Paced Up Leadership: The relentless transformation
Jan 24, 2025Why leaders need to slow down to speed up
Have you noticed that the pace of work is accelerating? Leaders face immense pressure to make swift, high-stakes decisions. They must exude adaptability, confidence, and exceptional communication to manage stress and steer their teams. Continually evolving their leadership approach is crucial to transforming their organisations.
The quickening is real
The requirement for leaders to "pace up changes at work" is universal.
2025 has started at pace, and not just for us. Leadium is running several holistic and customised Executive Presence programs with senior leaders across Australia, Europe and India. This includes several fantastic collaborations with the global edTech, Emeritus.
It's a privilege to talk with senior leaders worldwide, and incredibly insightful. Several participants have shared how they get trapped in unrelenting urgency and busyness, hindering their ability to connect with, let alone mobilise, teams effectively. Many say they are tackling problems, like accelerating digitisation, which they don't feel fully equipped to address.
Leaders get trapped in unrelenting urgency and busyness, hindering their ability to connect with, let alone mobilise, teams effectively.
Work-life is pacing up; Accenture reports that the rate of change in business has accelerated by 33% in the past year alone. Many leaders say they feel pressured to solve complex programs with quicker-than-comfortable decisions. Do you relate?
Most companies see advanced digitisation and AI as key for reinvention (Accenture, 2024), but workers often disagree. "Innovation is in peril" according to the 2024 Edelman Global Trust Barometer, with 54% of the respondents feel technology and 69% feel society is changing too quickly. Leaders must bridge this change-reluctance and trust gap.
Steadiness under pressure
This acceleration demands that leaders model decisiveness and continual adaptation, which requires mental clarity and a strong sense of self-assuredness. Yet, for most of us, our internal compass is moveable. Some days, we feel sure-footed; others, we can be clouded by doubt and uncertainty.
As teams grapple with the relentless white waters of work, leaders must be highly skilled at self-management to wrangle their change fatigue and moments of overwhelm. They need to signal steadiness and provide reassurance.
They also need exceptional relational and communication skills. Workers want a meaningful vision that inspires them to keep moving forward in the change marathon.
Self-leadership is as important as relational intelligence for leaders shaping nimble and future-proof businesses.
"Our busy, multi-tasking leaders urgently need to slow down and learn how to steady their attention. says Executive Presence expert Sharon Longridge.
For example, when leaders are talking to a team member, they need to put their phone away be fully focused in that conversation. This exchange requires invisible skills like deep listening and mental presence, which many leaders find very hard. Why does the quality of our attention matter? Let's remember that authentic connection underpins the trust, and trust is bedrock of team creativity and performance.
As leaders face relentless business acceleration, they benefit enormously from building their self-leadership skills. Expressing shared challenges, leaders value conversations about refining the mind at work and the suite of on-demand neuro-performance tools we share. Anchored by robust evidence, our programs include mindfulness training, which improves the brain's executive functions by enhancing attention regulation, emotional control, and cognitive flexibility. Critically, this improves decision-making and problem-solving.
Mindfulness training improves the brain's executive functions by enhancing attention regulation, emotional control, and cognitive flexibility.
Everything is changing all the time, but...
Is that true for your leaders? Leading oneself and others is a relentless learning curve.
Driven by inquisitiveness and self-awareness, the people guiding workplace transformations must also evolve how they inspire their teams to maximise collective creativity, contribution, and satisfaction.
Our flagship Elevating Executive Presence program encourages leaders to punctuate their workday with mindful micro-breaks. They harness our Executive Presence Toolkit's 12+ guided mind performance practices. These on-demand mindfulness tools support them in steadying their attention, strengthening self-awareness, and modelling authenticity.
Try out our Stress Less Practice
Calm down quickly and build mental composure
This breathing practice is a powerful stress management tool that calms the nervous system quickly. It will also improve your ability to stay composed and think clearly, even as the demands increase. Try it now.
Duration: 5:22
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