20 Jan Buckle Up for 2025: We Have Leadership to Do
The privilege/opportunity of leadership comes with great effort, opportunity and intention.
Over the past year, I have collaborated with sector leaders from education, healthcare, mining, banking, technology, and manufacturing. I have witnessed significant external shifts affecting all these leaders. Thematically, while the threats and opportunities are similar, each situation has unique needs and challenges.
From an analytical perspective, the challenges include opportunities related to the impact of change and the ability to solve previously unsolvable issues, such as identifying new markets, products, and services.
What situations face organizations in 2025?
The 30,000-foot perspective
It can be challenging to keep change and innovation in perspective. In 1995, Peter Drucker noted, “We are in one of those great historical periods that occur every 200 or 300 years when people don’t understand the world anymore, and the past is insufficient to explain the future.” Has the rate of change accelerated so quickly that we are now experiencing shifts in just a few decades that seem entirely disconnected from our past? Any strategic planning exercise will highlight four prevailing trends, each requiring a transformative response:
- Political uncertainty and its economic implications
- Rapid technological advancement
- Regulatory complexity and expectations
- Scarcity in professional human resources
Given these factors, we can anticipate the consequences of the journey ahead. Our responses will be guided by those in positions of influence and their followers.
To exhibit leadership, we must take people from where they are now to where they need to be.
Where are we?
We are in ridged organizations at a time of flux. Our institutional legacies, the rules that govern our actions and processes, access to capital, and our capacity to manage them are all fixed or finite. Each is insufficient to adapt rapidly to immense needs. As a result, our operational and strategic plans prove inadequate for navigating the challenges of the next few years.
Difficulties will arise, and trauma will occur. The path forward will not be fluid or controlled but will transform us, our teams, and our organizations. We will need strong leadership to navigate, respond to, and explore our way forward.
Taking people forward
Leaders must share a vision, even if its complexity is not defined; the outcomes must be clear. Their vision should be paired with embodying principles so others know what to expect. Our shareholders, employees, and customers must see us/ leaders as partners in creating a better future.
The premise is simple: if we lose our sense of purpose, we will lack the resilience needed to respond. The urgent call is for collective efforts that lead to survival. Optimistically, we can do better than survival. This generation can create a thriving future where we, our teams, and those connected to us can prosper.
I remain hopeful because my sources of observation encourage me. I work with thoughtful, intelligent, motivated, creative executives committed to the journey ahead. They will find the light to guide the trip and share it with others.
Positive virtues/values, such as optimism and hope, are essential in leadership; however, the world’s harshness can snub these buoyed feelings into irrelevance.
What is required to convey a hopeful message in 2025?
The data says hopeful messages will be hard to deliver. Our survey company, TWI Surveys, prides itself in authentically hearing the voices of many and seeking to understand their perspective. We love finding the positive deviants, those small instances of success that can grow and turn into long-term transformation.
In 2025, cynicism, disappointment, and a lack of trust are notably high among employees and consumers. Over the past 25 years of surveys, the average organization has consistently been dysfunctional.
Today, we still have clients who are countertrending, but finding a trend in optimism for a better future has never been more challenging. Other organizations conducting similar research, such as Edelman with their Trust Barometer and Gallup’s Employee Engagement Insights, have also reported widespread disconnection and lack of engagement.
Simply expressing hope will need strong leadership. We require hope for effective leadership to take place. Followers must believe in their leaders; otherwise, declarations of a better world may resonate as hollow. A message of hope is a long-term journey that must be shared, nurtured, and developed.
What should leadership look like in 2025?
To be effective in complex times, leaders embrace the diverse needs of leadership. In doing so, they must hold opposing ideas in tension: positivity alongside brutal facts, clarity coupled with flexibility, accountability intertwined with independence, and a balance between strategic and tactical approaches. Sometimes, leaders will need to provide direction while inviting feedback and ideas at other times. Leaders must possess emotional and situational intelligence to communicate in ways that enable others to hear, follow, and engage safely.
It is recommended that executives develop a personal leadership plan and evolve it as they learn and as circumstances change. To create this plan, consider focusing on three domains: yourself, your team, and your organization/network.
Lead Yourself
Leaders should first take care of themselves. It may seem obvious, but it is challenging. They must prioritize sleep, nutrition, exercise, and meditation, have immediate objectives (actions), and cultivate a vision for a better future (dream).
They must cultivate a belief in their mission. Even on days when belief falters, they need to act confidently until that belief is rekindled. To lead effectively, be at peace with oneself or be on that journey.
Lead Teams
In times of uncertainty, team leaders must be adept at challenging and supporting their team. The following dichotomies highlight key behaviours to consider in this process:
- Create a sense of urgency to act while regularly assessing the situation with the team.
- Collaborate on complex issues but fully delegate operational tasks.
- Establish clear expectations and coach team members to build their capacity.
- Provide oversight while sharing responsibility for outcomes.
Lead the Organization/Network
To lead past one’s direct supervision, it’s essential to recognize the roles others play, create the conditions where others are motivated to take responsibility, align resources to priorities, foster a shared vision, understand the organizational culture, and utilize both formal and informal influences to create learning and change. Key strategies to consider include:
- Work within the existing culture while challenging the status quo.
- Respect formal lines of authority while building relationships across functions.
- Sponsor critical initiatives and encourage bottom-up, organic solutions to emerge.
The Call of Leadership in 2025
Understanding your identity as a leader and expanding your influence comes with the responsibility of nurturing others to grow. Our challenges are too significant to adopt a narrow view of leadership. As a community of aspiring leaders, let us broaden our horizons to envision what is possible.
If we lead ourselves effectively, enrich others, and explore new possibilities together, we will find the hope we all need in creating what we want in the world.
Written by:
- Ryan Williams, MA, ABC, MC
- Partner – Tekara Organizational Effectiveness
- President – TWI Surveys Inc
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