Developing Leaders for the Future
Old school management approaches which reinforced the infallibility of the leader and consideration for everyone’s position in the hierarchy developed at a time when work was routine and repetitive, and people were viewed as no more than dispensable cogs in a well-oiled machine. Fast-forward to the current day, when the nature and pace of change is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, a focus on agility has to be the foundation for leading in a knowledge economy. Organisations that don’t adapt quickly to political, economic, social and technological advances and challenges struggle to maintain resilience and momentum. Leaders who develop themselves and are developed by their organisations can help to build agility, but if your organisational culture is still stuck in the last century, benefits from development will be stifled.
Three key elements of leadership and cultural focus have emerged in the recent literature and research – particularly when working through turbulent times:
– Emotional Intelligence
– Psychological Safety
– Inclusivity
Psychological Safety
These are separate but interconnected concepts that play a crucial role in fostering a positive and productive working environment. Whilst each is often centered individually or in a pairing in learning, our view is that management and leadership development need to focus on developing all three areas simultaneously to develop a culture that facilitates success. Let’s look at what the research tells us about the importance of each of these areas for business
performance.
We’ve all heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – according to a recent McKinsey report (What is Psychological Safety? McKinsey, 2023) social scientists now believe that psychological safety is one of these basic needs. The term was coined by Harvard Professor Amy Edmonson in 1999 and describes an environment in which there is a shared belief that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks, such as speaking up, asking questions, challenging the status quo or admitting mistakes, without fear of negative consequences. Research by MFHA in partnership with Henley Business School (People Management, March 2025) found that workplace psychological safety is in decline; employees feel less secure than they did five years ago.
The term really entered the popular lexicon thanks to Google’s research in the mid 2010s on what differentiated their great teams from the good. Known as Project Aristotle, their internal research pointed to particular norms that are vital to success. There were other behaviours that seemed important as well — like making sure teams had clear goals and creating a culture of dependability. But Google’s data indicated that psychological safety, more than anything else, was critical to making a team work.
Returning to McKinsey’s report, they say:
“In extensive research ranging from medical teams in hospitals to software development teams at Big Tech firms, psychological safety is consistently one of the strongest predictors of team performance, productivity, quality, safety, creativity, and innovation. It’s also predictive of better overall health outcomes, as confirmed by social psychologists and neuroscientists.”
Emotional Intelligence
David Goleman’s seminal work “Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ” was a game changer in terms of Leadership expectations. Fundamentally, Emotional Intelligence is about understanding and managing our own emotions and seeking to understand and influence others’. Over the last 30 years, Emotional Intelligence has gone in and out of fashion and our understanding of how our emotions work and develop has increased significantly
thanks to advances in neuroscience. It’s now recognised that Emotional Intelligence can be developed and has a significant impact at work – for leaders and for the people that they lead. Quoted in the white paper “The Impact of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace” (PSI Services, 2019) The Denning Centre for Quality Management found that 50% of time in business is wasted due to a lack of trust between employees. A vital part of the leadership role is to create an environment where leaders can get the best from their people and, again, from the PSI white paper, a recent European Survey completed by over 10,000 employees identified ‘bad management’ as the biggest barrier to productivity.
The key findings of their literature review for leaders are that Emotional Intelligence links strongly to the requirements of agile leadership, the Emotional Intelligence of leaders has a significant influence on their team members’ job satisfaction and the climate or emotional tone that leaders set for others is correlated to their levels of Emotional Intelligence.
Inclusivity
Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity are often used interchangeably – or misunderstood. Equality is about ensuring that everyone has equal opportunity, and no one is discriminated against. Diversity is about celebrating di]erence, for example, personality, work styles, interests, culture, experiences. Inclusion is the measure of organisational culture that allows diversity to thrive – it’s when people feel a sense of belonging and that their perspective is valued.
McKinsey’s “Diversity Matters Even More” report (2023) is founded in studies of 1265 companies, 23 countries and six global regions. Their research highlights that companies with diverse leadership teams are associated with higher financial returns across industries and regions. Furthermore, greater diversity in boards and executive teams, in both gender and ethnicity, is robustly correlated with higher social and environmental impact.
Bourke and Dillon (Deloitte Review, 2018) highlighted that diversity without inclusion is worth less than when the two are combined; diversity plus inclusion equals better business results. Deloitte’s research shows that the behaviours of leaders can drive up to 70 percentage points of difference between the proportion of employees who feel highly included and those who don’t; and an increase in feelings of inclusion translates into an increase in perceived team
performance, decision-making quality and collaboration. Their case for an inclusive culture, rooted in their research is that organisations with an inclusive culture are three times as likely to be high performing and six times as likely to be more innovative and agile.
So what?
We’ve been facilitating management and leadership development programmes for decades. We know that our approach works to build individual knowledge, understanding and behavioural change. But we also know from experience that there are organisational and cultural blockers to success. The kind of challenge that can stymy individual development and frustrate the embedding of learning. That’s why we’ve developed a programme to address those cultural barriers to successful leadership.
This is a three-module programme on Creating a Culture for Success. It takes leaders on an immersive and reflective journey designed to raise understanding, breed confidence and change behaviours and cultural norms. We explore topics such as active listening, developing a growth mindset culture, learning from failure, harnessing conflict, mindfulness and the neuroscience of heuristics. It’s rooted in the latest research and best practice and made bespoke for your organisation to reflect your values and strategic priorities. That sweet spot at the centre of the Venn diagram is where exciting things happen – innovation, productivity, agility and wellbeing.
When we don’t have that cultural focus on psychological safety, inclusivity and emotional intelligence, bad stuff can happen; we might miss out on the best hires, our staff might become demotivated, people don’t speak up with their ideas, people try to hide their mistakes, or stress goes through the roof.
Written by Laura Kean, Director, Kean Learning and Development
Laura is an expert in management and leadership development and has been running Kean L&D for over 21 years. She works with organisations and teams to develop their people to be successful and improve performance.
