In Mexico, we have been experiencing for many years now moments of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA); such living conditions have been boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This environment has definitely affected our daily lives, our ways of thinking, feeling and acting and has changed our emotional states, interests, needs and values. In many cases, our basic needs have been modified or substituted by othes, such as security and protection needs. Everything has changed.
The world keeps changing and moving every second, and we have mainly changed our way of thinking and acting accordingly. In this new environment, we will need our leaders to have different skills so as to be able to lead different people, people whose status quo have been shaken, people who have changed their spirituality and emotional states.
We will require leaders with a high sense of emotional intelligence, we will need many observers and emphatic leaders, and we will need them to inspire, be present and know how to make the most out of the employees’ potential and talent. The paradigm has been modified and substituted by a new one. Leaders must have that sensibility and a great proactivity to respond with agility, and not only react to circumstances.
A suitable profile of this new leadership will be the “Coach Leader.” Such leaders know themselves, they listen, they discover and strengthen skills; they have a high level of emotional intelligence, and develop their teams and make them grow. Coercive leaderships that only go after results will no longer succeed, as they won’t fit into this new world, and their ways of leadership will be something of the past and no longer effective.
People will bring other sensitivities, as priorities have shifted towards life, family, security and protection. They will no longer tolerate abuse and living trapped or somehow enslaved and they will seek more time and more freedom, as their sense of living has dramatically changed. Money will be important, yes, but health, enjoying life and moments will be more important.
Organisations will have to rethink their schemes, how to create different moments that are fulfilling or empathetic with these new ways of thinking, change their working hours and how they work, practise new values and beliefs, perhaps involve families more, create new and different recreational areas, create green environments and spaces reflecting nature and life, listen to their people and take into account their points of view and suggestions.
Let’s get ready to discover and define these new profiles; know people’s different emotional states to help them be better so that they are not stuck on these states – uncertainty, fear, anger, sadness by a loss, frustration and even depression. It will be very important that this new leadership guides them to a positive change, to new and better emotional states such as relief, learning, enthusiasm, participation and growth.
In the near future, millennials will lead organisations. For this reason, leadership becomes even more important; it will be crucial to attract and prepare these new leaders with the right skills to achieve goals and the resurrection and success of businesses, as small and big companies will have to resurrect and many others be born again.
Undoubtedly, these changes mean only one thing: “We will come back stronger.”
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.”
