The last two years have been among the most challenging for leaders who have had to lead through immense upheaval and uncertainty. They have had to embrace reinvention on a mass scale and maintain motivation in a hybrid work environment, while attending to their own and their teams’ wellbeing. Emerging from the pandemic is an opportunity to rethink the role of leaders and reset expectations.

The purpose of this research is to explore how organisations’ expectations of leaders are changing and what that means for leadership development.

The pandemic has created great uncertainty for organisations. However, this came on the back of a business context of ongoing disruption and rising economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Leaders also have to contend with increased scrutiny from the public, media and investors, greater prominence of the ESG agenda, a shrinking and ageing workforce, and the opportunities and threats of technology-driven change.

While the pandemic has not fundamentally changed our views of good leadership, we contend that today’s highly dynamic context does require leaders to adopt different mindsets, behaviours and skills. Remote working has required leaders to find different ways of establishing trust, creating high standards, motivating and monitoring performance.