Leadership & Organizational Culture

Stanton Chase Bulletin 2020

Andriana Theodorakopoulou Partner, Stanton Chase / Athens

Opening Note.

Our Partner Andriana Theodorakopoulou introduces this year’s bulletin and highlights why stimulating dialogue around organizational culture is now more crucial than ever.

To our Clients & Friends,

I am delighted to welcome you to our 2020 Bulletin, which is a journey through a year that challenged us to venture out of our comfort zone and utilize all our resources to adapt and transform in an unprecedented way! We rediscovered the power of resilience, solidarity and our creative thinking across our personal and business life.

This new challenging business environment highlighted how critical Leadership is for managing abrupt change, developing new strategies at great speed, and keeping people engaged and enabled through straining conditions. At the same time, it made visible like never before, that Organizational Culture in the sense of how people relate to their work, each other and the environment, has critical impact on business performance.

In this context, our 2020 Bulletin could only be dedicated to Leadership & Organizational Culture.

So, join me in looking at the 2020 business landscape from a Strategic perspective!

In our Bulletin you will find:

Survey results | GM and HR Executives
Roundtable video | Leading Heads of Human Resources
Interviews with our Partners | CEOs of Leading Consulting Firms in Europe and Australia
Articles on current business topics
Presentations of Stanton Chase new services

Our purpose going forward is to keep the dialogue in the business community alive, to learn & motivate each other and to become more creative by provoking our thoughts & actions in order to successfully lead our businesses in a sustainable way.
Looking forward to sharing your thoughts with us and developing an ecosystem of vibrant talks.

Enjoy the issue and stay safe.

Culture Paves the Way To Recovery

A brief leadership playbook.

In this article we look at which key attributes will help leaders maintain or (re)build a strong organizational culture, laying the foundations to navigating any period of crisis.

Bringing with it a tidal wave of change, the COVID-19 crisis has shed light on capability deficits at some companies and has shone a spotlight on leaders who are truly great at others. We at Stanton Chase have found that some managers are feeling overwhelmed and have responded with austerity and tight control, which only serves to further isolate their businesses. But those who respond with inspirational commitment, strategic planning, and trust are the leaders who will successfully navigate these troubled times.

Our client discussions with CEOs and Heads of People Operations have frequently turned to the pressure point between bottom-line financial results and leadership performance, with questions about their preparedness, expectations, and openness to new strategies and ways of thinking. What kind of leadership and culture should they foster to help the transition to an inevitable new work reality? What business strategies can be reassessed and, if necessary, left behind?

In order to answer such questions, at Stanton Chase we first gain a clear picture of business leaders’ requirements. In this way, we empower leaders and organizations to become more effective while staying by their side as trusted advisers with a strategic portfolio of services that interlinks leadership with cultural enhancement.

Never has it been clearer that leadership’s role is about creating efficiencies — both in a company’s financial performance and among its people and their level of commitment, engagement, and satisfaction. Our experience has shown us that leaders are the curators of corporate culture; those who are on top are the ones who determine and influence organizational cultures.

According to Dutch social scientist Dr. Geert Hofstede, performance hinges on the fit between strategy and culture. In order to be successful in tomorrow’s new normal, we have to make a commitment today to organizational culture and its support of corporate strategy.

We can broadly state that companies which are successful have a functional culture. But what worked yesterday may no longer work tomorrow. This is why leaders need to be self-reflective, flexible, and open to embracing new ideas.

Powerful organizations need powerful leaders in order to drive them through recovery and beyond. At times like these, how well leaders perform is dependent on how they perceive stress and how well they are able to respond to adversity. While there may not be a one-fits-all approach, our extensive experience working with senior leadership teams, like the empirical study of Hogan and Hofstede, indicates certain guidelines for success. If we were to develop an essential leadership playbook for companies in transition, it would include several key attributes like the following:

Shared Values
Studies have shown that the most effective CEOs are those whose values are most in line with those of their firm. A value that is crucial today for driving change is loyalty amid low security, with leaders who are empathetic and not afraid of ambiguity. Others include being accessible, compassionate, and willing to communicate openly and often, fostering loyalty, respecting differing opinions, and taking responsibility for employees’ welfare. Successful leaders must also be able to view the crisis as an opportunity to take risks and chart a new future with minimal planning.

A Sense of Purpose
Purposeful leadership is the starting point of great companies. It actively engages employees in a larger goal that makes sense in terms of purpose and values, in adhering to the organization’s values, and making an impact while being part of a group. This allows for creativity, smart work, productive challenges, and risks.

Motivation and Flexibility
Every leader is a leader of organizational culture whether they realize it or not. They should be flexible about change and highly ambitious, so that they can adapt and move forward, act and reflect. This type of leadership is able to handle change with composure and resilience while confidently taking the initiative on critical decisions.

Understanding the cultural context of leadership is key to creating adaptable practices that support strategy execution. Shaping a functional culture shaping and an effective team is even more relevant now to what leaders should be concentrating on their business agendas. It is leaders’ behavior that will determine how the culture develops and how it changes. By focusing on people and organizational culture, companies can successfully pass through this crisis and perform in the post-pandemic world. Our role at Stanton Chase is to ensure that top management practices and employees’ behaviors drive the realization of our clients’ organizational goals in a more efficient and effective way.

The C-suite Challenge 2020:

Preparing for The Future

Alexandra Lekkou Director, Stanton Chase / Athens

Christos Konstantinou Senior Consultant, Stanton Chase / Athens

The C-Suite Challenge 2020: Preparing for The Future

New survey polls senior executives on key business areas.

This article outlines the main findings of a recent survey focusing on strategy, leadership, and culture. The results speak about the business landscape ahead, how leadership will have to adapt to it, and how culture can drive organizations into the future.

The year 2020 is a pivotal time for businesses, one in which it is necessary to rethink and reshape, and to look ahead with a longer-term and open-minded perspective. As trusted business partners to our clients, we at Stanton Chase are determined not only to continue working side by side with them but also to connect businesses in a constructive dialogue, sharing insights, trends, and best practices that can ensure the events and changes of 2020 represent a positive challenge.

To that end, we have designed an online survey addressed to general management and HR management senior executives to gain insights that we can then share with the wider business community. The survey focuses on three interwoven drivers of organizational performance: strategy, leadership, and culture. Managing these aspects effectively at such a turning point is vital for survival now and success tomorrow.

Our findings shed light on businesses’ outlook, strategic priorities, and practices.

What Does The Business Landscape Look Like In 2020 And Ahead?

To brace themselves for the looming financial fallout, organizations around the world are taking swift action. As we strive to meet the extraordinary challenges of the day, companies should carefully consider what the post-COVID-19 landscape will look like and how to position themselves to thrive within the changed environment.

In light of this, 59% of the survey’s respondents stated that culture management and leadership development were among their key strategic priorities to prepare their organizations for the transformed world, coupled with the necessity of implementing extended digital transformation (44%) initiatives to accelerate adaption to the new demands, while 40% cited cultivating and embracing new and agile ways of working as a key priority.

How Are Leaders Ready To Drive Their Organizations Into The Future?

As companies have adapted to new ways of working at a speed they would never have imagined previously, leaders were asked to take more radical approaches to decision-making and processes. They had to streamline decisions and processes, empower frontline leaders, and suspend slow-moving hierarchies and bureaucracies.

In that context, a majority of the respondents (65%) said their leaders are ready to successfully navigate their organization through these unprecedented challenges.

Additionally, throughout this pandemic experience, we have witnessed certain leadership traits that leaders should tap into to thrive together with their organizations in the post-COVID world.

According to the respondents, these should include the ability to articulate a bold and flexible vision (67%), cultivate a culture of agility and innovation (51%) and engage employees, and leading change with empathy and integrity (64%). The most forward-thinking leaders will be those who are able to adapt to constant changes (58%) and who embrace and showcase a growth mindset (58%) enabling them to take the bold actions necessary to reimagine the future for their organization.

Bridging the gap between optimal and actual culture and leadership increases a company’s value.

How Is Culture Utilized As An Enabler Of Business Success?

When asked whether the leaders of their organizations act as advocates and enablers of the right culture, participants stated that they were somewhat satisfied (54%) with their efforts.

Business organizations experience not only episodic but also continuous and disruptive changes. Based on the business transformational experience of many prominent companies, organizational culture is one of the pivotal factors that can make or break the transformation. It can be an asset or a liability. According to our survey’s findings, culture transformation is one of the five topics at the top of companies’ agendas and is considered the second-most important obstacle in strategy delivery.

As other studies have shown, most organizations are faced with a gap between optimal and actual culture and leadership. Bridging this gap by fostering a strong functional culture anchored by business priorities and strategic cornerstones significantly increases a company’s value and performance indicators.

In that context, our survey’s respondents selected as vital dimensions at the core of a future ready organization agility and innovation (67%), openness and trust (46%), and growth mindset and learning (40%).

Survey’s Questions:

Key Takeaways

This a crucial time for engaging in strategy alignment, leadership development, and culture transformation. Effectively managing these key drivers now will have a significant impact on the future of an organization and bring a significant return on investment. We have a unique opportunity to make our businesses better, stronger, and more able to successfully face a future characterized by disruption.

65% of respondents said their leaders were ready to successfully navigate their organization through the unprecedented challenges of 2020.

Stanton Chase and Hofstede

Insights Announce Global Partnership

Wassim Karkabi Managing Partner, Stanton Chase / Dubai

MOU solidifies the alliance between two global firms.

Press release that announced the partnership between Stanton Chase and Hofstede Insights.

Stanton Chase, a top-ranked international retained leadership firm specializing in Executive Search, Executive Assessment, and Board Advisory solutions, and Hofstede Insights, a Culture & Strategy Advisory and Analytics organization, have formalized their global partnership with a Memorandum of Understanding.

The announcement was made by Wassim Karkabi, Stanton Chase Global Head of Assessment and Managing Partner of the Stanton Chase Middle East and Greater China offices and Egbert Schram, Group CEO at Hofstede Insights.

“I am pleased to announce this new MOU between Stanton Chase and Hofstede Insights,” remarked Karkabi. “Our Middle East office based out of Dubai has been working closely with Hofstede Insights for over a year; expanding our partnership to the entire firm will prove to be greatly beneficial for our clients worldwide. With this new relationship, Stanton Chase partners with Hofstede Insights, the empirical leader in Organizational Culture, Intercultural Management, and Consumer Culture we will bring a powerful perspective to our client engagements that enable leaders to succeed. We also add over 120 Culture Experts from Hofstede Insights to our team of Leadership Trusted Advisors, putting the power of Leadership and Culture to work for our clients’ benefit.”

According to Schram, “Culture is a topic that requires involvement at the top level of an organization, and Stanton Chase works at this level. The position of Stanton Chase in executive search, board, and leadership rooms enables us at Hofstede Insights to get the topic of culture to the decision makers’ table faster. Furthermore, their firm´s global presence expedites our geographical reach at Hofstede Insights.”

The purpose of the MOU is to promote and expand international understanding, development, and partnership as well as to stimulate and support development projects between the two organizations.

The MOU was officially executed during the recent Stanton Chase Global Partners Meeting held in Prague in October 2019.

For more information about Stanton Chase, visit:
www.stantonchase.com.

For more information about Hofstede Insights, visit:
www.hofstede-insights.com.

Organizational Culture As Lever For Company Strategy Delivery

Piotr Gryko Senior Partner, Hofstede Insights

Organizational Culture As Lever For Company Strategy Delivery

Interview published in HR Professional, Jul-Aug 2020 Edition.

In this interview Piotr Gryko and Alexandra Lekkou go into the partnership between Stanton Chase and Hofstede Insights and highlight key benefits of organizational culture management.

Stanton Chase is expanding the scope of its partnerships with its Clients, on a global level. Give us an overview of this development and your new service portfolio.

Alexandra Lekkou: The value we bring to our Clients is always a result of our awareness of the business world, our expertise in leadership evaluation, and our experience in understanding the culture of organizations. Our new portfolio of solutions around Leadership and Organizational Culture is built around these core capabilities of Stanton Chase. So, we broaden our scope, by offering full services of Organizational Culture transformation and Leadership assessment and development, with the primary objective of providing insights to support management decisions and growth on an individual, team and organizational level.

How do you approach Organizational Culture Management and what makes your approach unique?

A.L: Stanton Chase found its ideal Global Partner in Organizational Culture management in Hofstede Insights, a global leader in this field, which was founded with the support of Geert Hofstede 34 years ago, and which translated his academic research into practical solutions for businesses. What makes our approach unique is that:

We manage culture as a strategic advantage for the organization
We start from the company’s strategy and we translate it into the most functional organizational culture, in terms of enabling its delivery
We use modern data-driven tools for our measurements
We provide data and knowledge, which make Culture manageable, through practical interventions

Where do organizations see the biggest positive impact of effective Culture management? Can you share examples for the added value it brings?

Piotr Gryko: Above all, effective culture management significantly increases the probability of successfully implementing the organization’s strategic plans. What gets measured, gets done. And we can now measure something that used to be vague and intangible. More specifically, we can expect significant positive results in the below areas.

Financial results: Noor Bank is an impressive example. One year after the implementation of a culture management program, they achieved the highest percentage increase in total assets and in net profit amongst all banks in the GCC.
Mergers & Acquisitions: faster attainment of performance target levels. For example, in a recent M&A in the Pharmaceuticals industry, thanks to cultural due diligence, the partners managed to shorten the entire post-merger integration by 44%, compared with similar projects conducted without the cultural component.
Re-organizations: faster and easier transition, considering the characteristics and practices of different functions and teams, but also the trust levels, leadership acceptance and change readiness.
Employee Experience: increase in employee motivation to stay and make the discretionary effort, as well as in identification with the organization, which positively influence attraction, retention and engagement.
Brand: customer experience alignment with the brand promise, through the improvement of processes and the modification of employee behaviours. As an example, a global FMCG brand used our Consumer Cultural Intelligence methodology and improved its global marketing campaigns with a 30% increase of brand recall.

Organizational Culture management and Leadership development are very relevant in a period of uncertainty and accelerating change. How do you see businesses act in these areas these days?

A.L: Nowadays, we have both successful business case studies and research findings that highlight the impact of effective leadership and a functional culture on the achievement of business results and on the value of an organization. So, we see an increasing interest in investing in these critical areas. The unprecedented crisis of 2020 made the impact of Culture and Leadership on an organization’s ability to manage challenges even more visible. It is telling that in a survey we conducted, among senior people management executives:

Organizational Culture transformation and Leadership development are among the top 3 topics in their agendas
At the same time, Organizational Culture is considered one of the top 3 potential barriers to company goals achievement

We believe that increasing investment in organizational culture and leadership will play a key role in the sustainability and evolution of businesses going forward. And this requires a strategic approach and robust methodologies, which will support the capability of an organization to change, through qualities like flexibility, growth mindset, and trust.

Levers of Change:

Strategy, Leadership, and Organizational Culture

Harris Pezoulas Managing Director, Stanton Chase / Athens

Hector Postantzis Samaras Consultant, Stanton Chase / Athens

Levers of Change: Strategy, Leadership, and Organizational Culture

Virtual round table.

The main objective of this event in July 2020 was to bring together top local HR executives and create meaningful content for the business community through open discussion, the sharing of experiences, knowledge, and opinions.

In the current volatile and uncertain environment, businesses face unprecedented challenges and need to keep moving forward for creating a new sustainable future. Leaders across all sectors of the Greek economy are faced with decisions of high impact for their businesses.

Across all sectors of the Greek economy, leaders are facing decisions with a large impact on their businesses as they seek to address the challenges posed by the current environment of volatility and uncertainty.

In times like this, it is vital to stay connected and gain from each other’s knowledge, experience, and insights. At Stanton Chase, one of our aims is to create value for our business community by facilitating an inspiring dialogue that provides insightful and actionable input. To that end, we created “The Building Blocks of the Future,” a series of Virtual Roundtables for Business Leaders that was launched on July 14.

The first Virtual Roundtable theme was “Levers of Change: Strategy, Leadership & Organizational Culture.” The event was facilitated by Jenny Anagnostopoulou, Head of Business Unit, HR Professional (the sole HRM magazine in Greece), in cooperation with Alexandra Lekkou, Director, Leadership & Organizational Culture at Stanton Chase, and Piotr Gryko, Senior Partner (MENA) at Hofstede Insights, Stanton Chase’s global partner for Culture Transformation. The participants of the event were six exceptional HR leaders from some of the most distinguished companies on the Greek market:

Golfo Agapitou, Assistant General Manager, Head of People Talents at Eurobank
Dimitris Artikopoulos, VP HR GREECE at AB VASSILOPOULOS- AHOLD DELHAIZE GROUP
Sophia Kanta, HR Director Greece & Cyprus at Coca-Cola HBC Greece
John Kollas, Executive Director Group HR at TITAN Cement Group
Spyros Linaras, Chief People Officer at OPAP S.A.
Alina Papageorgiou, Chief HR Officer at LAMDA Development

The discussion focused on new strategic priorities, vital leadership capabilities and enabling organizational cultures through the perspective of these strategic HR Leaders. As Lekkou explained, the impact of these three key levers of change for any organization has become even more visible these days. This is also reflected in a recent Stanton Chase survey among top level executives in general management and HR management, which found that 95% of respondents reported their company’s strategic priorities have changed to a larger or lesser degree due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results also revealed that culture transformation is one of the top five topics on companies’ agendas – and the second-most important obstacle for strategy delivery. Our respondents confirmed that leadership development in the No. 1 priority in the People agenda.

A key theme that surfaced during the Roundtable discussion was the need for both speed in decision-making caused by the current crisis and striking a difficult balance among crucial priorities, involving business continuity, customer experience, and employee health and safety.

On top of that, our guests highlighted the critical role their HR functions were called in to play contributing to changing strategies and risk management while ensuring a high level of performance across the organization (new models of work, new tools for employees, new skills required, and new ways of communicating and managing people and activities).

When it comes to leadership, everyone on the Roundtable talked about its central role and gave examples of how leaders have managed to keep people engaged and how they have walked the extra mile, under new conditions, to keep the business going while at the same time changing their ways of working. Two leadership qualities that all agreed are vital at this stage for most organizations are resilience and agility.

Leadership behavior greatly affects organizational culture, and together with other practices it can enable or hinder performance and a business’s ability to adapt and change. The participants of the Roundtable emphasized the cultural aspect and the significance of people orientation, care, and trust for successfully navigating challenging times. On top of that, they talked about practices that foster a growth mindset, which is vital for managing not only to handle a challenge but also in turning it into an opportunity that leads to change for a sustainable future.

At the end of the discussion, Gryko summarized the key takeaways in three imperatives for organizations: leveraging diversity, embracing change, and sound leadership. The first focuses on the ability to leverage on the different ways that people think, which means an organization needs to have built-in ways that enable communication and learning from each other. Embracing change requires a higher level of adaptability and flexibility at both the individual and organizational level. To achieve this, an organization needs to decrease distance and increase trust, creating a healthy physical and psychological environment for working and exceling that fosters a sense of shared direction and creates change readiness. Lastly, leadership needs to engage people and see through their eyes in addition to being more approachable and empathetic – which translates into putting a people-centric culture in practice.

“Change Is The Only Constant”,

says Hofstede Insights CEO

Egbert Schram Please provide — Egbert Schram Group CEO, Hofstede Insights

“Change Is The Only Constant”, says Hofstede Insights CEO

An interview with Egbert Schram.

This interview discusses the impact of a functional organizational culture and agile leadership, including key lessons in helping any organization become more adaptable.

Towards the end of 2019, Stanton Chase signed a global agreement with Hofstede Insights, a Leader in Organizational Culture Transformation, which was founded more than 30 years ago, building on the work of Professor Geert Hofstede and operationalizing his academic theory and research through advanced analytics and engineering, combined with deep human insights, helping thousands of companies across the globe.

In the beginning of 2020 the impact of a functional Organizational Culture and Agile Leadership became more visible than ever, bringing crucial business topics in focus, which Stanton Chase explored through a survey for Senior Leaders and then shared with the business community.
We take the opportunity to discuss these topics with Egbert Schram, Group CEO of Hofstede Insights, and get his perspective from supporting organizations across the world unleash transformative change.

Alexandra Lekkou: More than half of the companies we surveyed declared that their strategic objectives changed during 2020. In your expert opinion, Egbert, what are the imperatives for Org. Culture mgmt. in such circumstances? And how do you see Org. Culture affecting the way businesses can respond to a crisis?

Egbert Schram: Change is the only constant. As no organization has the resources to anticipate what might happen next, the only way to ensure its ability to respond quickly to whatever comes its way is to make this ability an inherent quality and standard ways of working. Some call it “agility”, I would call it adaptability, but what is important is that it means real practical interventions and new practices. Examples from organizations we have worked with include putting in place cross-functional business outlook teams, who help keeping external awareness high and scenario planning – this ensures people keep their eyes and ears open. This is complemented with having rapid reaction forces ready, who again draw from across business units to respond quickly to crises situations – and have been given a formal mandate to take over control when crises hit so no time is lost on internal turf wars.

A.L: You will not be surprised to hear that Organizational Culture transformation was found to be in the top 5 topics of Senior Leaders’ agendas. In your vast experience in Change management programs, what should Leadership Teams watch out for?

E.S: Number 1 enabler is definitely active top-level involvement, owning culture like the strategic asset it is. This includes an educated team of change navigators/cultural ambassadors, who understand where, how and when culture is impacting the business strategy execution. Teams like this need to be able to spend about 25% of their time on ensuring cultural alignment with every strategic initiative. But I would also highlight that although more and more surveys indicate a top-level interest, our experience is that sometimes top management delegate culture management to HR, because “it is a people thing”, so no real executive ownership is shown. And as people tend to mirror the top, if the top doesn’t own it, neither will the rest of the organization.

For multi-cultural organizations there is another critical factor: cross-cultural awareness. There is “what we do” and then there is “how it makes us feel”. For sustainability, these two elements need to be aligned, and that starts with top level management understanding how national culture influences people’s emotions. An example of this is a statement like “people matter, results count”. Depending on the country where this statement is being used, its values system and the practices on different cultural levels, you will get a very different set of emotional reactions, as shown in the graph.

As no organization has the resources to anticipate what might happen next, the only way to ensure its ability to respond quickly to whatever comes its way is to make this ability an inherent quality and standard ways of working.

A.L: So, when it comes to the actual implementation of an Organizational Culture transformation program, which factors have you found to be critical in ensuring success for your Clients?

E.S: I would share 5 key lessons learned from companies across countries and industries:

Create a dedicated change team, sponsored from right at the top
Know the culture and find out what needs to change where
Ensure continuous communication on the project progress and buy-in into its importance
Ensure full buy-in at executive level by making management team members co-responsible for aligning culture and strategy
A supportive culture is business critical to strategy execution, so it is a never-ending journey, and as such requires constant monitoring. If the environment changes, or when a strategy changes, cultural transformation is critical.

A.L: You already mentioned agility, and in fact it came up in our survey as the key quality organizations intend to build for creating a sustainable future. But how should organizations go about it?

E.S: Always keep in mind that your Organizational Culture should be the culture that best supports YOUR strategy. Taking that into account, having clarity on how flexible your organization actually is, and if it should be more or less so, is crucial. In our experience, many organizations want to be flexible, but not all organizations should be. To go even deeper, not all functions within organizations should be equally flexible. For example, should the accounting team be as flexible as the R&D department? Almost certainly not. The reality is that in most organizations there is some need for flexibility in certain functions. That is why many organizations have teams that are accustomed to pivoting quickly.

So, especially for larger organizations, the level of flexibility should not be the same throughout the organization. Instead, the organization’s culture should be designed appropriately for the organization as a whole and for its separate functions.

A.L: For most organizations we talk with (more than 90%, according to our survey), applying an Organizational Culture management methodology will be a new experience. What business results should they expect, based on your experience?

E.S: Applying the Hofstede Insights methodology with our Clients has supported them in achieving the specific outcomes THEY wanted, which range from reducing Customer Service email traffic by 30% to increase profit by 29% within a year, or to installing drilling platforms within 3 months after having been on a standstill for 6 months. The critical success factor is to make culture measurable in the first place. To not be afraid to visualize differences, because only by visualizing differences can you understand what people have in common. And those commonalities are instrumental in building an identity to which people can relate. An identity which creates predictability and with that, psychological safety. Safety to innovate, safety to fail, safety to grow.

Why Your Organization Should Care About Agility

Peter Berry Managing Director, Petter Berry Consultancy — Peter Berry Managing Director,
Peter Berry Consultancy

Why Your Organization Should Care About Agility

An interview with Peter Berry.

Founder of PBC Australia and pioneer in Leadership Assessment and Development, Peter Berry, goes into what being an agile leader entails and how organizations can support their leadership in getting there.

Agility is definitely one of the most talked about concepts in the business community today, as a philosophy, methodology, mentality, organizational culture element, leadership style… And our discussions with our Clients confirm that it is a topic of particular interest, linked to the survival and successful evolution of organizations.

To meet this new key business need, Stanton Chase enriched its Leadership Assessment & Development portfolio with the Agile Leader solution, based on the model created by IMD Business School and metaBeratung, and the consulting tools of Peter Berry Consultancy and Hogan Assessments.

But what does it really mean to be an Agile leader? And in which cases is this Leadership quality of essence? How can organizations support their Leaders in becoming more Agile? And what impact will that have on business outcomes?
We are happy to share insights on these key questions through a dialogue with Peter Berry, Founder and Managing Partner of PBC in Australia, and a pioneer in Leadership Assessment and Development, 3600 interventions and personality assessment.

Andriana Theodorakopoulou: In a survey we conducted in June, among senior leaders across industries in Greece, we found that Agility is by far considered the most important element of a functional organizational culture. How do you perceive Agile in the modern business landscape?

Peter Berry: Agile is not a fad, it has become a business imperative. Agile is turning the business world upside down. It’s having an entrepreneurial mindset to stay ahead of the market. It is a new way of working. Agility is being driven by competitive forces and market success, where disruption is the new norm. So, a key question for CEOs today is ‘what does winning look like in the next 3-5 years?’ The next question becomes ‘how do we get there?’

This is when leaders need to challenge traditional structures, processes and improve the customer experience. In this context, two strategic questions need to be answered:

How do we prioritize innovation opportunities with the highest likelihood of a return on investment?
Do we understand our business eco system, including the external threats and opportunities, to position ourselves for competitive advantage?

A.T: And what does it take to successfully address these questions from a Leadership and Culture perspective?

P.B: It can take 1-3 years for full enterprise wide agility and many efforts achieve less than optimum outcomes, as ineffective leadership, dysfunctional teams and poor employee engagement can be issues. Research from the Harvard business school, McKinsey and John Kotter show that 70% of change programs fail to deliver to expectation. The biggest problem in driving agility is that it requires C-suite executives to lead change, which can be very difficult. Other common issues are employee resistance and ineffective leadership across the organization. So, employee engagement must be a priority and there needs to be leadership development programs aimed at facilitating agile leadership and results, because Culture can defeat strategy. Another key factor is that Agile strategy has to be clear, cascading through business plans and KPIs, as well as be supported by an agile structure with cross-functional networks and high performing teams. So, structure must support strategy too, silos are the enemy of Agility.

A.T: Tell us a bit about the theoretical and research basis of the Agile Leader model and tools you are applying? And how do they serve the business world?

P.B: Agile programs need to be supported by assessments that measure agility, as self-awareness for individuals and teams is always the starting point of development and change. To that end, IMD business school, Hogan assessments and metaBeratung have produced a world class Agile personality and potential assessment. Their research is leading edge and it is wonderful to see such great collaboration by prestigious organisations. In parallel, the Agile Leader 360 measures leadership performance and was designed by Peter Berry Consultancy in partnership with metaBeratung based on 20 years’ experience with multi rater assessments. The personality and 360 assessments combined are perfect for capturing the private and the public person and creating self-awareness from which to build further agile competencies among leaders and teams.

A.T: For most organizations we talk with (more than 90%, according to our survey), applying an Organizational Culture management methodology will be a new experience. What business results should they expect, based on your experience?

P.B: Applying the Hofstede Insights methodology with our Clients has supported them in achieving the specific outcomes THEY wanted, which range from reducing Customer Service email traffic by 30% to increase profit by 29% within a year, or to installing drilling platforms within 3 months after having been on a standstill for 6 months. The critical success factor is to make culture measurable in the first place. To not be afraid to visualize differences, because only by visualizing differences can you understand what people have in common. And those commonalities are instrumental in building an identity to which people can relate. An identity which creates predictability and with that, psychological safety. Safety to innovate, safety to fail, safety to grow.

There needs to be leadership development programs aimed at facilitating agile leadership, because culture can defeat strategy.

A.T: Indeed, we have found that Leadership development is the top priority on organizations’ people agenda. Give us some more ideas about how organizations can support their Leaders develop towards a more agile style.

P.B: Leadership is observable, measurable and improvable by understanding personality, performance and reputation (personality + chosen behaviour is how others see us). So, self-awareness is the key to chosen behaviour and the basis for any leadership development program. In this context, the combination of a personality and a 360 assessment is perfect for coaching and leadership development programs to build agile competencies, improve individual and team performance, and business outcomes (through linking 360 to the strategic business plan and the delivery of key performance indicators). The good news is that agile competencies can be learnt, but it takes motivation and deliberate practice to enhance organisational capability. We have found that combining the Agile 360 with the Agile leader (personality) reports is the most cost-effective way to assess leadership capability for an agile environment. Our assessments work well with executive teams to create self and team awareness. They also work well for agile teams brought together for a specific purpose. We need to remember that investment in future leaders is also critical to building the talent pipeline. Our research shows that some famous brand names including Apple, Netflix, IBM and Microsoft are being very successful with agile investments, strategies and outcomes.

A.T: Having led many Agile Leader programs for many different organizations, what do you think is key for a successful Agile Leadership intervention?

P.B: Our preferred approach is to work with team 1 and teams 2. Team 1 is the executive group responsible for the business or a key function or geographic area. Teams 2 are led by the executives sitting in team 1. We have found that these top 70-80 leaders must be aligned and passionate about the agile challenges. We use both assessments (personality and 360s), coaching over a 12-month period and a leadership program to build agile competencies. This has to be supported by a goal to foster high performing teams, because many teams are mediocre or even dysfunctional. Employee engagement must also be a goal, because global research shows that 1/3 of people are disengaged – they are ready to quit their boss, the team and the job (and Gallup says that 70% of the variance in engagement can be attributed to the team manager). The final prerequisite is to have the long-term strategic plan in place, supported by a one-year plan with clearly defined balanced scorecard targets. The agile agenda is built around the desired outcome using all these resources.

A.T: According to your vast experience of Leadership development in Client organizations, what is the impact of Agile Leadership on the business outcomes?

P.B: Our extensive research shows that the best leaders today are achievement focused, strategic, inspiring and emotionally intelligent, and their focus is to build high performing teams and deliver agile business outcomes. These qualities and approach give them an advantage for achieving their strategic goals, which are often industry leadership, increased market share, enriched customer experience/loyalty, reduced time to market, cost reductions and service/operational excellence.

The ROI in Agility can be measured by individual and team performance and employee engagement. From an analytics point of view, the challenge is always in connecting people data with operational and financial data. A huge opportunity in the future is to measure leadership and team effectiveness and track and improve employee engagement and organisational performance.

A.T: You started by saying that Agile is not a fad, but a business imperative. As final question, do you think that the Agile approach is right for all businesses?

P.B: Agility should be a priority for a business to maintain industry leadership or alternatively, to gain industry leadership. The agenda of each business is always shaped by its vision of future success, what they want to achieve, in a longer-term perspective. This vision of the future will then prioritise the importance of agility for each organization.

But we must remember that Agility adds real value when you have great leaders, high performing teams and top quartile employee engagement. If you get these right, you can create agile strategies and structures to deliver extraordinary business outcomes.

The Importance Of Being Agile

Dimitris Pezoulas Senior Consultant, Stanton Chase / Athens

Is your organization agile enough?

In a world of constant change, the leaders who communicate clearly and lead by example will come out ahead.

COVID-19 has undeniably shed some light on the existing leadership model, something that is now evolving and radically changing. As Thomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University, suggested, “Bad times will not only expose, but also amplify, the harmful effects of incompetent leadership.” A crisis can clarify the changes we need to make in leadership philosophy and application. If, as Chamorro-Premuzic noted, a crisis amplifies the harmful effects of weak leadership, then it should also help to identify the new approaches we need to take.

These are unpredictable times of volatility, complexity and, in some places at least, a rising tide of new opportunities.

In this age of our fourth industrial revolution, rapid technological and social change mean an increasing number of sectors are approaching a tipping point at which companies must become agile to compete and survive.

We need to rethink the essence of effective leadership. Certain qualities, such as deep domain expertise, authority, and short-term task focus, are losing their cachet. Agility is more than a buzzword, and there is growing recognition of its transformational benefits. Even before COVID-19, many businesses operated in a world of continual change faced with the need to constantly adapt and future-proof themselves against increasing digitally based disruption.

What It Takes To Be Agile

Leaders require specific skills and competencies to successfully meet the challenges of today’s rapidly evolving business environment. A recent study surveying more than 1,000 global executives revealed a change in the perceived vital competencies for today’s leaders, especially in disrupted industries and markets. On this basis, The Agile Leadership framework developed by IMD Business School, Metaberatung & Hogan calls it the “HAVE Mindset,” wherein a leader is:

Humble: able to accept feedback and acknowledge that others know more than they do.
Adaptable: accepting that change is constant and that changing their minds based on new information is a strength rather than a weakness.
Visionary: having a clear sense of long-term direction, even in the face of short-term uncertainty.
Engaged: having the willingness to listen, interact, and communicate with internal and external stakeholders combined with a strong sense of interest and curiosity in emerging trends.

According to this theory, three additional key behaviors are identified as what sets apart an agile and non-agile leader: hyperawareness, informed decision-making, and fast execution.
With the environment continually changing, it is the role of company leaders to always be surveying that ecosystem to understand how it is evolving, what are the forces shaping it, and critically what it the impact of those changes are going to be for their business. Leaders who are hyperaware are constantly scanning their environments, both inside and outside their organizational boundaries, and they recognize the need to provide guidance through a strong vision, as the potential for change threatens to overwhelm a linear strategy.

To be informed decision-makers, leaders must recognize and utilize the best data sources, apply appropriate analytics, and then make a decision. Faced with insufficient or even contradictory data, leaders must draw on their experience and intuition to move forward. Informed decision-making underpins a leader’s ability to adapt and support their long-term vision.

Fast execution is about minimizing hierarchy and unleashing the creativity and judgment of the people. The goal is to use increased autonomy to create an organization in which average people deliver above-average performance every day — and learning happens continuously and transparently. In an environment characterized by significant disruption, the effectiveness of hyperawareness and informed decision-making is significantly reduced if the organization is not able to act with speed. Ultimately, agile leaders will only be effective if they are able to quickly execute an informed decision.

At Stanton Chase, we find this model an excellent basis for developing leadership. We propose the assessment tools designed to apply it (The Agile Leader: 360 and personality profile) to our clients with a focus on organizations that function in fast-paced business environments.

This shift in leadership focus is also confirmed by our recent report, “The C-suite Challenge 2020: Your Future-Ready Organization,” wherein more than 65% of the sample expressed their firm belief that showcasing a growth mindset, being agile and adaptable, and engaging others are key qualities for leaders to move their organizations forward.

Organizations need to identify those agile learners and support their career growth for improving leadership bench strength, which in turn will drive the company through times of change and give it the distinct competitive advantage of improved performance.

Well-developed agile leadership at all levels of an organization has four major benefits: leadership bench strength improves, the ability to lead a company through times of change is enhanced, retention of high potential talent increases, and business performance improves. To ensure success, organizations need a clearly communicated intention and consistent action for managing leadership supported by science-based methods and tools.

To succeed at being agile, leaders need to both extend and transcend the competencies and associated behaviors that made them successful leaders in the past and embrace new approaches that will enable them to better adjust to and navigate the unknown.

How to Level Up Your Leadership

Konstantinos Kamariotis Principal Consultant, Stanton Chase / Athens

Leader and leadership team development.

We introduce two of our latest solutions, namely “Leader Impact” and “Leadership Dynamics”.

Through opportunities and challenges, achievements and crises, experimentation and intentional development, Leaders create their career trajectory as they grow from a business and personal perspective. At the core of who a Leader becomes are their values and drivers, natural preferences and talents, as well as their ways of perceiving and reacting to the environment, including how they manage stressors. All these qualities have a critical impact on performance on two levels.

Individual level: how a Leader performs, interacts, makes decisions, thrives in a specific organization, fosters a culture etc.
Team level: the performance “anchors” of a Leadership Team, the dynamics among its members, its effectiveness in delivering on key team roles, its potential risks, shared “blind spots” etc.

This is why increasing awareness around Leadership style and its impact are always the foundation for growth. And this becomes ever more critical as a Leader progresses, because gradually the technical aspect of his/her performance weighs less and the strategic, relational, self-management skills are the ones that make the difference.

In this context, successful organizations support their Leaders in fulfilling their personal and team potential by engaging them in development programs designed to provide space, insights and support that can lead to change and evolution.

Increasing the level of trust and getting teams to learn more about each other’s strengths, drivers, obstacles, and triggers helps them fast-forward through several development stages.

To serve our clients meet this Leadership performance aim, we designed two complementary solutions.

“Leader Impact” is a solution that explores all key dimensions of a Leader’s performance and potential. We look at talents, learned skills, latent skills, as well as barriers. We focus on the self-management of a Leader, the management of stakeholders, the management of the business now, as well as into the future. We explore how a Leader behaves in unusual, stressful circumstances, and potential risks in his/her behavioural patterns. And we go even deeper into the “why” behind all these, the personal values and drivers. This solution is implemented through a combination of personality assessment and 3600 feedback, whose insights are shared with the Leader in a developmental feedback session and a follow-up session, focused on action planning.

“Leadership Dynamics” is a solution that looks at how the members of a Leadership Team complement each other, whether they have common drivers, if there is danger of groupthink, whether they share derailing behaviours, where there may be friction, and it supports Leaders in boosting the performance of their Team. This intervention, uses a Team “profiling” tool, from a personality angle, and is delivered as a highly interactive and empowering workshop, spanning 1 or 2 days. Ultimately, “Leadership Dynamics” is about building trust, based on “opening up”, understanding each other, identifying underlying issues and committing to shared ways of working going forward.

We have found that such individual and team Leadership interventions are very powerful, as they build awareness and confidence, engage in enhancing performance, as well as create commitment and provide direction for change, exactly where it is really needed.

This makes such solutions vital during critical moments in a Leader’s career like the transition into a new role with increased complexity and responsibility. Similarly, they are a great lever for supporting Leadership Teams accelerate their integration or enhance their performance as a team. The increase of levels of trust, based on getting to know each other’s strengths, drivers, obstacle, “triggers”, helps teams fast-forward through team development stages or overcome friction, inefficiencies or leaving talent, resources, opportunities and synergies untapped.

On a final note, it is clear that, although Leadership Teams are usually prioritized, due to the scale of the impact of their performance on the organization and the business results, such a Leadership development approach is very beneficial for teams across functions and hierarchical levels. This is especially useful when the team is in a “storming”, as a new team or a team with new leadership or a significant number of new members. At that point, an intervention based on self-reflection and interaction, drawing on personal values, preferences, talents and limitations, connects team members, making them more able to be honest, ask for support and exchange feedback, and make the most of the team’s potential, thus moving into a “norming” stage. At the same time, the strengthening of trust during such programs means more creative dialogue or even productive conflict that are prerequisites to effective decision-making, and consequently commitment, accountability and results.

Setting Your Leaders Up For Success

Danae Doptoglou Senior Consultant, Stanton Chase / Athens

Successful leaders quickly gain a grasp of the culture.

This article presents another of our latest new services, the Onboarding Solution, that helps new leaders assimilate organizational culture more quickly, leading to higher success rates in transitions.

The assignment of a new leader in a key role is a key moment both in their career and the organization’s trajectory. Because the risk inherent in any leader’s hiring, promotion, transfer, or secondment is significant, numerous measures are taken before placement to ensure the right candidate is chosen for the role either from an internal leadership pipeline or the market. But what about after the placement? Do we equally invest resources into ensuring each new leader lives up to the expectations? And if we don’t do this, what are the risks? For our team at Stanton Chase Athens, which excels in the executive search business, these are questions of vital interest.

A leader’s transition period ranges from three to 18 months and is often characterized by relatively low performance, poor integration, and a relatively high risk of derailment. Research demonstrates that an alarming 40% of new senior leaders fail within their first 18 months as they struggle to gain a grasp of the organization and business, fit in with organizational culture, and form alliances with their peers.

This comes at a great cost for the organization on multiple levels. How can we ensure that the leadership transition takes place without a hitch?

Studies have shown that having the right support can reduce the timeframe of a leader’s transition by 50%. This provides what leaders need at that stage: direction in the critical first 90 days, constructive feedback, help with navigating internal networks, and support in gaining insight into organizational culture and team dynamics. This support can be provided through corporate onboarding programs, internal mentors, and external coaches, which can result in getting a leader up to speed in half the time.

In this context, we here at Stanton Chase Athens have designed a powerful OnBoarding Solution to help our clients achieve a higher success rate, faster integration, greater and more timely impact, a smoother fit into the culture, a steeper learning curve, less stress, and more engagement.

Studies have shown that having the right support can reduce the timeframe of a leader’s transition by 50%.

Our OnBoarding Solution is a nine-month intervention comprising eight sessions that incorporate coaching, facilitation, and consulting. Our program aims to serve newly appointed leaders (through internal promotion or external hiring) as a liaison between them and the organization, an adviser on successful transition, a sounding board during the crucial first few months, and a coach for fulfilling their potential.

Our focus working with each leader shifts progressively across several core topics including personal vision; a 90-day agenda; understanding strategy, operations, and culture; connecting with stakeholders and the team’ alignment on goals and expectations; agreement on ways of working with key contacts; making the most of their own leadership style; progress evaluation; and lessons to utilize going forward.

Stanton Chase Athens’ program stands out for two exceptional reasons. First, it is delivered by a pair of Senior Consultants – Coaches who combine extensive knowledge of the leader’s industry with a high level of expertise in personality and performance assessment.

This brings us to the second benefit, which is the utilization of top-notch assessment tools (personality questionnaires and 3600 feedback surveys) for gathering data and extracting insights. We explore the values, talents, and derailers of each leader, as well as his reputation and performance. These insights increase the leader’s self-awareness and guide his/her personal growth plan. In addition, we use advanced psychometric tools to investigate the dynamics in the leader’s team and create an experience for them that increases understanding of how the team works and provides input for enhancing its function and performance.

Given the impact and risk involved in a leadership transition, we always advise and support our clients in ensuring the best possible opportunity for success, whether this is through a corporate onboarding program, internal mentoring, external coaching, or a combination.

To find out more about how Stanton Chase can help you transition your leaders as seamlessly and effectively as possible, contact the Athens team.

Leadership Assessment:

From In-Office to Online

Nikos Vasilikiotis Global Maritime Sector Leader — Nikos Vasilikiotis Partner, Stanton Chase / Athens

Leadership Assessment: From In-Office to Online

Balancing support for clients with managing a crisis.

A piece on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on work models and operations, including leadership assessment. The authors discuss shifting this practice into a digital environment and the tools needed to do so most effectively.

The world is becoming increasingly digital. In the past decade alone, we have seen business sectors, professions, and organizations seizing the opportunities that technology offers to build a competitive advantage. In countless ways, this transforms the way we live and interact and, of course, the way we work with the adoption of elements such as instant digital communication, virtual teams, remote working, and a flexible work force.

At this point in history, the transformation is accelerating at a previously unimaginable pace due to the new reality presented by the coronavirus crisis. In a matter of mere days, we have had to adapt and find ways to continue our lives and work while avoiding something we had previously taken for granted: physical contact.

For businesses involved in executive search and assessment that are centered around human interaction and relationships built on trust, this has proved especially challenging. How do we balance supporting clients in running their businesses with managing the crisis, engaging with leaders to progress their careers, and maintaining our quality standards — all while keeping everyone safe? We found that the best plan of action involves turning all of our face-to-face interactions into digital meetups, working as a virtual team, communicating with our clients digitally, and assessing leaders virtually.

At Stanton Chase, we have transformed our assessment methods and tools. All interviews are conducted through video-conferencing platforms, and personality questionnaires are completed online. Similarly, behavioral assessment through business simulations is done virtually. Case studies and inbox exercises are conducted on specialized online platforms and role plays through video conferencing. We applied this 100% virtual solution for assessment purposes, like in the case of a Greek group of companies assessing leaders for a management team position, as well as for development purposes like for a multinational client of ours who is assessing new managers’ capabilities and planning their career development.

Transformation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace due to the new reality presented by the coronavirus crisis. Adaptation needs to follow.

The experience of our clients, candidates, and Consulting Team has been very positive and goes beyond our expectations. We have focused on:

Flexibility (a time and place convenient for all parties)
Convenience (the comfort of the environment each participant chooses)
Time (no traveling or commuting required)
Deliverables (faster digital report preparation)
Candidate/participant experience
Client employer brand
Cost savings (no travel, facilities, or materials)

However, in our experience, there are two important prerequisites for the successful design and implementation of such a solution. The first is the right choice of digital solutions, which need to be user-friendly, efficient, and above all provide reliable and valid assessment tools. Going digital should not compromise but rather enhance the quality of our assessment insights.

The second is mitigating any negative impact on participating leaders from the absense of face-to-face interaction. Many leaders are used to working virtually, but for those who are not so familiar with digital tools a virtual leadership assessment might take some getting used to. Our Consulting Team found that with reliable guidance and support throughout the process in an effective and friendly manner, leaders found the virtual process easy to follow and enjoyed its benefits.

The current crisis has made it necessary to open our minds to new opportunities and find the confidence to adopt new ways of maximizing efficiency. Once this crisis has passed, these will be valuable lessons as we seek to optimize combined physical and digital resources in building value and the best experience for our stakeholders.

How Personality Affects Our Ability To Work Remotely

Manos Panorios Managing Partner & Global Practice Group Leader for Financial Services — Manos Panorios Managing Partner, Stanton Chase / Athens

How Personality Affects Our Ability To Work Remotely

Which traits and behaviors are best-suited for remote work?

The authors detail key personality traits and how they impact individuals’ experience of working remotely. Stay hopeful – we can all adapt and adjust to the new work model of our times.

As companies swiftly took action to protect their employees following news of the coronavirus pandemic’s spread and subsequent lockdown measures, some people have rejoiced at the chance to work from home. Conscientious, agreeable, emotionally stable introverts, in particular, have benefited from the shift to remote work, as their personalities are able to shine best in a virtual work environment. But for others, not going into an office every day has proved a challenge as they work best with face-to-face encounters and the hum of collective productivity. For everyone – leaders included – this is a chance to take a close, honest look at our traits and habits and how those might be affecting our effectiveness.

While it’s still too soon to gauge exactly how this shift to remote working will impact our collective attitudes, behavior, motivations, and performance in the long term, we have all experienced the psychological toll it has taken on us and our coworkers to some degree. There have been such diverse reactions to working remotely that is worth considering the factors that are involved in how different people respond to such changes.

We should use this insight to better manage ourselves and those with whom we work so that we can continue being effective during this time.

Myriad factors play a role in how people experience the new reality of remote work: existing habits, a company’s readiness and willingness to adapt, and, of course, individual circumstances, not the least of which is personality.

We are accustomed to utilizing personality theory to predict role fit, understand motivation and performance, modify management approaches, evaluate culture fit, and analyze team dynamics. Now we are able to make the most of personality models and tools to identify how we can keep vastly different people engaged and productive in evolving and sometimes uncertain times. Here are some of the aspects of personality that influence a person’s response and ultimately their successful adaptation to remote working.

Conscientiousness: People who score high on this dimension are self-disciplined and well-organized while low scorers are flexible and free-thinking. When working remotely, the former will easily manage their own schedules and meet deadlines but probably need time to adjust to the change. The latter will easily accept the new framework but may be less effective at prioritizing and meeting deadlines.

Agreeableness: Highly agreeable people are friendly, pleasant, supportive, and empathetic. In the frame of remote working, they will be considerate and understanding toward others but may become demotivated as they miss the support of and connection with their coworkers. On the other hand, low scorers who are pragmatic and business-like may come across to others as unsympathetic and distrusting in a remote working environment.

Openness: Some individuals are open to new ideas, places, and people, and some prefer the familiar. This will have an effect on the time needed to become comfortable and start being effective under new circumstances.

Extroversion: Extroverted individuals are energized by interaction and seek it out. They would much rather work face-to-face than virtually. Introverts are more apt to work alone, and they would be happier adapting to a virtual environment.

Emotional stability: This is about an individual’s sensitivity to a perceived threat. High-level emotional stability will be demonstrated with a positive perspective and resilience during turbulent times whereas a low level will mean a tendency to be disturbed or distracted and volatile.

While in the past an individual’s personality was considered quite stable, more recently personality has been deemed flexible. We may see change in an individual’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion, or behavior over time.

For Leaders, Taking the First Step

Which of the above describes you best? What about the people with whom you work? How can you mitigate challenges, and how can you get and give support to others, considering your personal needs and expectations?

When you are a leader, your reactions during a transition have an even bigger impact. And transitions of any kind can be stressful, which creates a risk for the leader to display some dysfunctional behaviors. In Hogan methodology, these are called derailers: personality characteristics that may be strengths under normal circumstances but under pressure can become crippling career obstacles. Those weaknesses can derail a leader, and potentially their teams and organizations, too.
For example, cautious leaders may convey the illusion of control and risk management in the short term; however, being overly cautious may cause them to be so risk-averse that they obstruct progress and innovation. Being excitable may help you display passion and enthusiasm to coworkers and subordinates, but it can also make you volatile and unpredictable, which is taxing to others.

Diligence helps you pay attention to details and strive to produce quality work, yet in excess it can morph into procrastination and obsessive perfectionism.

On the flipside, being too cautious may enable a leader to present their thoughts and opinions precisely, but it can also lead to indecisiveness. Additionally, people who tend to be highly reserved might stay calm under pressure while at the same time tending to be uncommunicative with teammates — a vital behavior when put in the frame of COVID-19, wherein managing a team of remote employees and communicating frequently and clearly are paramount.

Additionally, highly reserved people have disappearing tendencies when times are tough, thus moving away from others. Teams need their leaders even more, being more visible than even before, even if it is in virtual terms. With imaginative individuals, it’s quite possible for them to overwhelm their teams with too many ideas and their blue-sky thinking, something that can further deviate people from their initial goal attainment in an era of constant distractions.