It is true that a new year brings new opportunities and a chance to reset both minds and strategy. This refresh is long overdue after another tumultuous year that does not appear to be getting much easier to navigate. However, the festive break alone is not enough to counter the ongoing challenges faced by leaders in 2022 and beyond.
There are many areas that leaders could concentrate on in the year ahead and in this article eight expert contributors have weighed in on what they think are some of the most important focuses for leaders in 2022.
Keep innovating what a leader looks like
Leadership and development consultant and author of The Step Up Mindset For Senior Managers, Margo Manning, says that the key question leaders need to ask for the year ahead is “What does a business leader look like in 2022?”:
“Business leaders must get curious to what their future role looks like, where they fit into the business and the team. How they support self, team, department and business to grow and move forward. Where do they – now and in the future – add most value? They need to challenge their comfort zone and expand beyond this. Turn their role upside down or tear up their perceptions of a business leader and start from scratch. A great question, what does the future need from me? Where do I best challenge? What would I want from the leaders of tomorrow? Who do I aspire to be in 2023, 2024 and beyond? And where do I find my flexibility and agility to move with this ever-changing landscape?” says Margo.
Open mindedness over what it means to be a leader and what is required from them is key to sustainable change. Nicola Schutrups, Managing Director of The Mortgage Hut agrees, commenting: “I think as leaders it’s our job to keep innovating what work looks like and what the work/life balance for our people looks like as well.”
She adds: “Leaders should take away the lessons from Covid-19 that may or may not work for their businesses – for example, things like hybrid working or flexible working and all these different ways of doing things which have shifted a leader’s mindset about what the norm looks like. Business leaders should continue to explore this, being aware that it looks different in every industry and affects productivity – sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.”
Create a psychologically safe environment for your team
Lesley Cooper, Management consultant and CEO of WorkingWell argues that the creation of psychologically safe spaces to work is paramount – “where openness and honesty is welcomed and seen as the foundation of trust and a mutually supportive culture for healthy performance in the year ahead. Employees have shown how adaptable and elastic they can be in meeting the challenging demands of work and life, business leaders need to recognise that there is little ‘slack’ left in the system and you cannot ‘trade’ on the goodwill of the staff inevitably.”
“Energy and optimism may be lower than they would prefer at the start of the year, and so whilst it is vital that we set a clear mission and purpose and ‘look up and over the fence’ to the year ahead, leaders need to keep good employee wellbeing front of mind as the platform from which results will be built if they want sustainable performance throughout 2022,” Lesley adds.
Teresa Boughey, Founder of Inclusion 247, agrees and highlights that “little is known about long-covid, therefore we may see an increase in the number of individuals who now will become protected under the Equality Act 2010. Organisations therefore need to proactively consider what reasonable adjustments they need to make in order to ensure that their workplaces are fit for purpose from a psychological as well as physical safety perspective.”
Furthermore, Teresa stresses that in 2022 we need to be aware of proximity bias. “This is where employees may be adversely impacted when they, or their contributions, are not seen by their manager, and as a consequence this impacts on career progression, talent and reward reviews to name but a few typical employee lifecycle experiences,” she says. Leaders will need to be vigilant to prevent this from impacting their teams.
Keep laser-focused on your team and what they need
As Karen Meager, organisational psychologist and co-founder of Monkey Puzzle Training and Consultancy, comments: “many forecasts suggest there will be a lot of turnover in 2022. Some predict a ‘great resignation’ with up to 40% of the global workforce seeking to re-evaluate their career options. Therefore, leaders need to focus on the things they need to do to take their people with them, rather than see good talent go elsewhere”.
Karen is keen to remind leaders they should not assume that everyone may be as keen to be back in the office as they might be. “Many employees are realising they can now work for anyone and far more flexibly than before the pandemic. So, focus on creating the kind of workplace – or way of working – that will retain. However, when people do leave, focus on ‘good exits’ and don’t burn bridges as people may be open to returning if their move doesn’t work out as they planned,” Karen says.
Christy Kulasingam, management consultant and Founder of In•Side•Edge agrees that if you want to attract, motivate, and retain the best in your business, you have to create an inviting, safe, and engaging workplace. “You have to go beyond rote, performative signals,” he says.
“Let that up-and-coming star get mentored by a star from the outside. Allow that first-time team leader to get coached on taking on leadership by a young captain from elite sport. Allow — even encourage — that innovative high performer to explore their side hustle. Curating and crafting highly-personalised talent offerings will build loyalty, encourage ingenuity, show off your people offerings, and amplify your employer brand,” suggests Christy.
One particular business role that leaders should be engaging with meaningfully as it grows in prominence is product management. Ian Lunn, Founder of Product Focus says that “different industries are waking up to the value product managers can add. However, there are many different views on what product management should do. Our view is that at its best product management is a leadership role – running a product like a mini-business. But many still see the role as chief fire-fighter for product issues.” Instead, leaders should be engaging with product managers in a way that reflects the critical importance of their work, just like all other business functions that need to be shown dedicated care and attention to get the most out of them in 2022.
Clearly define what you value, what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it
For Matt Spry, strategy consultant and Founder of Emergent, this is a great time for leaders to take a step back from the day-to-day and reassess what their business is trying to achieve, and how they want to achieve it. “The business environment has materially – and permanently – changed due to the pandemic, and there is an opportunity to create better futures for our organisations if we design strategies that reflect the new reality, rather than try to revert back to how things used to be.”
There are a great deal of ways that you can implement sustainable change through your organisation and more global issues now than ever, that need addressing.
Michael Bernard, author of Creating Strategy, highlights that we have heard a lot about the impacts of Covid-19 on supply chains and industry sectors, but also that climate change will have an even more profound effect, played out over the coming decades.
“Supply chains will be at risk from extreme weather. Some industries must undergo profound and rapid change: energy companies, manufacturing industry, the mining sector are obvious examples. Suppliers to major industries will have to decarbonise if they wish to remain preferred suppliers. The NHS, for example, has committed to get to net zero by 2045, and the majority of its emissions are associated with its supply chain. Therefore every business leader should have an imperative to plan to mitigate climate change by decarbonising their company, and they must have a plan to adapt their locations, supply chains and employee support to cope with extreme and worsening weather. A company that has not integrated this thinking into their strategy will not be with us for long.”
2022 is a time for leaders to take stock and make real, sustainable progress that benefits their people and society. The world is progressing and so must we, accepting responsibility and facilitating change, in all aspects, wherever we can.
