Trained for Growth
Into those difficult conditions, march career
supply chain executives whose training and
experience are all rooted in a high growth era.
According to Korn/Ferry International, to
succeed in the new normal, organizations
need “Smart Growth” Leaders. Smart Growth
Leaders possess the leadership and operational
skills necessary to grow the top and bottom
line of a business in an extremely challenging
environment where demand conditions are
weak and disruptive change is high. What
organizations need now is nonlinear growth,
that is, growth that tracks beyond general GDP
or sector performance.
The leadership skills required to execute smart
growth are different than those needed in a
high growth phase. Scientists in the fields
of organizational and industrial psychology
have developed a library of 67 leadership
competencies known as The Lominger
Competency Model; Lominger is a Korn/Ferryowned company. This research documents
how various combinations of leadership
competencies will result in successful executive
behaviors, or failure. Companies use this
common standard to measure their current
and emerging leadership talent, which can be
applied via a human capital assessment process.
This work has demonstrated that to succeed
in an era of sideways growth, leaders must
excel in two main areas, leadership maturity
— their ability to operate effectively at the
appropriate level of complexity, ambiguity
and scale —and learning agility, their ability
to operate effectively at the appropriate level
of disruption, speed and volatility