With Brexit on the horizon, 2020 was always likely to have its challenges; no one, however, could quite have predicted events thus far. You could argue that leadership has never been more critical – the consumer-facing industries, which rely heavily both on footfall and discretionary spend, have been particularly impacted by COVID-19. A well-respected retail CEO recently told Norman Broadbent that the task of keeping her senior team motivated to the level needed in a crisis situation “for months, with no end in sight” was “exhausting”. It is true that we are currently witnessing the redefinition of resilience and agility; we see some leaders rising to the challenge and others struggling.
In recent months, we have seen deeply humane behaviour – for example, an HR Director being the sole member of her leadership team to spend time during lockdown in the factory alongside key workers to show solidarity – and some concerning activity whereby a CEO was surprised to note that no-one had been in touch with furloughed employees because the majority of the people team was also on furlough.
Norman Broadbent plc (LON:NBB) is a leading Professional Services firm offering five interrelated Talent Acquisition & Advisory Services: Board & Leadership/Executive Search, Senior Interim Management, Research & Insight, Leadership Consulting & Assessment, and executive level Recruitment solutions.
