After turbulent times in the global business environment, recovery is the goal of every business agenda and strong leadership is essential to achieving growth.
In overcoming unforeseen challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, and the political and economic turmoil caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine, business leaders are looking for innovative ways to solve their business problems. I had to quickly embrace and adapt to uncertainty in order to find a way forward.
Current and future business leaders can learn something by looking outside their organizations and countries to broaden their global business horizons.
We spoke with the Cranfield MBA Leadership Professor at the Cranfield School of Management to find leadership lessons business leaders should take into their future careers.
Leadership Lesson 1: Respond Quickly to Crisis
If there’s one leadership lesson to learn from the last few years, it’s to expect the unexpected.
Leading a team into the “new normal” can be difficult when a crisis strikes. It requires quick thinking, adaptability and decisive action. 
Stephen Carver (Photo right)He is a lecturer in project and program management and crisis communication at Cranfield and believes it is important to teach future business leaders how to deal with extreme change.
During the Cranfield MBA, students practice press conferences and face real journalists in television studios to answer questions about how they are coping with crises. This allows business her leaders to learn how to protect the credibility of their business while ensuring the health of their employees.
“This experience helps students handle intense pressure, stay calm, and handle whatever is thrown at them,” Stephen says.
In times of crisis and pressure, employees want visionary and strong leaders to rely on, he adds.
Business leaders need to keep their cool, delegate tasks, and honestly discuss next steps for their business.
Cranfield MBA students learn these skills in courses like Challenges to Leaders: Talent and Change Management.
“Strong leaders are often created in the midst of crisis and shaped by how they respond to it,” Stephen says.
Leadership Lesson 2: Adapting to Different Cultures
Despite the slowdown in globalization in the face of the crisis, the business world is still highly interconnected.
Being able to adapt to different cultures is essential to expanding your business internationally. Understanding different markets increases investment opportunities, outperforms competitors, and provides access to international talent.
Having worked all over the world in the United States, Europe and the Far East, Steven explains that national leadership styles are greatly influenced by culture.
“If you work globally, you have to adapt to the local culture. You don’t have to fit in completely with this new culture, but you need the ability to reflect and respect it,” Stephen says.
Studying abroad and working with an international cohort provides the opportunity to learn about different cultures all at once. Cranfield’s full-time MBA is typically made up of 18 nationalities, giving students access to a global alumni network of over 171 countries after graduation.
“Because the United States is such a big country, US organizations are often US-centric, and working elsewhere in the world can have cultural clashes,” says Stephen.
By attending a UK business school and accessing the UK’s close ties with other European nations, US business leaders learn to tune in to different cultural nuances and develop leaders who resonate across national borders. can be, he adds.
Leadership Lesson 3: Innovation is essential to face the future of business
Facing unprecedented change means business leaders must embrace innovative thinking. 
“Future leaders will need to think in new and complex ways, embrace uncertainty, see different perspectives, and become creative problem solvers. It’s about creating an environment in the business that’s built into the business,” says David.Denier (Photo right)Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at the Cranfield MBA.
Take, for example, British inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner and billionaire entrepreneur James Dyson. During the pandemic, Dyson designed a new ventilator in just 10 days after receiving a phone call from the government.
During the Cranfield MBA, students are similarly encouraged to develop an entrepreneurial spirit and test innovative thinking in a safe environment.
Experiences such as the Venture Capital Investment Competition and the European Business Plan of the Year Competition test MBA students’ innovation skills against teams from leading European business schools.
Nick Jenkins, founder of UK’s first online greeting card retailer Moonpig.com, used these experiences to come up with his innovative idea while studying for his MBA at Cranfield University. .
By providing greeting cards to a digital audience and significantly improving the usability and convenience of the market, he has grown the company to over £40 million in revenue and expanded into markets in the UK, Australia and the US. We sold the company for £120m.
Leadership Lesson 4: Business leaders need to understand how expectations are changing
As we head into the business environment of the future, there has been a shift in our expectations of leadership.
“Future leadership is about creating the environment for bottom-up change driven by a sense of purpose within the organization,” says David.
In a world where societal issues are now business issues, leadership doesn’t have to be just an individual thing, David says, and can be looked at as a team and see which skills can be used most effectively. I believe
A typical cohort of the Cranfield MBA consists of just 60 students who work in small groups on consulting projects and case studies in class to develop teamwork skills and delegate tasks. Cooperation is encouraged.
“It is important to start leading and working together across the organization to address these challenges.”
Leaders must also work hard to build trust among their employees.
“In the past, trust was something that was assumed if someone was successful in a company, but it is much harder to establish trust as a leader.Now people have strong visions and end goals. Trust works,” Stephen says.
According to a recent PwC report, more than half of employees value leadership transparency in areas such as the economy (60%), environmental issues (53%) and diversity and inclusion (54%) There is a growing demand for transparency from the Lord. ).
“The business world is starting to realize that heroes don’t exist. Leaders need to do their best, do it in a transparent way, and show they are worthy of trust.
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