The percentage of women in senior leadership roles in businesses is till incredibly, unacceptably low. Not just because its clearly unfair, but also because organisations are missing out on their talents.

Only 6.6% of S&P 500 CEOs are women, which is actually a record.

For centuries, there have been broad, cultural biases against women. Some suggest women elect not to aspire to the highest levels of the organisations, but much research shows that unconscious bias plays a significant role in recruitment and promotion decisions.

New research suggests that women are perceived by their managers, particularly male, to be slightly more effective than men at every hierarchical level and in virtually every functional area of the organization. That includes the traditional male-stereotyped areas of IT, operations, and legal.

Women were rated particularly strongly at taking initiative, acting with resilience, practicing self-development, driving for results, and displaying high integrity and honesty. In fact, they were thought to be more effective in 84% of the competencies that we most frequently measure.

Men were seen as being better on two capabilities, developing strategic perspective, and technical or professional expertise.

When women are asked to assess themselves, they are not as generous in their ratings. The research suggests women under 40 are much less confident in their own abilities, and do not rate themselves as effective leaders until their mid 50s.

Capability Women’s percentile Men’s percentile
Takes initiative 55.6 48.2
Resilience 54.7 49.3
Practices self-development 54.8 49.6
Drives for results 53.9 48.8
Displays high integrity and honesty 54.0 49.1
Develops others 54.1 49.8
Inspires and motivates others 53.9 49.7
Bold leadership 53.2 49.8
Builds relationships 53.2 49.9
Champions change 53.1 49.8
Establishes stretch goals 52.6 49.7
Collaboration and teamwork 52.6 50.2
Connects to the outside world 51.6 50.3
Communicates powerfully and prolifically 51.8 50.7
Solves problems and analyzes issues 51.5 50.4
Leadership speed 51.5 50.5
Innovates 51.4 51
Technical or professional expertise 50.1 51.1
Develops strategic perspective 50.1 51.4

Source: HBR 

6.6% is actually a “record high” in the number of female CEOs on the 500 list, but female representation in business leadership is still extremely low. In her new book, CNBC Senior Media and Tech reporter Julia Boorstin delves into the astounding hurdles women have to overcome to get to the top of the business world and the leadership qualities that biased minds frown upon despite their successful track record. “The characteristics women tend to lead with are actually more effective.”

Here is the latest list of female CEOs in the S&P 500, a constantly changing list:

How do you make sense of today’s world of relentless, uncertain change?

Perhaps every boardroom needs a futurist in residence. Certainly, the old approach to incremental strategy development has given way to a much more creative and exploratory approach to business strategy, built around future casting, scenario planning, and agile roadmaps.

But that means it’s perhaps more important than ever for leaders to have a view of the future, to explore its possibilities, threats and opportunities – and to have a mindset which seeks to shape the future you want, rather than let it shape you.

I first met Richard Watson 22 years ago.

He’s a great guy. Intelligent, humble, and a courteous listener. He’s also incredibly thoughtful, an avid reader, a curator of everything going on – from sci-fi movies to academic whitepapers, trend analysis to media reports.

The future seemed relatively certain then. The “dotcom boom” was crashing down around us, the growing pains of the early internet, third world economies were starting to grow, and the post-communist world seemed to be stabilising into a new world order.

Now in 2022, we have more change, more uncertainty – and therefore more opportunity, I would argue – than ever before.

Richard’s trends, his perspectives on possible futures is an essential starting point for any leader, strategist or innovator. I use his work as a constant source of inspiration for strategic vision, growth and innovation workshops with leaders and their teams.

12 years ago Richard sketched a “Trends and Technology Timeline” map of the next 40 years.

It was interesting because his London Underground-inspired graphical mapping not only teased us with trends and when they might come to fruition, but more importantly challenged us with their intersections, how they might come together.

The timeline map became an icon in offices and boardrooms of companies around the world. I’ve seen life-size (2-3m high versions) of the map at Microsoft’s campus in Seattle, Russian Railways in Moscow, and DBS in Singapore!

Richard has also doodled and perfected a wide range of other maps (or thinking tools, as he calls them) too.

Here, he explains the map, during a session in London:

But now Richard has a new map for the 2020s … seeking to make sense of the patterns, fads and trends, disruptions and transformations, which are shaping our uncertain future.

Here’s his early sketch of “Terra Incognita: A Map of Current and Future Uncertainties” … and the finished map.

His thought process starts with axes which reflect the major tensions for leaders in today’s world – chaos v control, principle v profit. Of course these factors can co-exist, but forces can easily drive us to paradoxes, and in different directions.

In particular look for the critical uncertainties – something which is likely to be hugely impactful, but is also highly uncertain.

Richard’s insights and inspirations are a great starting point for developing future scenarios of your market, and your business. How might the future emerge? How do you want your future to emerge?

And here’s the final version … Terra Incognita  … print it out, pin it up, start exploring!

As an example of what to do next with a map like this, I recently worked with one of the Middle East’s fastest growing business groups. They’re in many businesses, and could grow in many directions, industrially and geographically. Where’s the growth? Where’s the risk? How should they act differently?

Future-back strategy is my favoured approach, starting with an ambitious purpose, a North Star, to give direction and substance to why the business exists, what it does for the world. From their we worked through an accelerated scenario planning approach, embracing the critical uncertainties most relevant to the business and its markets. From their we developed a vision framework which then flows into a strategic roadmap, and transformational plan for innovation and growth.

Sounds simple, but there is much to it. Not least having a powerful sense of of the future, and how you will shape it to your advantage.

Explore more about business futures, starting here.

And my new book Business Recoded: Have the courage to create a better future.

Runaway climate change and rampant inequality are ravaging the world and costing a fortune.

Who will help lead us to a better future? Business.

These massive dual challenges—and other profound shifts, such as pandemics, resource pressures, and shrinking biodiversity—threaten our very existence. Other megatrends, such as the push for a clean economy and the unprecedented focus on diversity and inclusion, offer exciting new opportunities to heal the world, and prosper by doing so. Government cannot do this alone. Business must step up.

In the excellent book Net Positive former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and sustainable business guru Andrew Winston explode fifty years of corporate dogma. Together they describe key lessons from Unilever and other pioneering companies around the world about how you can profit by fixing the world’s problems instead of creating them.

I particularly admired Polman as a CEO.

While the Dutchman led Anglo-Dutch food business Unilever, from 2009 to 2019, he set an ambitious vision to fully decouple business growth from its overall environmental footprint and increase the company’s positive social impact through the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.

During his time, he delivered financial returns more than double that of the FTSE index.

I particularly remember the day when he stopped quarterly reporting. His business was low on confidence and creativity. It had become subservient to a relentless cycle of financial reporting, and pandering to the whims of analysts. Anything significant, strategic, longer-term which they tried to do, was rejected in favour of quick wins – sustaining the existing business model, squeezing a little more out of the old manufacturing model.

In 2018, the Financial Times called Polman “a standout CEO of the past decade.” In 2019, he created a new organization called Imagine, along with co-founders Jeff Seabright and Kees Kruythoff, to help businesses “eradicate poverty and inequality, and stem runaway climate change.”

He got together with Winston to write Net Positive. To thrive today and tomorrow, they argue, companies must become “net positive”—giving more to the world than they take.

Definition: a net positive company:

  • Improves the lives of everyone it touches, from customers and suppliers to employees and communities, greatly increasing long-term shareholder returns in the process.
  • Takes ownership of all the social and environmental impacts its business model creates. This in turn provides opportunities for innovation, savings, and building a more humane, connected, and purpose-driven culture.
  • Partners with competitors, civil society, and governments to drive transformative change that no single group or enterprise could deliver alone.

This is no utopian fantasy. Courageous leaders are already making it real—and the stakes couldn’t be higher. With bold vision and compelling stories, Net Positive sets out the principles and practices that will deliver the scale of change and transformation the world so desperately needs.

 

Being net positive – having a positive impact on all stakeholders through the operations and products and services of the business – is the north star. It will take hard work and commitment, but the journey will be easier with the right information at hand, and solid commitments to values and purpose throughout the organization.

How Ready is Your Company for the Net Positive Journey? … Take the Readiness Test

Download the Net Positive presentation … Is the world better because your business is in it?

I first met Ryan Holiday 4 years ago.

We were speaking together at a marketing conference in Istanbul. As host of the event, I was organising the two days, working with all the different speakers, and keeping the audience upbeat and engaged.

First up was Ryan Holiday. I eventually found him sat in a far corner of the conference centre, jeans and checked shirt, his head deep into a book. With a yellow highlighter pen he worked through the pages of a historical biography, deep in his own world. “Yeah, I’m Ryan” he acknowledged. Having done the introductions, he quickly wanted to tell me about his great love – his herd of cattle which is rears in Texas. Cattle farming was clearly his main job. Books, business and speaking were more of a passionate hobby.

On stage he was equally without ego. None of the typical extroverted showmanship of many speakers, often seeking to compensate with entertainment for their limited thought. Ryan was clearly a deep thinker, and as he talked about his philosophy for marketing – for brands, business, leaders – he stood almost motionless and monotone. But his thoughts were profound.

He has been described as “a young, smart, marketing powerhouse turned motivational speaker who has attracted fans from every imaginable discipline.”

As an author “when it comes to motivation, Holiday makes readers take stock of their lives and careers through the timeless lens of an ancient philosophy, stoicism.”

At 21 years old Holiday was marketing director of American Apparel. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under the strategist Robert Greene (The 48 Laws of Power), he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians. His first book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator, a tell-all expose of modern online journalism, is a Wall Street Journal bestseller and an Amazon Editor’s Best Book of the Month. The Financial Times called it an “astonishing, disturbing book.”

In The Daily Stoic he distills the ancient wisdom of the stoic philosophers into 366 practical meditations, each meant to enrich and enliven our daily lives—at work, on the field, and in our relationships. In The Obstacle Is the Way, he shows us how to turn even the most insurmountable obstacles into advantages, inspired by an ageless set of philosophical principles used by icons from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart, Richard Wright to Steve Jobs.

In Ego Is the Enemy—an instant Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international bestseller—he explains how “the battle against ego must be fought on many fronts,” and provides helpful examples of major figures who’ve achieved success by escewing the spotlight and putting the greater good above their own vanity.

Forbes calls it “an inspiring read for anyone faced with adversity” that can “save years of future angst.” Publishers Weekly argues that “Holiday’s performance is commanding and optimistic, sure to inspire readers to take new perspective on their apparent obstacles.” It has so far been translated into over 20 languages (mine is in 35 languages!) and has sold over 230,000 copies.

Tattooed on Ryan’s arm, I noticed, are the words EGO IS THE ENEMY.

Here, he introduces the book:

Here are some of the key ideas:

Your worst enemy lives in you. “Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, your worst enemy already lives inside you: your ego.” Since pride is in us, it is either we feed it or starve it. How you deal with your pride makes the big difference.

“Your ego is not some power you’re forced to satiate at every turn. It can be managed. It can be directed.” As soon as you feel you are becoming egoistic, boastful, and proud – you can tell yourself to stop.

Pride tells you to talk, humility tells you to listen. Ego encourages you to lift yourself and base your worth on nothing or false worth. On the other hand, humility tells you how important it is to listen to people.

Become a student. Ego tells you not to listen to anyone. As a result, you stop learning. When you become a student, you lay aside your pride. You admit to yourself that you don’t know everything. So, if you want to keep on learning, learn to be humble first.

Ego focuses on self. Humility focuses on others. If you want to become great, you need to help other people become great. That’s just how the universal law works.

Don’t be afraid to take the low position. Ego drives you to make certain decisions just to please others, causing a lot of problems along the way. Do what other people refuse to do simply because they think they are too important to do it themselves.

Ego sways us from our ultimate goal. “We’re never happy with what we have, we want what others have too. We start out knowing what is important to us, but once we’ve achieved it, we lose sight of our priorities. Ego sways us, & can ruin us.”

Ego is the wicked sister of success & failure When you succeed, don’t give in to the temptation of feeling important. Don’t think that you are better than others just because you have succeeded. When you fail, don’t feel like you have been cheated or u have been sabotaged.

Nice guy, great books.

Many people see uncertainty as negative.

It means that you cannot plan like you used to, to predict what happens next based on what happened before, and to continue to use the same approaches to driving business success that got you to today.

It puts fear in our minds, inhibits our actions, and limits our progress.

Yet uncertainty is the great shake up. It brings change. And change brings new possibilities. New opportunities to refocus your business, to find new ways to innovate and grow.

Many people life to hide behind that overused phrase VUCA, a military concept for planning in a world of change. Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous. Yet VUCA could equally be more positive, and mean Vibrant Unreal Creative Ambitious.

In The Upside of Uncertainty, academic Nathan Furr and his entrepreneurial wife explore how to embrace uncertainty and transforming it into a force for good. Building on hundreds of interviews, along with pioneering research in psychology, innovation, and behavioural economics, the book offers a range of tools—including mental models, techniques, and reflections—for seeing the upside of uncertainty, developing a vision for what to do next, and opening  up to new possibilities.

The Furrs say “Facing uncertainty takes courage, wisdom, and dedication. We use a shimmering red cross as a beacon that anchors the four stages of Uncertainty Possibility” and offer a range of tools built on the motif.

Reframe tools

Uncertainty causes discomfort. Even if you chose the situation you find yourself in, a negative or skewed perspective will thwart your efforts and can stop you from even trying. Focusing on the unknown and distressing aspects won’t allow you to see all your options.  If you can reframe the uncertainty as possibility, you have taken the most transilient step required. Leaping from an uncertainty to possibility frame can be done in myriad ways. The following are frames or lenses you can try on to access more possibilities.

Prime tools

Uncertainty starts to feel manageable when you combine your reframed outlook with a willingness to prep for the tasks ahead. To prime means to literally make something (or someone) ready for what’s coming. Priming well can take time but brings courage and energy and enlarges the outcomes possible.  The finished product is always of a much higher quality.

Do tools

Taking action is one of the most critical part of navigating uncertainty. Doing something dispels the fog of ambiguity, gives us courage and actually creates the very future we want to live into, especially when you have primed yourself for the possibility you are leaping towards.  But moving forward takes finesse and heart, a willingness to learn, a willingness to be wrong and a readiness to change.  When you move into the unknown this way, you can’t fail because all of it will be a worthwhile discovery.  Even if it means doing it more times and in more ways than you could have imagined, the quality and satisfaction both of the journey and its outcome is born from the why and how you do it.

Sustain tools

Sometimes uncertainty is forced on us when we get blindsided by the unexpected.  Even when we choose uncertainty, it’s hard and things go differently than planned.  Even if leaping over to possibility feels invigorating to you, things will go “wrong” no matter how well you reframe, prime and do.

Sustaining yourself and your projects are heroic tasks even under optimal circumstances. Just as food and drink sustain our bodies, the sustain tools are both the fuel and the pitstops on your Uncertainty Possibility endeavour. Use them when you get knocked off the horse but also remember to use them as daily coping techniques to tune up your heart, mind, body, soul.

The Furrs have produced a great book and set of resources, which you can explore in more detail online.

Jeff Bezos’s legacy is phenomenal. Since throwing in his Wall Street job in 1994 and heading west towards Seattle in a VW campervan to launch an online bookstore (which he initially named Cadabra, before changing it to Amazon), his journey has been unique.

Nobody else has

  • Grown a business from zero to $1.5 trillion market cap
  • Turned the biggest cost centres into profit centres
  • Generated recurring revenues from 82% of US homes
  • Hired over half a million people in 12 months

Each year as Amazon CEO, Bezos would write an annual shareholder letter. They became masterclasses in business strategy, and insights into how to achieve success as a leader, in a world of relentless tech-fuelled change.

In this book Walter Isaacson has done a great job in bringing out the best of those letters, plus numerous speeches and interviews. They provide insight into his background, his work, and the evolution of his ideas – an insider’s view of the why and how of his success.

Spanning a range of topics across business and public policy, from innovation and customer obsession to climate change and outer space, this book provides a rare glimpse into how Bezos thinks about the world and where the future might take us.

Some of Bezos’ key themes included

  • The importance of a Day 1 mindset
  • Why “it’s all about the long term”
  • What it really means to be customer obsessed
  • How to start new businesses and create significant organic growth in an already successful company
  • Why culture is an imperative
  • How a willingness to fail is closely connected to innovation
  • What the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us

Each insight offers new ways of thinking through today’s challenges—and more importantly, tomorrow’s—and the never-ending urgency of striving ahead, never resting on one’s laurels. Everyone from CEOs of the Fortune 100 to entrepreneurs just setting up shop to the millions who use Amazon’s products and services in their homes or businesses will come to understand the principles that have driven the success of one of the most important innovators of our time.

Best quotes

“Theodor Seuss Geisel: “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”

“To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.”

“Cleverness is a gift; kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—they’re given, after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.”

“I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all.”

“Customer trust is hard to win and easy to lose. When you let customers make your business what it is, then they will be loyal to you—right up to the second that someone else offers them better service.”

“You have to use heart and intuition. There has to be risk-taking. You have to have instinct. All the good decisions have to be made that way.”

“I won’t list all of our failed experiments, but the big winners pay for thousands of failed experiments.”

“The way you earn trust, the way you develop a reputation is by doing hard things well over and over and over.”

Jeff Bezos and Walter Isaacson

Jeff Bezos’ Shareholder Letters

Here are all of his letters:

Here is an analysis of each of the above letters by CB Insights:

People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. James Clear describes another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call.

He calls them atomic habits.

In this excellent book, Clear describes exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medalists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy.

These small changes will have a revolutionary effect on your career, your relationships, and your life.

Best quotes

“The most effective way to change your habits is to Focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.”

“You get what you repeat. Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits.”

“Changing our habits is challenging for two reasons: (1) We try to change the wrong thing and (2) We try to change our habits in the wrong way.”

“The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us. We tend to adopt habits that are praised and approved of by our culture This is mainly because we have a strong desire to fit in and belong to the tribe.”

“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where: (1) Your desired behavior is the normal behavior and (2) You already have something in common with the group.”

“Habits are attractive when we associate them with positive feelings and unattractive when we associate them with negative feelings. Create a motivation ritual by doing something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.”

“Pick the right habit and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.” Habits are easier to embrace when they connect with your natural abilities. What suits you? How do they play to your strengths?

James Clear

One Pager

“Deep work” is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Lock yourself away in a room to focus completely on one task. Avoid shallow work, keeping busy, multi tasking, being distracted.

Deep work is a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep—spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way.

In his new book Deep Work, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four “rules,” for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, Deep Work takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories—from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air—and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored.

Best quotes

“Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love—is the sum of what you focus on.”

“The advantage of cultivating concentration so intense is that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems.”

“Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

“To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work. If you’re comfortable going deep, you’ll be comfortable mastering the increasingly complex systems and skills needed to thrive.”

“Decades of work from multiple different subfields within psychology all point toward the conclusion that regularly resting your brain improves the quality of your deep work.”

“Separate your pursuit of serendipitous encounters from your efforts to think deeply and build on these inspirations. You should try to optimize each effort separately, as opposed to mixing them together into a sludge that impedes both goals.”

“Spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate. This resource is finite: If you exhaust it, you’ll struggle to concentrate.”

“By supporting deep work with rock-solid routines that make sure a little bit gets done on a regular basis, the rhythmic scheduler will often log a larger total number of deep hours per year.”

More from Cal Newport

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXIsy5Mhbzw

In summary

Here’s a visual one page summary from Doug Neill at VerbaltoVisual:

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is the world’s best CEO according to a global ranking by Comparably, based on employee reviews. He is followed by IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and Satya Nadella at Microsoft.

HBR‘s best-performing CEO rankings, using total shareholder return delivered during their tenure was last published in 2019, and ranked Nvidia’s Jensen Huang top, followed by Marc Benioff at Salesforce and François-Henri Pinault of Kering.

A key role is in building the reputation of the organisation, with all stakeholders, and in society at large. The Brand Guardianship Index ranks Mastercard’s Ajay Banga as top CEO, followed by Huang and Netflix’s Reed Hastings.

The new DNA of leadership

In my book Business Recoded: have you the courage to create a better future? I ask “What kind of future do you want to create, shape and lead?”

The future business will only emerge with your leadership. Leaders need the courage to step up, to envision and implement this future.

Having spent many hours with leaders, one to one, and with their teams – teaching, coaching and advising them on strategies and change – and explored the many leadership theories, and insights from today’s most inspiring leaders – it became clear that there are some common attributes.

These attributes form a pyramid, somewhat analogous to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the foundation are the essentials required to operate, and deliver performance. Above these are the attributes required for progress, to make sense of change, to find new growth, and drive innovation.

At the top are the attributes required of leaders who want to transform their organisations, guided by purpose beyond profit, to create a better business, and a better world.

In research for the book we found that these 12 attributes collectively make up the “new DNA of leadership”, with 3 levels from the top to the bottom:

“Creating better futures” attributes:

  • Inspiring… being guided by a purpose and passion
  • Courageous… daring to do what hasn’t been done before
  • Farsighted … looking ahead with vision, foresight and intuition
  • Progressive… pioneering, embracing challenge, seizing opportunities

“Making change happen” attributes:

  • Curious… making sense of new, complex and uncertain environments
  • Imaginative… envisioning a better future worth working towards
  • Adaptive… having emotional agility to survive and drive relentless change
  • Entrepreneurial… the creative spirit to explore new ideas and think differently

“Delivering positive impact” attributes

  • Empathetic … engaging people, tapping into their human qualities
  • Collaborative … working together, embracing diversity, to achieve more
  • Resilient… sticking to the task, enduring turbulence, motivated and optimistic
  • Impactful… making a positive difference to business, stakeholders and the world

Have the courage to lead the future

The implications for business are broad and significant: a better approach to people and the jobs they do, organisation structures and how people work, a different approach to strategic development and innovation, how brands develop and engage customers, and a more enlightened approach to how businesses grow to create and share value.

The new codes of business challenge our deeply engrained assumptions and practices, some extending and strengthening what we already do, others replacing the old ways.

There is no magic formula for business success, although plenty of concepts and models, frameworks and tools which can help. Developing leaders in today’s world is much more of a mindset, a way of thinking, opening your mind to a new world of possibilities, and the many ways to succeed in it. Most importantly it includes the inspiration to do it.

Inspiration, for me, comes from real people – ordinary people who have applied themselves to make dreams come true, turn challenge into opportunity, bring others together to achieve incredible results. I am most inspired by people around the world, who are leading, shaping and creating the businesses of the future right now.

7 Big Questions for CEOs

When working with a CEO catalyst and coach, I often sit down with leaders initially, and before we get into the detail of mapping out new transformational ideas, strategies and priorities, I encourage them to stop and reflect on their role:

  • Can you articulate a vision for the future, and a strategic plan to get there?
  • Can you make the culture real, and matter to people?
  • Can you build teams where people can stretch themselves, safe together?
  • Can you lead transformation?
  • Can you really listen to people, see other viewpoints, and open to new ideas?
  • Can you handle a crisis?
  • Can you manage yourself, the many conflicting demands and priorities?

How CEOs spend their time

“Time is the scarcest resource leaders have. Where they allocate it matters – a lot” starts a recent Harvard report.

When I first stepped into the CEO role, this was my biggest challenge. My schedule no longer seemed like my own. In fact I’d made a point of managing my own online calendar until that point, choosing who to say yes or no to, and protecting time for myself. Now, as CEO, my schedule seemed to have become corporate property. Everybody wanted time, be it a one hour (why?) meeting, or a quick 5 minutes. Not just direct reports, but other stakeholders – particularly suppliers, and media.

I soon realised I needed to take control. A life of back to back meetings is far from productive. Leaders shouldn’t be the central point to every decision and action, and can quickly become the choke point, stopping anything happen. Time was the key. And I needed to recognise how I could best use it – while also staying effective, healthy and sane.

I’ve spent considerable time in recent years working with the business leaders of Microsoft, an organisation that has been transformed over the last 8 years, both culturally and commercially, by CEO Satya Nadella.

Nadella has two constants in his daily morning routine – exercise and self-reflection. Waking up at 7am, after getting his usual eight hours of sleep, the first thing he does is ask himself “what are you thankful for?” It’s a ritual he picked up from Dr. Michael Gervais, a high performance psychologist who has coached Microsoft employees and the Seattle Seahawks. “It’s just grounding. It gives you the ability to get up in the morning and orient yourself for the day,” he said on LinkedIn’s Hello Monday podcast.

Then it’s time for exercise. “For me, the daily ritual is just a half-hour of hitting the gym every day,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where I am, what time zone, how late I got in, I get up and get to the gym. It’s just 30 minutes of running, and it just makes a huge difference.”

Importantly Nadella doesn’t see “work and life” as a balancing act, but rather as work-life harmony, even though that hasn’t always been the case, “I used to always think that you need to find that balance between what’s considered relaxing versus what is working,” he told the Australian Financial Review. Now it’s all about integrating the two aspects of his life. “What I’m trying to do is harmonize what I deeply care about, my deep interests, with my work,” Nadella said, who believes that this approach “gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction and energy to go back to work.”

“When Satya steps in the house, Dad’s home,” said his wife, Anu, in an interview with Good Housekeeping. “And Dad does homework with the kids, sits with us at the table. When we go to public places, he’s recognized, and the girls see that, but has it affected their everyday peace? I don’t think so. Our private lives are pretty private.”

Harvard’s soft skills are hard

HBS asked 1700 business leaders across 90 countries about what they thought makes a great leader in today’s world.

You might think that companies in an ever-changing world need a steady hand, with foresight and experience, who plots a sensible route to cautiously and competently travel. And, of course, to be digitally literate. Not crucial, they found.

71% of leaders said that adaptability was the most important leadership quality in these times.

They also ranked creativity, curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity as highly desirable traits. “It’s the soft skills that I argue are not soft anymore,” said the chairman of a major African retailer.

Less than half think that they or their colleagues have the right mindset and skills to lead in the digital era. “It’s about curiosity not coding” … Here are some of the other insights

  • Be an explorer – get outside, be curious, listen, be humble

  • Trust and let go – distribute authority, lean on others, curate talent

  • Be a catalyst, not a planner – add new ideas, context and conditions

  • Be courageous – experiment, iterate, and pivot yourself

  • Be present – empathetic, vulnerable, storytellers, self aware

  • Live values with conviction – share purpose, deliver on it

HBS’ research concluded “Leaders who set out to reshape their companies to compete in a fast-evolving digital world often come to a daunting realisation: To transform their organisations, they must first transform themselves.”

McKinsey’s 6 CEO mindsets

McKinsey’s Center for CEO Excellence recently analysed the behaviours of 67 of the highest performing CEOs around the world. They found no simple recipe for success, but they did find value in simplicity.

They concluded that, to an extent, all CEOs have the same responsibilities – working with the board, engaging stakeholders, setting direction, creating a positive culture. What separates the best from the rest is how they approach these tasks – all excelled at some, and were good at the rest. All  applied a distinctive set of 6 mindsets:

  • Being bold: Uncertainty does not mean playing safe, which typically delivers mediocrity or decline. The best CEOs act boldly, smartly, seeking the best new opportunities. They raise ambition and aspirations. They become excellent futurists, enabling them to explore and choose the right vision. While they retain flexibility, they also have the resilience to stick with strategy. Focused on the mid to long-term, not to distracted by now.
  • The soft stuff:  Change generates resistance, and people and culture failure points of change. McKinsey found that companies who solve the soft issues are more than twice as likely (79% to 30%) to execute strategy successfully. Leaders engage people by making a clear and strong case for change, and retain focus on performance.
  • Team psychology: Building high-performing leadership teams starts with roles, not people – what are the most important jobs, and then who can do them. Leaders design for overall functionality, bringing in a wide range of expertise. The often surround themselves with people better than themselves, in different areas, and give them the space to perform.
  • Board role: “The board is the CEO’s boss, but an awkward one—lots of people, infrequently seen” says McKinsey. Trust is key, which means being open, honest and prompt about plans and problems. The best CEOs  establish a strong relationship with the chairman or lead director and check in with other directors once or twice a year. They introduce the board to the company, by connecting them to managers. As Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS says “the board, to me, is a partner, and they can talk to anyone in my management team. I believe the free flow of information is helpful for complete alignment.”
  • Start with why: Purpose might sound simple, but is not easy to define. It should have the power to inspire people, simple to understand, and make sense. HBR found companies with a clear social purpose have significantly outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 20 years. The best CEOs ask themselves why their company exists, then make purpose an intrinsic part of the business model, knowing that testing strategy against purpose can open up new areas of growth.
  • Do what only you can do: Being a CEO is a full time job. The best CEOs recognise the need for self-discipline, to manage themselves – their time, activity, and fitness. The best CEOs don’t have full schedules, but build in flexibility to think, engage and respond to unexpected. Many combine high-intensity and recovery periods – breaks, lunch, family.

My friends at PA Consulting have developed an excellent approach called positively different leadership.

They wanted to understand the behaviours driving the new approaches to leadership, so surveyed more than 300 business leaders across the US, UK and Europe. They found concrete ways of leading that make a tangible difference to the health and happiness of an organisation and wider society.

These four leadership behaviours, described in a new report, will be critical to success over the next five years:

  • Nurture human optimism: Helping people have a positive mindset and approach, tapping into our innate capacity to adapt to new and complex situations with innovation and creativity.
  • Empower teams to innovate: Inspiring people to understand their customers’ desires, and giving them the space and permission to imagine and deliver value- creating responses.
  • Build evolving organisations: Creating environments where rapid change is the norm, and where aware, inclusive and responsive teams are able to make a success out of change.
  • Seek inspiration in surprising places: Applying new perspectives and a broader lens to both existing technologies and evolving challenges.

PA then interpret these in five steps that can transform leadership behaviour, across your top team and throughout your organisation. They call it ingenious leadership:

  • Work in the growth zone – for leaders looking for ways to keep up with the relentless pace of change, leaning into acceleration is part of the answer.
  • Cultivate kindness – empower your people to try new things, take risks, and to do so safe in the knowledge that they won’t be targeted as a result.
  • Catalyse your internal disruptors – give more share of voice to the disruptors in your organisation, encouraging diversity in all forms to drive new thinking and being.
  • Make authenticity everything – harness the power of purpose to move from platitudes to plausibility, inspiring all stakeholders along the way
  • Create and embrace liminal spaces – shape new ways for people to connect, fostering a mindset that is comfortable with ambiguity.

Emirates is one of the world’s largest airlines, operating over 3,600 flights per week from its hub in Dubai, UAE. It operates to more than 150 cities in 80 countries across 6 continents through its fleet of nearly 300 aircraft. “Be good to yourself and fly Emirates” says its tagline, and the inflight experience is certainly one of the best in the world.

Emirates Flight Catering is one of the world’s largest catering operations. Not just serving its parent company, Emirates, it is also a catering partner of over 100 airline customers, hospitality groups and UAE government entities. Each day, the catering company’s 11,000 employees prepare an average of 200,000 meals.

The challenge however, is to source a huge amount of fresh food, while in the middle of the Arabian desert.

Indoor, vertical farming emerged as the answer, and in 2022, the catering business got together with Crop One, an industry leader in technology-driven vertical farming. Together they created Emirates Crop One (ECO 1), the world’s largest vertical farm.

Located in Dubai, near Al Maktoum International Airport, the  330,000-square-foot facility, which spans 175 yards in length, will produce over 2 million pounds of high-quality leafy greens each year.

“We are proud to bring Crop One’s best-in-class technology to this innovative food production facility alongside our joint venture partner. ECO 1 will address growing supply chain challenges and food security issues, while introducing millions of new consumers to the benefits of vertically farmed produce,” said Craig Ratajczyk, Chief Executive Officer at Crop One.

“It’s our mission to cultivate a sustainable future to meet global demand for fresh, local food, and this new farm is the manifestation of that commitment. This new facility serves as a model for what’s possible around the globe.”

The hydroponic facility is designed for continuous output of leafy green crops that are exceedingly clean and require no pre-washing, always grown without pesticides, herbicides or chemicals.

Powered by Crop One’s Plants-First™ technology and infrastructure, the farm utilizes machine learning, artificial intelligence and data analytics, and is managed by a specialized in-house team of engineers, computer and plant scientists.

ECO 1 uses 95% less water than field-grown produce while guaranteeing an output of three tons per day.

Passengers on Emirates and other airlines can enjoy the lettuces, arugula, mixed salad greens, and spinach, onboard. Local UAE consumers can also find the produce on store shelves under the Bustanica brand.

ECO 1 is Crop One’s second farm, following its Millis headquarters, near Boston USA, which was launched in 2015.