The one thing leaders can not risk is losing the trust of the market and their own teams

Some have; others have won goodwill and trust through actions and leadership.

There was an interesting discussion which took place last week when it was noted that:

“We have seen one of the most significant changes in how leaders now need to behave. Since twitter took off, leaders have become increasingly less accessible. In fact, one can argue many delegated the real leadership pieces and it is no small wonder that we saw the lack of trust in leaders grow as big as it did. Why would you trust a leader who does not front up and be accessible?

But now they need to lead once again. They need to communicate, be visible, be compassionate, thoughtful and listen: as without these skills they can not lead.
In normal cycles, this change was expected by many experts expected to see it take place by 2025, so it has all been fast-forwarded to late 2020.

It is also no coincidence that many have been advocating the success of female leaders during this time as the old traditional alpha style approaches in leadership simply do not cut it anymore. No one will follow anyone through the power of personality anymore. People will follow ideals, values and a desire to create change for the good.

I would argue the years 2000-2008, up to the crash, were relatively easy and lazy. The years 2010-2020 were the years of a small group making greater wealth at the expense of the majority and this led to a potential breakdown in trust, engagement and productivity. The pandemic has changed all this. How much so will become clear in the next 12 months”

One may not agree with the above but it is an interesting challenge to leaders. Most agree that leaders are having to rapidly change the way that they do communicate and engage and this can only be a good thing. Many have been left frustrated by how information and news are broadcast today, so they have been looking to find something they can trust in. In the first stages of lockdown, that was found back in communities and in localism. However, as time moved on so the importance of companies came back and leaders have been set the task to raise their levels and to fill this gap.

There will be companies who do re-emerge who have lost the trust of the market. Many privately talk about those companies who have done this and there are large question marks over their futures. There are also those who have won the trust of the market through the way they have behaved and acted during this period. The results may not yet show this but the goodwill is laid and the picture will become clearer in the next 12 months.