As we all know, right now, years are happening in weeks:

• The pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by about five years.
• In March, the number of Americans working from home accelerated by a decade in two weeks.
• The stock market saw 10 years’ worth of rip-down followed by a decade of recovery in six months, from March to September.
• While it will drop back, government spending this year has matched what was expected in 2045.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that so many of us are working flat out — keeping day-to-day operations afloat while also working to transform the organization — or risk being left behind.

As strategies and business models evolve, organizations are realizing they need different kinds of leaders in this new era. However, it’s hard to nail down what “good” looks like in this context, particularly while things are still so volatile.

Over this past year, there has been no shortage of content published on the importance of leadership qualities such as resilience, empathy and agility. And while these qualities are clearly important, they are also personality-driven. What that means is that if you don’t already possess these qualities, it’s incredibly difficult — and time consuming — to develop them.

Our view is that it is more productive for organizations to focus on fostering capabilities that are more “developable” and that will help them prepare today’s talent for tomorrow’s challenges.

Future-focused competencies

As business psychologists, we help organizations define, select and develop the leaders they need for tomorrow’s challenges. In our conversations with organizations to help them define the future leaders they will need, some key themes around meet-the-moment capabilities have emerged. We are not saying this is a definitive list, nor that these capabilities can be developed overnight, but it may help stimulate your thinking as you look to refresh your leadership strategy.

1. An outside-in perspective

“What may be out there that I don’t know about … that’s what I worry about the most. The things that can really hurt us are what we haven’t thought about.” — chief risk officer, financial services firm

Competition and disruption can come from anywhere. And leaders simply don’t have enough time in the day to keep fully on top of the global competition, rapidly evolving needs of customers or market dynamics. But they do need to stay curious, be aware that they don’t know what they don’t know and challenge those around them to “probe the boundaries and be a catalyst to developing an external perspective.”

2. Spanning boundaries

“We know that we need to move faster. But a lack of cross-functional working is holding us back.” — vice president, manufacturing business

Companies are adjusting to the pace and depth of change by breaking down traditional hierarchies and moving to flatter structures and more collaboration, often virtually. Success no longer hinges on the contribution of individual superstars. It’s about how effectively people work across boundaries and how quickly project-focused teams can form, perform and re-form to deliver their objectives. Borrowing from the Center for Creative Leadership, “boundary spanning” is the ability of leaders to rapidly create alignment, commitment and direction across boundaries (functional, organizational, cultural or geographical).

3. Inclusion and psychological safety

There’s no team without trust. As Google discovered, a high-performing team starts with psychological safety. Safety is about treating people with dignity and respect so that people feel they can speak up and take risks without fearing negative consequences. As we’ve all seen, when these are lacking, people hold back. Tensions simmer. The team pulls in different directions. And the leader “hears about all the stuff that’s going well — but not the real problems facing the business,” according to a vice president with a national retailer. Inclusion means making people feel that they belong and they’re valued, seeking out diverse perspectives, and drawing on the range of knowledge and experience in the team.

4. Leads with purpose

“There’s a real disconnect right now between our values on paper and our behavior in practice.” — vice president, consulting firm

Capitalism has taken a beating during this crisis. More than ever, people are looking to organizations to do more than simply make money. Having — and, more important, living — a purpose matters. People need to feel they are contributing to something greater than themselves that actually makes a difference in the world. For leaders, authenticity matters. People can easily spot when the words don’t match the music. And they remember when leaders say one thing and do another.

5. Leader as coach

As organizations have thinned and flattened, our experience is that they are finding themselves needing to promote new leaders before they’re truly ready. At the same time, leadership roles are becoming increasingly complex and ambiguous, presenting new leaders with the challenge of “learning the role while leading it.” Given that 70 percent of a leader’s development is through on-the-job experience, the solution is not simply to put people through development programs. Instead, this capability is part of creating a coaching culture where leaders develop leaders and support one another in navigating the real-world challenges they face.

6. Agile execution

“The external environment is so fluid and volatile right now that it demands a more agile, flexible approach and thinking. We know we might need to make some radical changes — but ‘radical’ is not who we are as a company.” — chief risk officer, financial services firm

There’s no lack of great ideas in organizations. But what we know from our data on the thousands of leaders we have assessed is that there is a limited pool of people who excel in translating ideas into reality, quickly. Leaders need to get sharper at executing change at speed. This is not just about ruthless prioritization, decisiveness and a bias for action (leaders who are able to act quickly are two times as effective at making change happen). Those who can get things done quickly excel at winning hearts and minds at all levels and navigating resistance.

Start with the end in mind

What’s missing? Which of these is a priority for you? While your first instinct may be “all of the above,” this is not intended as a plug-and-play list.

We have found that a common assumption in organizations is that leadership is leadership — that the same capabilities, such as emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, driving results, leading change, etc., are equally important, no matter the context.

However, your own experience will tell you high-performing organizations have a distinctive signature. They have a deep understanding of their industry, market and operating context. They go to enormous lengths to define a differentiated strategy and distinctive business model. They focus on delivering a unique value proposition for their customers. And they know that creating a strong culture is a key source of competitive advantage in attracting and retaining top talent.

In other words, one size does not fit all — you need to cultivate distinctive leaders. And the capabilities you need hinge on where you want to get to.

For example, one of our pharma clients is looking to reduce risk and costs and scale up marketing and distribution by partnering with other organizations. Faced with disruptive competition and flat interest rates, one of our financial services clients needs to focus on customer acquisition through product and channel innovation. Another — a technology firm — is looking beyond its saturated, core domestic market to break into new, fast-growing global markets.

Each of them needs to rapidly develop quite different and distinctive capabilities to realize their strategic objectives.

Future-proofing your leadership starts with engaging current leaders and key stakeholders in a structured process to envisage the future and identify those capabilities that will be critical to success given the volatile and unpredictable context.

Once you are aligned on what “good” looks like, the hard work begins! The next step is to infuse these competencies into your leadership strategy — benchmarking how your current leaders stack up and identifying critical capability gaps; realigning your development strategy to address these gaps; and redefining how you hire and promote future leaders.

It’s a journey, for sure, yet one that will help you build the distinctive future leaders you need for the uncertainties and opportunities ahead.

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