Agility, resilience essential for next-gen business leaders, experts say

NEXT-GENERATION business leaders in the Philippines must be able to navigate uncertainty and lead with agility to drive organizational and national progress, according to experts.

“I think when you overlay that context with the innovation that we’re seeing in a lot of different spaces that touch the lives of Filipinos, I think you have the ingredients for a very complex rural system that’s hard to make strong decisions upon,” Jaime Alfonso Zobel de Ayala, chief executive officer (CEO) of ACMobility, said at the 6^th Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) NextGen Conference last week.

He said today’s leaders face uncertainty because economic changes and innovation are occurring simultaneously.

He noted that new leaders must understand how to deal with uncertainty, such as making a decision with a supplier that has a particular supply route across Southeast Asia, which may change in the next five years.

“These new problem leaders I think are going to have to be very comfortable with that level of uncertainty,” he added.

Lorelie Quiambao-Osial, the first Filipina to be appointed president and CEO of Shell Pilipinas Corp., said leaders need to be “change-ready” and should have a growth mindset amid a fast-changing world.

She said that self-awareness and self-compassion are the “bedrock of resilience and authentic leadership,” regardless of whether one is young, a next-gen, or a seasoned executive.

Ms. Quiambao-Osial also said that an organization needs to establish a healthy mental well-being in order to face the constantly changing environment. “If your organization is not agile enough, then you do end up as well not being able to adapt, not being able to change. So for me, in this regard, it all goes down to that,” she said.

Hans “Chico” T. Sy, Jr., president of SM Engineering Design and Development Corp., said that while the Philippines is a “global talent workforce,” there is not enough to meet the growing demand.

“We are now stuck in a very interesting management dilemma where you have increasing demands but a decreasing productivity,” he said.

Learning from his father and SM Prime Holdings Chairman Hans T. Sy, he said that a leader needs to know every fundamental part of the business.

“When I grew up observing him, there was a moment where every aspect of the business was ingrained into the thoughts…he knew the answer because he knew the business, how it operated,” he said.

Danielle R. del Rosario, chief operating officer of PHINMA Solar Energy Corp. and Union Insulated Panel Corp., said that today’s leaders face the challenge of making fair and sound decisions that impact the greater good.

“I think the challenge for new generation of leaders, there is no more book on how to do it. There’s no manual, that ‘Oh, I’m just gonna do what they did.’ That doesn’t exist anymore,” she said.

Amid the “rapid pace of information uncertainty,” she added, leaders bear the responsibility of making difficult decisions under tight time constraints.

“Our challenge moving forward is to carry the same industrious and innovative spirit, remaining true to our core values of integrity, competence, professionalism, and patriotism, to use business as a force for good, and to always do our part to bring our country and our countrymen to new heights, to become a part of the world’s best,” Ms. Del Rosario said. — S.J. Talavera