books in this category typically do) focuses on timeless problems of the corporate world, from not communicating well with employees or stake-holders, to not having a fleshed-out strategy, to not having enough employees, to not knowing what to do when growth plateaus.
But these are issues that leaders have dealt with for decades. Welcome to 2023, where so many challenges confronting corporate leaders didn’t even exist a decade ago, and certainly not before the pandemic. Take the modern workday: Many leaders can’t agree on where their employees should be working on any given day, or for what hours. Or the exploding world of artificial intelligence, which so many corporate chiefs are struggling to stay abreast of. Not to mention the fact that many leaders are disproportionately focused on millennials and know that they are not developing enough Gen Z workers. “To succeed in the long run you need a growth mindset and a focus on innovation,” says Stefan Lindegaard, a Copenhagen-based corporate strategist. “But there’s a series of current issues that leave very little time for shaping the future.”
What are they? Are they easy to see, or lurking in the shadows? Here are some to consider.
You don’t know what to do about AI
Chat GPT seemed to come out of nowhere last year, waking firms up to the potential of AI. Global investment on AI might eclipse $150 billion this year, according to market
research firm IDC—a giant leap from $38 billion in 2019. But many leaders admit they’re bewildered about what to do with AI. Previous iterations of chat-bots and machine-learning software often haven’t worked as well as hoped, and experts worry that leaders have no strategy—that they’re just throwing
money at the new technology. “Organizations have not figured out how to incorporate AI into their workforce or their work processes,” says David Ellis, Korn Ferry’s vice president for Global TA Transformation.
Employees can sense the indecisiveness and lack of coherence. Last year, MIT asked professionals—more than 1,000 of them, at large organizations in 22 industries across 96 countries to state how, exactly, their own firms were approaching the development of AI tools. An overwhelming majority, 84 percent, said their firms needed to use AI responsibly, to make sure it not only delivers business results but also serves
both the individual and social good. But only half, 52 percent, said their firms were emphasizing some degree of renies longer. Leaders can also free up midlevel managers’ time by investing in technology that handles administrative tasks, such as data analysis or workflow approvals. Experts also suggest giving
middle managers resources to deal with burnout and other issues affecting their own mental health.
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