Leadership

Success now hinges less on job titles and more on connecting dots, leading across functions, and staying customer-focused, says study

There is a profitable alternative to RTO mandates. Neiman Marcus Group’s former chief people officer delivered remarkable business success using a simple premise: Give people more work flexibility — with accountability for results.

A handful of high-profile companies have explicitly backtracked on previous sustainability commitments in the wake of the new administration’s hostility and some — most notably some big law firms — have fully capitulated. But the vast majority have just gone silent.

The consensus among the participants was that managing the new tariffs requires a lot of work, but having already endured COVID-19 and various armed conflicts worldwide, they regard this as just “another day in the office.” These market leaders will quickly re-optimize their networks, relationships, orders, products, contracts, routes, and prices, mitigating the worst impacts of the tariffs.

The forces that shape culture are wide. They include leadership behavior, team dynamics, the presence or absence of trust, the accountability coworkers feel for each other, how decision-making works, and which behaviors get rewarded. Leaders can take specific actions to influence these factors and build the foundations for people to do great work.