One of the mantras of the pandemic era was “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Smart companies everywhere used the public health crisis to change their businesses in ways hard to imagine before, from remote work to greater DEI awareness to an emphasis on employee well-being. Now, we’re in another type of crisis—one that’s more difficult to understand and find value in. It’s a crisis of uncertainty.
Look into 2024, and you see a swathe of uncertainty ahead. Strong emotions on all sides about a federal election. Troubles in the Middle East hitting home in ways not seen before. Pushback against DEI initiatives. All of this occurs against a backdrop of tension between employer and employee about where and how to work, and some of the lowest employee engagement numbers ever. With these issues in mind, here are five leadership trends to watch in 2024.
A new kind of leader
We’ve been polling hundreds of talent executives, and there’s wide agreement that at least 50% of the skills leaders need today are skills they don’t yet have. And the other 50% are skills that were always needed, but are now required at much higher levels. We need new models for leadership that take into account these dynamics.
It feels like leaders today require a whole new set of superpowers. For one, they must find the sweet spot between showing people they care and managing for accountability. Many people erroneously think of psychological safety and accountability as two sides of a pendulum that swings back and forth.
During the pandemic, the pendulum swung all the way to psychological safety, and now leaders are feeling the need to swing it back. But successful organizations need both, and making people feel safe to speak up while empowering them to meet or exceed expectations are not mutually exclusive.
Another superpower is creating a sense of community when you see people less frequently. Your culture was never about the building, but forming connections in a digital world usually doesn’t happen organically and requires intentional effort. One way to get more employees in the same place at the same time, without threatening their autonomy or sense of fairness, is something we’re calling the Patchwork Principle. Four overlapping “patches” ensure a good number of people are present on many days throughout the month while still allowing a low overall dosage of “forced” in-office time for those who prefer to work remotely.
Today’s leaders also require the unprecedented ability to see into the future of AI. They must allocate resources to disrupt their own workflows, while maintaining morale in employees who wonder how long they’ll still be needed. Above all, leaders must embrace a growth mindset to discover new ways to work with AI while still valuing, and most likely reskilling, human talent.
Reimagining leadership development
With such a high demand everywhere for better leaders, we need a breakthrough in how to develop them. Current models for leadership development are massively inefficient. On the one hand, there are intensive, multiday, offsite events that don’t scale beyond the few top leaders who attend. On the other extreme are libraries of content that anyone can use. Yet this approach rarely achieves real behavior change except in those who tend to already be great leaders.
We think 2024 will see the rise of new approaches to developing leaders using a variety of technologies. The key is to leverage the best digital tools while maintaining the active ingredient in behavior change: embedding new habits. Making a new skill habitual requires sustained attention, strong insights, and committed action, all of which are propelled by social interactions. Look for new ways of social learning—it’s not just about physically being in a room with other people. Today’s social learning can happen anywhere and everywhere through virtual platforms and interactive technology, uniting people across the globe.
DEI woven into the fabric of leadership
In 2024, we expect diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will become less of a unique, stand-alone concept and will instead be woven into the fabric of good leadership. With an increased awareness of legal challenges to DEI initiatives, more organizations are looking for ways to continue their good work on reducing bias and increasing inclusive practices without the obvious “DEI stamp.”
This might look like including bias education in everyday leadership training. Learning how to recognize and mitigate bias will be seen as an essential skill for leaders to make sound decisions and develop high-performing teams. We also expect to see the trend deepen of all leadership being framed as inclusive leadership. No longer will DEI knowledge and skills be seen as optional or “nice to have;” instead, they’ll become integral components of what it means to be a leader.
Rethinking performance management for long-term hybrid workplaces
We’re seeing a surge in companies wanting new ways to manage for accountability, while still acknowledging the reality of the overwhelmed, burned out employee. But how do you manage accountability when you don’t see a good chunk of your team day to day? And how can you accurately measure performance without showing bias against employees you don’t see as often? On top of this, how do we measure and manage performance in a world of constant change, innovation in technology, and need for reskilling?
Next year is likely to see entirely different approaches to performance management as the new realities of work settle in. Since the pandemic, many companies have discovered that surveillance and performance ratings don’t produce more engaged, productive employees—in fact, the opposite is true. Any new approach to performance management will require employers to recognize that threatening or checking up on hybrid employees doesn’t work—at least over the long term. Instead, they’ll need to recognize and reward an employee’s needs for status, autonomy, certainty, relatedness, and fairness.
Preparing for AI transformation
Next year is likely to be a breakthrough year for artificial intelligence. Already in 2023, experiments were well underway at most medium-to-large organizations to identify ways of leveraging AI for better marketing, sales, customer service, and many other functions. In 2024, we’re likely to see large-scale disruptions to many B2B services as whole new ways of working emerge.
Expect major breakthroughs in profitability and efficiency for some companies, tempered by the realities of a significantly reduced workforce. The actors’ strike may be a portent of a world of industrial strife ahead. AI will undoubtedly transform the world of work, and it’s not yet obvious what will happen to those displaced. However, it’s good to keep in mind that every major technological advance, from the invention of the automobile to the personal computer, has eliminated some jobs while creating others. The key for organizations and employees will be anticipating reskilling needs.
While there’s tremendous uncertainty in the market, clear signals still point the way forward for talent functions in organizations. Finding these signals, so as to not let this more complex crisis go to waste, will require clear thinking and bold steps. With no way to reduce uncertainty, focus on creating clarity any way you can around strategies for the year ahead.
