2020 Created New Executive Superpowers

2020 was a year of extreme contrasts that gave us the opportunity to recalibrate all aspects of business and life. Experience was everything and yet nothing as a leader in 2020. We had no playbook for this.

For example, in my organization, my team is spread out over many countries and time zones. Even my leadership team is spread out. We are rarely, if ever, in the same physical location so we’ve become very adept at communicating, collaborating, debating, and making decisions without being in the same room together. So when the winds that would define 2020 suddenly appeared like a category 5 hurricane out of nowhere, it felt a bit like not much changed yet everything had changed.

Then the super wind gusts of 2020 kicked in. Overnight managing basic activities — taking kids to school, buying groceries, and otherwise straightforward work projects — became complex logistical and mental challenges. Being empathetic and flexible as a leader became priority one, even as the business accountabilities increased. In all this turmoil, a quote by Maya Angelou, ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ kept ringing in my head.

While people are always at the heart of business, never has that been so acutely true. 2020 was a masterclass in leadership we were all forced to take. A few months back, I wrote an article about decency being the new executive superpower. As we turn the calendar to 2021, executives who will thrive in whatever comes next will use a few more superpowers including:

Agility — the ability to think, understand, and act quickly — has now become a well-developed muscle. Rapidly evolving and changing circumstances required executives to find, assess, and act on information at a pace we’ve never seen before. The need for agility will continue.

Imagination — the ability to be creative and resourceful so that one can reimagine the formerly familiar as well as to imagine a new type of future, is in high demand. Imagination requires curiosity and an openness to embrace the unfamiliar. Without a playbook, all we have to lean on is imagination.

Innovation — or what I like to call ‘applied imagination’ — is the ability to create a bridge from theory to reality. 2020 was a year of rapid bridge building and remodeling of all varieties. The future will no doubt require more of this.

Elasticity — is resilience plus adaptability plus flexibility all together. We all stretched, twisted, shrank, and expanded multitudes of times and ways this year and will continue to do so.

It sounds like a tall order to be empathetic, agile, imaginative, innovative, and elastic. None of us learned these things explicitly in school. Life has been the teacher. 2020 has been a masterclass in this respect. We need to leverage this new set of superpowers if we want the people in our organizations to feel heard, empowered, and valued so our businesses thrive as well.

I hope 2021 enables us all to put the lessons of 2020 to use in positive and constructive ways.

Please note this article is a personal perspective and not connected to my current employer.