‘Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous’ is the new business normal

A world that has is “volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous” is now the “new normal” and business leaders will have no choice but to equip themselves with the skills to navigate it, a conference on sustainable leadership has heard.

Doug Baillie, the former head of HR at consumer goods giant Unilever, said that what businesses need now are leaders with strong values and a "sense of purpose".

“If you look at public trust indicators, people put politicians and business leaders right at the bottom. The world desperately needs leaders, but it also desperately needs values-based leaders who ask themselves not ‘can I do this’, but ‘should I do this’? We need values-based, purpose-driven leaders at the centre of everything we do.”

Mr Baillie, who retired from Unilever just two weeks ago after a career at the firm spanning more than 30 years in various locations worldwide, told the inaugural conference of DCU's Leadership and Talent Institute at Carton House, Maynooth, this week that leaders also need to develop three key traits: authenticity, adaptability and resilience.

‘Incredibly authentic’

Leaders have to be “incredibly authentic” because they have to build trust with a rising number of stakeholders.

“The world is so transparent now that if you’re not authentic you’ll get found out very quickly.”

Adaptability is also essential given how technology has accelerated the speed of business and communications.

“So you want leaders who are quick, who can adapt, who are good with trends and can change course very quickly.”

But the need to take more risks in a ‘VUCA’ world also means that they’ll have to experiment a lot more and deal with the higher likelihood of failure, he said.

“So if you’re going to fail a lot more, how resilient are you to jump back up and have another go? Not only in yourself as a leader but, more importantly, how can you build resilience into your organisation.”

Mr Baillie also spoke about the trends likely to shape the global business environment, including a shift to opportunities in the East and South, the disruption caused by the digital revolution and what he described as the “end of the age of abundance”, where more attention has to be paid to how to deal with the growing demand from a rising populations on dwindling planetary resources over the next few decades.

Positive social impact

To this end, Unilever launched a new strategy in 2009 named ‘The Compass’, aimed at doubling the size of its business while halving its environmental footprint and making a positive social impact. This led to the creation of its ‘Sustainable Living Plan’ in 2010, comprising a range of targets, including sourcing all of its agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020.

According to Mr Baillie, a fifth-year progress report on this plan, audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers and due to be published in May, reveals that “so far, after four or five years, we’re doing pretty well. There are some targets we’re really stretching; we don’t know how we’re going to get to some of them, and others we’re making good progress”.

Unilever has been cited as one of first firms to recognise the damage caused by palm oil suppliers burning rainforests in order to extract the essential crop, but a progress ‘scorecard’ on sustainable palm oil production published earlier this month by Greenpeace - based on interviews and data from Unilever and 13 other leading firms - suggests that it has been lagging behind in cutting deforestation out of its supply chain.