The Most Common Challenges That Leaders Face In Today’s World

Challenges

Honing Effectiveness 

The challenge arises when leaders sense their own personal limitations and feelings of inadequacy about their abilities and readiness to lead. In practice, this refers to the ongoing process of refining and enhancing one’s ability to lead successfully and achieve desired outcomes – such as time management, communication skills, decision-making, delegation and empowerment.

The COVID-19 pandemic escalated the issue even further with new cultures brought on by remote and hybrid workplaces, overcoming common limitations to become an effective leader has become even more challenging.

Inspiring people and getting the jobs done

An analysis with more than 3,000 applicants to Harvard Business School’s High Potentials Leadership Program over 20 years revealed that above 30% of high potentials cited leading teams as their core challenge, especially in a virtual environment. Managing different people backgrounds driven by different goals and objectives requires leaders to possess a deep understanding of their team aspirations, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as a know-how approach to motivate and encourage staff to achieve their best and align with the organisation’s goals.

On the other hand, many executives are struggling to find a more appropriate leadership style to ensure organisational goals are met while their team members feel encouraged, motivated and developed.

Leading across the organisation and within a larger system

Managing within a large system is never an easy job. While most high-potential leaders have experience managing small teams, their next career step will likely involve leading larger teams including cross-functional and cross-cultural teams. Reaching across functions and geographic boundaries to get things done requires a remarkable level of interpersonal influence via building creditability, developing cross-organisational networks and bridging partnerships. It is more than personal expertise or persuasive conversations, it starts with being trusted within the organisation, realising the give-and-take of influence and acquiring broader perspectives beyond one’s immediate responsibilities.

Other barriers may include working in a dynamic business environment, which can bring about new regulations, market and economic conditions, competition, or growth. Leaders’ stress may be at an extreme level when the company is operating in a rapidly changing environment. Tech companies are an example of constantly introducing new products or design features to keep up with market competition and technology trends.

Leading in a crisis time

Leading during a sustained crisis, given the uncertain economic conditions, can be especially tricky. Stakeholders put enormous pressure on leaders to respond to their anxieties, even though the leaders themselves have never been in a position to deal with problems before, as a result, they oversell what they know and discount what they don’t.

In addition, executives today face two competing demands. They must execute in order to meet today’s challenges while developing “next practices” to thrive in tomorrow’s world. That being said, getting an organization to adapt to changes in the environment is not an easy task.  Leaders need to confront loyalty to legacy practices and understand that their desire to change them may make them a target of attack.

Proposed Solutions

Responding to these challenges can be tricky as it is neither straightforward nor a one-off solution. Leaders at all stages need to practice strengthening their values and improving their shortcomings over time.

Overcome the imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome is a common phenomenon for a person who usually downplays their achievements, has a fear of being exposed as a fraud, works hard twice to prove themselves as a success, a feeling of self-doubt. That can happen to anyone, not just leaders.

One strategy is to practice mindfulness focusing on what is happening at the moment and acknowledging the internal strengths and capabilities, not the weaknesses or errors one made in the past. If possible, keep track of one’s accomplishments, celebrate even the small wins and share the meaning of the achievements to encourage motivation and belief in a positive future.

Another recommendation for leaders who want to overcome leadership limitations is to focus on the unique contributions that only they can make. To do that, it requires a practice of self-awareness, a recognition of characteristics, behaviours and habits, everything that triggers challenges in their career. Understanding what those values are and delegating everything else to maximise their personal value.

Delegate more to others

One of the most difficult transitions a leader has to make is a shift from executing to leading. While ‘rolling up your sleeves’ can get admiration from peers and seniors, in the longer term, a leader’s power will decrease with every initiative the leader unnecessarily holds on to.

If leading is an art, delegating is also an important skill set that every individual with a leadership banner needs to learn to employ its greatest advantages. To delegate more effectively, the following key steps can be applied:

• Start with reasons

To delegate means to give someone more autonomy to make things happen and less depend on the other. People can’t be motivated if there aren’t strong reasons enough to explain why something matters and how they fit into it. Therefore, this essential step ensures that leaders need to set the alignment for effective partnering.

• Confirm understanding and inspire commitment

Utmost, leaders need to avoid misinterpretations that followers’ understanding with just one-way communication. Not only the scope of contributions, and the matching capabilities but also the clear expectations that have to be communicated until both parties agree upon. By doing so, it will eliminate any confusion and inspire subordinates’ commitment.

• Practice saying ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘yes, if..’

This is the most critical step; leaders should find their way of personally accessing every demand that comes their way. It can be counting the number of hours spent on each task or weighing the importance on a 10-point scale to decide to carve out time and devoted involvement. Sometimes, saying ‘no’ is not a bad thing while understanding that one’s energy and attention could have a greater impact elsewhere.

Delegate more to others

Given the scale, scope and complexity of when an individual steps up to a higher level of leadership, he or she is believed to fulfil the following skills to lead effective teams.

• Strategic management

• Emotional intelligence

• Communication

• Leading at scale

• Leading teams

• Relationship management

As leaders won’t have the ability to regularly interact with every team member, they need to create the conditions that enable the team to operate effectively without their daily presence. This involves developing the operational platforms and incentives to reinforce positive behaviours; supporting and cultivating a vibrant and healthy culture; and creating a context that enables team members to grow, develop, and produce.

Along with leaders’ competencies, emotional intelligence (EQ) is core to the ability to get the work done, to manage conflict successfully, to coach and mentor subordinates and to motivate and inspire others. To build up one’s EQ, a leader can open up about emotions including difficult ones with their team in a productive way by going beyond small talk to connect more deeply, which helps them to understand the mental state of their employees and to interact with them more effectively and empathically.

References

Anthony, M. 2023, How to Help Superstar Employees Fulfill Their Potential, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2023/03/how-to-help-superstar-employees-fulfill-their-potential>.

Center for Creative Leadership 2024, Top Leadership Challenges, available at <https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/top-leadership-challenges/>.

Herminia, I. 2015, The Authenticity Paradox, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox>.

Lauren, H., Jochen, M., & John, M. 2021, Leaders, Don’t Be Afraid to Talk About Your Fears and Anxieties, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2021/08/leaders-dont-be-afraid-to-talk-about-your-fears-and-anxieties>.

Mylrea, A. 2022, ‘You’re not an imposter. You’re actually pretty amazing’, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2022/01/youre-not-an-imposter-youre-actually-pretty-amazing>.

Olli, K. et al., 2007, Moments of Truth: Global Executives Talk About the Challenges That Shaped Them as Leaders, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2007/01/moments-of-truth-global-executives-talk-about-the-challenges-that-shaped-them-as-leaders>.

Ronald, H., Alexander, G., & Marty, L. 2009, Leadership in a Permanent Crisis, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2009/07/leadership-in-a-permanent-crisis>.

Tony, M. 2024, 3 Ways Humility Can Undermine Your Leadership, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2024/03/3-ways-humility-can-undermine-your-leadership>.

Walker, M. 2017, ‘To be a great leader, you have to learn how to delegate well’, Harvard Business Review, available at <https://hbr.org/2017/10/to-be-a-great-leader-you-have-to-learn-how-to-delegate-well>.