in high demand. The effectiveness of leaders will depend more on emotional intelligence, of which empathy is a key aspect.

In a virtual work environment, conflicts can more easily escalate and lead to dysfunction. Recognising the true nature of conflicts and resolving them will be another important leadership task. Leaders who are not naturally empathetic must surround themselves with others who can help fill that gap. Unfortunately, just a few insensitive responses or decisions can have disastrous consequences for the business.

Listen Actively

In the future, hierarchy and authority will matter less. The collective opinion of staff members will become more important in shaping the policies and practices of organisations.

As staff members bring their personal offices to work for the organisation, it is logical and predictable that they will want more say in how such personal facilities and time are used for mutual benefit. Therefore, active listening, as a tool for enhancing engagement with staff members and strengthening emotional intelligence, will be critical for the success of future leaders.

Leaders will be required to make difficult decisions that may not be well-received by staff members. However, leaders must clearly explain the rationale behind such decisions, including the reasoning and its impact on staff. In that sense, proactive listening before decision-making will become more important than all the explanations after such decisions are made. Listening to understand rather than listening to respond will have to become the norm.

4. Adapting Leadership Styles for a Virtual World.

Leading remotely isn’t just about using remote meetings instead of in-person meetings. Leaders have to motivate individuals and teams to excel.

Leadership styles affect communication, relationship management, power sharing, and delegation. A wide range of leadership styles, from highly directive to extremely participative, is available for a leader to choose from. An in-depth understanding of the impact of these styles and the ability to utilise them effectively to meet the specific needs of various situations will be critical success factors.

When choosing different leadership styles, leaders must constantly consider how leading a remote team differs from leading a team where everyone is in the same office. Some of the important considerations are:

Without physical closeness, informal communication and collaboration are more challenging and require additional technical and interpersonal skills.
Ensuring confidentiality in virtual meetings becomes more challenging, as it is impossible to determine who else might be present or who has access to the recorded sessions.
Team members or supervisors cannot know what everyone else is doing at a given moment. Higher use of co-working tools, coordination, trust, and open communication is needed to ensure effectiveness in such a setting.
Clear expectations of output must accompany high levels of delegation and empowerment to ensure that people take accountability for their work.
People management policies and processes must evolve to address the new realities. (e.g., sick leave, overtime, time off, benefits, etc.

5. Unlock Discretionary Effort

The old ways of measuring performance—hours at a desk, visible busyness—don’t work in a remote world. What matters is the discretionary effort: the extra energy and creativity people choose to give when they feel valued and inspired.

In the past, organisations have depended on defining and measuring optimum effort by staff members using output metrics. Still, outstanding performance was characterised by discretionary effort, which staff contributed only if they wanted to. The success of virtual and hybrid working will depend significantly on the discretionary effort of staff members. To achieve this, the quality of leadership, work processes, work culture, fair rewards, empowerment, and the level of trust in the organisation will be key factors.

Future leaders must create an organisational culture that encourages and elicits the highest amount of discretionary effort from staff members.

6. The Bottom Line

The future workplace has arrived, and it demands a new breed of leader; one who can blend strategy with empathy, clarity with flexibility, and vision with active listening. By developing these survival skills, leaders can weather the storms of change and chart a bold course toward a more resilient, connected, and successful future1.

Leadership competencies will be required at various levels within the organisation to lead and guide staff members through periods of increasing uncertainty. Helping leaders, managers, and supervisors to acquire and hone such leadership skills will be one of the best investments an organisation can make to ensure organisational effectiveness and sustainability. Organisations, where everyone, from top executives to the front line managers, is equipped with the leadership competencies to guide others through uncertainty, will thrive.