Reframing the Leadership Landscape: Creating a Culture of Collaboration

In an uncertain and complex world leaders should not merely respond to the speed of change but attempt to anticipate it. Sometimes it is unexpected, sometimes the signs are there but the dots are not joined together. The NEW normal must be navigated, negotiated, networked and a narrative built around it. Leaders need to adapt to a changing ecosystem in which the biggest challenges cross the boundaries of the public, private and non-profit sectors, requiring much closer collaboration. Aggressive individualism is no longer a sustainable basis for companies needing to deliver social and economic value, now, enterprises must move beyond narrow self-interest and short-termism to balance stakeholder expectations. In Reframing the Leadership Landscape, Dr Roger Hayes and Dr Reginald Watts argue that the interconnected and interdependent world requires leaders to adopt a more holistic and inclusive approach. Despite global business education advances, business mostly fails to make cross-disciplinary connections or interpret weak signals and is ill-prepared for changes in cultural and technical demands. The tool kit is here, ready to be unpacked. The only question is whether aspirant leaders are sensitive enough to read the signals and develop the skills needed to create an essential collaborative paradigm, which they must do if they wish to regain trust, fill the leadership void and help reshape a sustainable future.

Dr Roger Hayes is a leading international corporate communications and public affairs professional with 30 years’ experience in trade associations, corporations and consultancies and has also advised governments. Starting his career as a Reuters correspondent in Paris, he has worked for PA Consulting Group, Ford of Europe and was Director General of the British Nuclear Industry Forum. He is a senior counsellor with global consulting firm APCO Worldwide in London, for which he has also worked in South Africa and India. He is senior adviser to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce - UK. He teaches at Greenwich Business School and Henley Business School, where he completed a Doctorate on ’Public Diplomacy in the Globalised World’. He is a Henley Fellow, marketing and reputation. Dr Reginald Watts was for many years UK CEO of global consulting firm Burson-Marsteller and a member of their international board in New York. During that time he wrote four books and was elected to the City of Westminster Council, where he was appointed Chairman of Housing and also represented Westminster on the Inner London Education Authority. He was awarded a PhD for a dissertation, ’The Application of Visual Semiotics to Corporate Communication Policy’ (University of Wolverhampton).