Special Report February 16, 2010, 10:37PM EST

Leadership Trends for 2010

If your business isn't looking ahead, you're already behind

By Rick Lash

SPECIAL REPORT

Best Companies for Leadership

Best-In-Class Organizations are Looking Toward the Future

Best-In-Class Are Shifting Their Focus

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Two results from this year's Best Companies for Leadership survey, conducted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek.com and Hay Group, stood out. First, the Top 20 companies this year are significantly more likely to be primarily focused on "positioning for the future" than other companies.

The behavior of these companies indicates they believe the recession is over. Their focus is on seizing the initiative as the recovery begins to gather momentum. These companies are innovating new strategies, tactics, and execution and are already working to gain a competitive advantage.

Secondly, there is a revealing shift in what the top companies value in leaders. In last year's program, the quality that the Top 20 companies valued most in their leaders was execution—the ability of leaders to achieve results through others. This year, the most valued quality is strategic thinking.

Last year's focus on execution was a clear reflection of the turmoil that virtually every business had to deal with. In the teeth of the recession, with workforce reductions and limitations in resources commonplace, forward-looking companies recognized the importance and value of simply maintaining focus and performance with some kind of consistency.

Eyes on the Future

This year's emphasis on strategic thinking suggests that, like an individual recovering from a personal upheaval, businesses today are taking stock: reviewing their options, rethinking their strategies, considering new opportunities and innovations.

As the recession recedes—but with reduced credit resources and different consumer and business buying patterns—companies are shifting their vision from the short to the long term and choosing to move forward with new strategies and initiatives that offer the greatest potential to affect top-line growth.

At the same time that they are shifting focus from short to long term, this year's Best Companies for Leadership are taking a broader view of what's important. The data suggest that the Top 20 companies this year are more likely than other companies to find value in being inclusive, socially responsible, and globally aware in their outlook.

This result reflects recognition on the part of leading companies that they are operating in a complex and every more deeply interconnected global system and that their responsibilities extend beyond achieving short-term returns in shareholder value.

Expanding Roles for Women

In 2010, for example, women will constitute more than half the total U.S. workforce. Organizations are recognizing that women need to be represented at the highest levels of the decision-making process, not only because it is equitable, but also because it's important to gain women's insights in developing and marketing products and services, and it's important to attract and retain talented women.

Similarly, while globalization is hardly a new idea, leading companies have recognized that there is a difference between being a truly global company and simply being a Western company with global offices.

The top companies are working to put that insight into action—and it's no small task. It requires changes in thinking and practices affecting everything from the design of products and services to leave policies. But in the view of many corporate leaders, it is necessary for a company to become a truly effective competitor in every nation in which it operates.

Advantages of Social Responsibility

This broadening point of view also extends to issues of social responsibility among the Top 20 companies for leadership. In part, this approach represents an interest in good corporate citizenship. But companies have learned that socially responsibly behavior can be good business as well—positively affecting public attitudes, motivating employees, developing new markets, even creating long-term competitive advantages.