The Disruptive Leadership Report
The new playbook for leaders of the 4th industrial revolution
What is The Disruptive Leadership Report?
Why do some companies thrive while others collapse in the face of disruptive change?
To find the answers, over the past 6 months we’ve captured the views of 160 leaders across the globe, interviewing senior leaders from companies like Google, Netflix, Shell, DHL and Microsoft along with scrappy startups like Graphcore and Mews.com. We combined our findings with insights from our work with 1000s of leaders – the result is the Disruptive Leadership report.
Report Findings
Size doesn’t matter, leadership does! The research shows that companies big and small, across industries, are experiencing high levels of disruption and that leadership is the difference between failure and success. However only 19% of respondents said their leaders had the capabilities needed to navigate disruptive change (in disrupted orgs).
What do leaders of the 4th industrial revolution look like?
Insights:
“There is an opportunity now to change. Through the darkness there is light.”
John McCusker – VP Talent, Bacardi
“If businesses don’t look outside, they can’t see the shift.”
Professor Antonio Davila – IESE Seat Chair of Innovation
“Are they willing to be vulnerable? No, not at all. Never. They are scared of making mistakes. When crisis happens, they protect themselves. And they go into their silos. They blame others.”
Jeff Turner – Former Director of International L&D, Facebook
“There are 50 experiments going on…they’re spending between 10,000 pounds and 10 million with very little rhyme or reason for their budget. It’s a bit like playing a fruit machine in a pub, you know it’s not a rational decision, but it’s fine. Something good might happen, people are watching, it’s kind of exciting.”
Stephen Rapoport – Entrepreneur, Innovation Consultant
“It is difficult to get execs to react when they are still hitting the numbers.”
Joost Korver – Former CEO & Global Innovation Director, SHV
“Leaders often lack grit; the drive to persevere because they believe in something.”
Deb Pellen – Global Innovation Director, Bacardi
“It starts with everyone. Anyone can start innovation. Ideas come from across the organisation not from senior leadership. We facilitate their ideas.”
Gwen Burbidge – Chief People Officer, Wetransfer
“What is the future of leadership might be the wrong question, what I think we will see is self-organising, non-hierarchical, bottom up, democratised, more conscious model of leadership.”
Gib Bullock – Former Executive Director, Accenture
“With a clear view of the future and ability to measure impact, the org is aligned and able to make effective trading decisions.”
Kerris Bright – Chief Customer Officer, BBC
“Do the right thing, regardless of how painful [it is] sends a powerful message.”
Jose Fernando Nava – CEO, DHL
4 Shifts & 20 Rules
Across businesses we saw two types of response among leaders. The Disrupted, who are ‘fighting the wrong fight with one arm tied behind their back’, and The Disruptors, who are ‘driven by purpose, unleashing human potential to create a new future’.
The report explores 4 shifts and 20 new playbook rules needed to be a leader in the 4th industrial revolution.
Find out what it takes to be a Disruptor.
Shift One
The Disrupted
Not Seeing The Problem
The Disruptors
Open, Humble, Hungry to Learn
Rules
1) See with
fresh eyes
fresh eyes
2) Learning,
over knowing
over knowing
3) Look outward,
not inward
not inward
4) Go broad,
not narrow
not narrow
5) See the
big picture
big picture
6) Dig deep
7) Focus on the
human problem
human problem
Shift Two
The Disrupted
No North
Star
The Disruptors
PURPOSEFUL
CLEAR, ALIGNED AMBITION
Rules
8) Think Big
9) Drive with
personal purpose
personal purpose
10) Iterative
strategy
strategy
11) Highly aligned but
loosely coupled
loosely coupled
12) Incentivise the
right outcomes
right outcomes
Shift Three
The Disrupted
Not Safe to
Fail
The Disruptors
UNLEASHING
EXTRA-ORDINARY
Rules
13) Safety drives courage,
courage drives experiments
courage drives experiments
14) Ideas comes
from everywhere
from everywhere
15) Celebrate
diversity
diversity
16) Cultivate resilience
and grit
and grit
Shift Four
The Disrupted
CAN’T EXECUTE
& INNOVATE
The Disruptors
ITERATIVE LEARNING LOOPS
Rules
17) Be a
‘Creative Engine’
‘Creative Engine’
18) Minimise Silos, Hierarchy
and Bureaucracy
and Bureaucracy
19) Build your
Experimental Muscle
Experimental Muscle
20) Use Iterative
Learning Loops
Learning Loops
For a detailed analysis on each of the four shifts and twenty rules, you can download The Disruptive Leadership Report below.
Research Team
Ian Forshew
Founding Partner
T-minus
18-years experience as and entrepreneur, business operator and as founder CEO / COO / board member. Interim C-level and Growth Advisor roles for VC funded businesses. Founded and successfully exited two companies.
Odharnait Ansbro
Senior L&D Partner
T-minus
9+ years experience working with NGOs, corporations and governments to design, develop and deliver learning solutions in leadership development. 3+ years at Google, 4 years consulting with MIT, USAID, the Lebanese Ministry of Education, UNICEF, several digital media start up.
Steering Panel
Andy Bird
Leadership & Team Performance Coach
T-minus
Senior Strategic Marketing roles at Unilever, followed by co-founding Brand Learning (now Accenture)
Stephan Thoma
Former Global L&D Director
Google
Ex Google Global L&D Director in the period that Google scaled from circa 5k to 45k people, and now advisory support to 30+ businesses ranging from startups & scale-ups to major global complex matrixed organisations.
Joost Korver
Corporate Innovation Leader
Various
Corporate Entrepreneur with 20 years of international experience in senior leadership roles in the energy sector
About T-minus
We specialise in leadership in the context of disruption, high growth and innovation. In the past few years, we have worked with leaders from some of the most innovative companies in the world, alongside the large multinational players they disrupt.