Leadership in Contentious Times: How to Navigate with Courage, Issue 115
Issue 115, July 6, 2023
If you’re a leader of a public (or private) organization today, you may feel you wake up to a firing squad every morning. Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock has abandoned references to ESG because he feels that it was becoming politicized. Brian Cornell, CEO of Target made no public statements in response to several of his stores attacked by protesters during Gay Pride Month. And we all read about the dust-up with Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Any leader in our asymmetrical, disruptive marketplace is increasingly barraged by consumer groups advocating for so many causes that it puts true leadership to the test.
And then there are emerging tech issues that not only test leadership but confound it. Even Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve has weighed in on the vagaries of AI. As reported by Bloomberg, “On AI, we’re doing what everyone else is doing. We’re trying to get smart about it and it obviously has huge possibilities. Technologies tend to propagate through the economy fairly slowly and this may be the exception. It’s something that we’re spending a lot of time on. It’s way too early for conclusions.”
We believe that organizations during the rest of 2023 will have to reset, retrench and reformulate. It could be the result of continuing fallout from the pandemic, vocal consumer muscle, and the natural evolution of organizations that did not transform in time to compete in a digital marketplace. But, now more than ever, leading with courage has become table stakes. So, having just observed this country’s 247th independence, which was an 18th-century testament to courageous leadership, we believe it’s a good time to re-review our piece on “Leading with Courage.” And while you’re at it, check out our book, The Truth About Transformation, for an in-depth exploration of how successful organizations have navigated the uneasy balance between reinvention and empathy in empowering today’s empowered workforce.