Ways to lead your company into the future

These mega-trends will have a dramatic impact on how companies survive and thrive towards 2030 and will redefine the business landscape, business models and strategies. The six mega-trends are:

1. Globalisation 2.0: Asia dominates the global economy, and a new middle class emerges. 

2. Environmental crisis: Sustainability requires that corporate social responsibility is imperative. 

3. Individualism and value pluralism: Freedom of choice erodes loyalty and overhauls employee motivation. 

4. Digitisation: Work goes mobile, and the boundaries blur between private and professional life. 

5. Demographic change: Ageing populations intensify the talent war. 

6. Technological convergence: Powerful new technologies combine to transform many aspects of everyday life.

The author of “Leadership 2030” also revealed five consequences of the mega-trends (“reinforcers”) for businesses to tackle:

1. Stakeholder proliferation: A multiplication of the vested interests leaders need to consider.

2. A power shift: Away from leaders and towards stakeholders.

3. New working practices: The emergence of a new “social practice” of work. 

4. Cost explosion: Due to the scarcity of talent and natural resources and use of new technologies.

5. Ethicisation of business: A demand for the highest ethical standards from firms and their leaders. 

Hence the business leaders of tomorrow will need to be very different from those of today. The vast complexities of the global business landscape will demand “altrocentric” leaders: individuals whose primary focus is on others, not themselves, and who see themselves as a part of the greater whole.

In hindsight, leading organisations that have run their businesses successfully over the past decades of changing business environments are better than their less successful peers – gaining a solid corporate reputation. This is in line with Hay Group World’s Most Admired Companies (WMAC) finding, from research in partnership with Fortune magazine. 

Hay Group has found that internal and external corporate-reputation management is the most significant factor that has consistently enabled the WMACs to outperform their peers. They actively monitor and manage their reputation for both internal and external stakeholders. 

Externally, WMACs indicated that reputation had influenced their success in many cases such as in retaining and attracting customers, dealing effectively with suppliers, and maintaining stakeholder support amid controversy. 

Internally, reputation is also a significant factor that attracts and engages talent. Three out of four WMACs regularly communicate the importance of corporate reputation to managers and employees.

 WMACs also view reputation as a critical corporate asset and generally see it as strongest within the industry. Furthermore, given new communication technologies and the increased speed of information, the WMACs have had much greater control over their reputations for the past five years. 

Implications for business leaders

_ The critical role of leaders, managers and employees in shaping a company’s reputation should be regularly reinforced in development programmes and internal communications.

_ External reputation is important for attracting and engaging talent and should be considered a key element of total rewards and aligned with an employer value proposition.

_ With external scrutiny, the reputation implications of executive-compensation decisions should not be overlooked.

_ While social-media tools are seen as mechanisms to increase control over reputation externally, the fact that organisational reputations can be tarnished with the click of a mouse makes holding on to the highest standards of integrity internally essential.