In a disruptive world of constant change, it makes us ponder on the different elements of the current business ecosystem which are changing faster than ever before. VUCA morphed into super VUCA, which guided developing organizations into a scenario of varying degrees of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity; in a world which increasingly became  interconnected and digital. However, the COVID-19 pandemic created a scenario that gave birth to a new acronym - BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non- linear, Incomprehensible). The VUCA world presented us with ambiguity and instability. With BANI, we have chaos and misunderstanding at an entirely different level. The latter has turned out to be an acid test for Organization leadership across the globe. 

In most progressive global organizations across sectors, the Change strategy anticipated 3 different scenarios: a healthy present, short term economic volatility, and an uncertain future. The effort that employees are willing to expend, and the anxiety that they suffer are shaped by the gap between what they expect & what they get. That required a bold, authentic, and transparent leadership, which helped make the tough times less traumatic and earned future loyalty and commitment of the workforce, for when conditions would improve. The challenges faced included navigating a delicate and sensitive terrain of being compassionately ruthless in taking tough people decisions, managing the cost structure, and ensuring business sustainability & profitable growth.Transparent communication, empathy and authenticity were key lessons that helped leaders sail through an otherwise unprecedented tough crisis. The biggest learning picked up during this phase has been that an individual who is adaptable, open-minded, & flexible will eventually emerge a winner not just within the organization but beyond it. In the future, with accelerated globalization, distributed, inter-dependent, networked & flatter organization structures, when we have to deal with multi-generational workforce at our workplace, we will require an innovative, agile and authentic leadership, which can encourage co-creation and collaboration amongst communities, formed based on shared areas of interest amongst the employees.

As the economy continues to recover from the pandemic-led crisis, it is certain that things won’t return to normal. Whether we call it the new normal, or the new abnormal, a different mode of leadership will be required to manage an environment of urgency, high stakes, and uncertainty. We need to foster adaptation, helping people to develop practices for a new business world, while they continue with existing best practices necessary for current success. We need to embrace disequilibrium, which will keep people in a state that creates enough discomfort to induce change, but not so much that they give up. We need to encourage creative disruption by allowing employees at all levels to experiment and develop a culture that celebrate failures; the latter providing learnings and insights. Future leaders will be acknowledged for demonstrating Virtual Empowerment, Decisional Agility, Emotional Resilience, and Tenacity during Volatility. We require high degree of Adaptability to change while navigating unchartered waters and experiencing new learnings and challenges each day. We must Communicate frequently & effectively. There is no such thing as over-communication. Communication should be reiterated and made transparent. We should delegate judiciously and maintain an unerring focus on strong execution. Leaders must be able to understand various options and identify the right solutions, often in a relatively short span of time. 

Leaders across organizations need to communicate transparently, drive alignment of purpose, and demonstrate bold and authentic leadership that can connect with the larger organization on a real time basis in a transparent manner. 

However, the Leadership attribute which has managed to stay relevant irrespective of evolving thought processes is the idea of an Adaptable Leader. Independent of the descriptor used, what is undeniable is the ability of a leader in an everchanging environment to differentiate themselves by rapidly adapting to situations while driving change. Especially after the pandemic, when our notions of Work, Workplace and Workforce have undergone a radical shift, organizations across the world have realized the importance of having an Adaptive Leader at the helm, who has the ability and vision to steer the change in the direction of growth. 

As Organisations become more agile, the structure will become flatter, inter-connected, collaborative, and flexible. This will encourage experimentation, creative disruptions and faster decision making. Increasingly, we will see the span of control getting enhanced, and the layers getting crunched as part of the future Project based Organisation Design. It is likely that the new normal will include a shift in employee and employer preferences. We will see “Uberization” of workplace, flexibility of building your own Work Schedule, demand for a virtual digitally savvy work environment, and modified organizational structures leading to greater empowerment in decision making. 

Having been closely associated with, and having led several Organizational Transformation Projects, I can say with certainty that Adaptive Leadership is the key to successfully attaining the objectives of Change Management. It allows businesses to quickly adapt to changes in the environment and stay ahead of the curve. The adaptive leadership model provides a set of skills and behaviours that enables leaders to leverage the collective strength of the organization’s culture and its people to identify creative solutions. It requires leaders to develop a higher level of emotional and situational awareness and be able to simultaneously look at issues from different perspectives. To successfully reap the benefits of Adaptive Leadership, leaders need to work on increasing their own resilience, as well as that of the organization, in the face of radical change. 

Adaptive leadership must become part of the fabric of a company’s culture. It will take time and reiteration for team members accustomed to traditional management styles and structures to truly embrace this new collaborative, flexible, fast-paced and sometimes risky way of addressing change in the workplace. Therefore, the demand for soft skills, such as communication, collaborative problem solving, creative thinking, and the ability to learn rapidly has consistently become a driving need for employers. A leader that tries to implement an adaptive culture must have team members that have the skills necessary to implement that type of culture successfully.

In a situation of sudden change that requires urgent adaptation, an HR leader needs to align, empower and enable leaders across the organization to navigate the change. It helps to keep the organization at the epicentre and then address the broader challenge among the leaders and their respective teams. A deep-rooted value system makes it easier to chart out plans and realistic milestones. Being an adaptive leader requires consistency and patience. As leaders we need to demonstrate trust in our employees and teams to adapt and accept. Acceptance to change takes time and not all changes are equally acknowledged by all stakeholders. By prioritizing the team’s wellbeing, while maintaining high levels of openness and integrity one can create a work culture that is ready to take on whatever the future has in store.

Traditionally, leaders in an organization have been expected to find the right solution. However, today Leadership is both a collaborative effort and skill. Teams and their leaders work together to initiate changes and accomplish goals. One such example at our organization which re- affirms the merits of Adaptive Leadership, is our journey to Transform the Organization into a content-first sunrise sector to remain succesful in the evolving media landscape.  Across the organization, we empowered team members to become Situational Leaders in order to make the transformation a reality.Empowering people and allowing them to feel the anxiety around the challenge at hand enables them to make decisions and allows change to happen. It is important for leaders to remember that the best ideas do not reside only at the top. In fact, many believe that change is only successful when it is ignited at the grassroots level.  We take constant inspiration from the S-curve for any change and innovation. It enables and activates our entire workforce to constantly thrive to create change, adapt to the change faster, and learn to create new change yet again as a team. 

Going back to the pandemic which hit us hard and all of a sudden, there was no choice but to adapt. At this time of crisis, we focused on employee health, well-being, and safety. The effects of the pandemic were felt multi-fold, and required agile decision-making and exhibition of adaptability in various ways. With the global crisis HR as a function evolved to the onset of HR 5.0. 

It is encouraging to see how everyone adapted to the new normal and worked seamlessly despite all the challenges. Empathy, gratitude, collaboration, and shared success are some of the key learnings which everyone will agree with. However, I also believe that this crisis has taught us the need to challenge our beliefs and assumptions about how we can change, what we can change, and what we can adapt in our lives. It is the convergence of our physical and digital worlds that will be made possible by the adoption of different technologies like augmented reality, blockchain, 5G, and so on. Metaverse has the potential to enhance the experience of consumers in the content-centric media industry. 

The biggest challenge business leaders face is the need to balance competing demands whilst keeping up with a seemingly ever-faster pace of change. From my experience, I have always seen that every disruption also throws up an opportunity, as long as we are agile enough to spot it and adapt it for the better.

My Mantra for the ones who want to ride Change:

1. Scope the situationto distinguish between technical and adaptive challenges. Keep the Vision, Values, and Mission at the epicentre of change. 

2. Diagnose the environmentas a precursor to diagnosing the challenge. Identify and understand the trinity of People, Process, and Technology and the interlinkages of the perceived impact

3. Mobilize the resources, uncover the unsaid and assess how stakeholders will interpret the challenge. Posture and position interventions well. Keep your ear to the ground to encourage opinion and sense how the change is being perceived. Establish governance that protects and engages voices of dissent. 

4. Dynamism, seek constant feedback in order to continuously learn, innovate and pivot when necessary. 

I believe in making objectives clear, simpler, and demonstrating belief in the executing team. To ensure change is implemented, an adaptive leader must offer a window to upcoming leaders to create their version of execution, while working towards common organisational goals. In the process of adaptation, a leader must not just accept, comply, and cope with change. A true leader must lead change and provide as much clarity and safety as possible around the consequences of change to teams at large. Teams often fear the consequences of change rather than the change itself. 

New challenges are a constant and the quest to attain dynamic equilibrium never ends. My advice to young, emerging leaders would be to lead with oneself.  Leaders need to model their own adaptive capacity and ability to deal with an ever-changing nature of work before wanting to mobilize others.  In my experience, any new strategy for any organization will always require substantial change management. Teams often develop adaptive capacities by owning the change, and a leader must motivate and encourage them to find their own space to help acceptance of the much desired adaptation.