The formulation of likely future needs, trends and opportunities requires building collective understanding and supporting proactivity. Adapting to the situation is also crucial so that continuous learning takes place and responses are adjusted as necessary. Accountability is similarly important, including maximum transparency of decision-making processes and openness to challenges and feedback. These proven key principles help successful companies withstand even the worst crisis.
Take, for example, the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and its actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to extensive Chinese operations, it learned about the virus early and began working to anticipate future needs and problems, while at the same time focusing on significant uncertainties and the unknown. The company has combined these needs with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to gain commitment and support.
It has also adapted a number of new business models and partnerships to meet effectively the most urgent needs in this situation - particularly vaccine development, but also testing and screening methods, medical facility development and the use of AI to support diagnostics and case management.
Perhaps most notably, the company has implemented an inclusive approach to accountability with a commitment to support a global pandemic response "as economically and fairly as possible" - including numerous agreements for large-scale production and distribution of any successful zero-profit vaccine during the pandemic.
Based on this and many other experiences, five common principles for adaptive leadership can be identified:
1. Provide evidence-based learning and adaptation
Adaptive leadership means teams and organisations must constantly evaluate their actions, recognising the need continuously to adjust their interventions as they learn more about the outcome of decisions. This requires clear processes for identifying the best options for gathering, interpreting and evidence-based action. It means defining a set of key measures to judge success or failure, ensuring the ongoing collection of operationally relevant data, and establishing a clear procedure for how changes in data and trends will trigger changes in action.
2. Stress test of basic theories, assumptions and beliefs
Financial institutions regularly undergo stress testing to ensure they can handle future crises. Other companies should start thinking similarly. The assumptions and hypotheses that lead to the adaptive response need to be carefully considered, including the simulation of various possible future scenarios.
3. Support decision-making with relevant assumptions and hypotheses
The main challenge facing leaders is that data on COVID-19 is constantly changing and often conflicting. When decision-makers feel threatened, they are much more likely to return to risk aversion and tacit responses to ensure the level of security that results from narrowly defined goals.
Therefore, decision-makers at different levels need to be clear on what they base their assumptions and hypotheses. They must explain what is being done and why, and how the decision has been made, so that trust can be maintained in the process if errors are found.
4. Strengthen transparency, inclusion and accountability
People worldwide were required promptly to make fundamental changes in their behaviour. This has had significant costs for society, businesses and governments. Given the high stakes, it is necessary to examine how previous decisions have been made, taking into account the information available at the time. Continuous evaluation of the response is necessary to maximise learning. Such evaluations should include all relevant stakeholders, from professionals to the affected population.
5. Mobilise collective action
The COVID-19 crisis is a problem of "complex systems" that requires changes in behaviour, incentives and relationships between different groups and organisations. An effective response must therefore be based on cooperation across different disciplines, industries and experts at international, national and local levels - an aim that has often proved difficult to achieve.
Collective action in this regard may take the form of coordination (e.g. between businesses), partnerships between different stakeholders (e.g. businesses and communities) or dialogue between a number of stakeholders. Adaptive leadership plays a key role in identifying a shared alignment of goals and space for collective action across different forces and levels of response. Such interactions enrich debates, are inclusive and improve accountability.
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