The Dynamic Change Leader

Welcome to Headhunter Secrets, where I’ll share perspectives about the search business. We hope you’ll use our services to execute searches. Nonetheless, I wanted to give you some insights I’ve gained from doing search work since I was 23 years old.

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The Dynamic Change Leader
Hiring navigators who can weather the storm

One need not be glued to the news to know we are living in a highly uncertain moment. We are still reeling from the pandemic inflationary period while the new administration is attempting to rebalance trade across the globe, cut government spending, wean our economy of government stimulus, and broker deals to end wars. To say this is inserting ambiguity across the board is an understatement. These are very dynamic times that require capable dynamic change leaders. 

Where can we find dynamic change leaders, and how do we identify them? Look for leaders who have successfully led companies through either rapid growth or rapid decline.

In a rapid growth environment, the need is to upgrade infrastructure quickly—ideally cost effectively—in order to keep up with and support growth. This is challenging work, especially if rapid growth is happening across an industry. A growing industry requires more workers, which drives up wages. Demand for raw materials, operational assets, and vendor services all go up, which tends to increase their costs. And then when workers are in high demand, an industry experiences higher turnover, which hinders worker and team productivity. 

In a rapid decline environment, the opposite is happening. Rather than losing workers to competitors, companies must shed workers and sometimes reduce compensation. After payroll is reduced, it’s often necessary to search for more savings. Companies might sell fixed assets (at a loss, likely). Contracted services may have to be eliminated, leaving the employees who remain to figure out how to do more with less. 

Contrast these environments with steady, smooth sailing. Such an environment is conducive to linear thinking. When things are good, rationality and methodical decision-making are often enough to keep a company afloat. Linear-thinking leaders can safely rely on their direct reports to provide information and shape decision-making. They can use the past to inform the present and the future. But as soon as a storm brews, the leaders who will steer a company successfully through the choppy waters and raging winds are those who know linear thinking won’t meet the moment.

Instead, the best leaders amid dramatic change know to click into dynamic-thinking mode. This means taking in large volumes of internal and external data, anticipating threats, digesting contradictory information, weighing options and tradeoffs, and still managing to be decisive and move with urgency. These leaders are intuitive, spontaneous, and creative. They are highly capable of connecting unrelated concepts and ideas. From chaos, they can create solutions.

Dynamic thinkers know that in moments of high risk, they must go outside the typical flows of information. They seek insights from people up, down, and across the organization to get the micro and macro picture and reduce blind spots. They will have an insightful answer to almost every question you throw at them, and they won’t need to consult their team for it because they’re already intimately clued into the company’s goings-on. This allows them to remain calm and flexible under intense pressure and rapidly changing circumstances.

Warren Buffett famously said “A rising tide lifts all ships, but when the tide goes out, we can see who has been swimming naked.” Another way to say this is that when the tide goes out, we can see which captains have navigated their ships onto a reef. 

When you need a leader best positioned to steer you through a high-risk period, bear in mind that your linear thinkers may not be up to the task. Look for the dynamic thinkers. They tend to thrive at the helm in a storm and help your company do the same.

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Hope these insights are helpful. 

We at Leyendecker have been doing search work for 40 years. We’ve completed over 100 C-level searches, most for CFOs. Most have been PE portfolio companies, but we’ve also helped owner/managed and publicly-held companies. Our placements have helped their employers go through almost 50 successful liquidity events.  

Keep us in mind when you seek talent that will get you over the goal line! Hope you have a great year!

Doug