At The Roundtable, we’re always exploring the skills leaders most need to thrive in today’s fast-moving environment. In our recent Ask the Expert session, we unpacked why strengths can sometimes trip us up—and why the ability to adapt may just be the most critical leadership differentiator right now.
Here are the top three takeaways from the conversation:
1) Change‑agility is non‑negotiable: With Accenture’s 2024 Pulse of Change Index reporting a 183% growth rate of change and disruption in the past 4 years and 88% of C‑Suite executives expecting the pace of change to accelerate, the leaders who will stay afloat are the ones that can adapt. Building change‑agility—your capacity to flex to market shifts, stakeholder needs, and disruptions—has become table stakes for sustained effectiveness.
2) Ambidexterity separates good leaders from great ones: IMD’s Misiek Piskorski coins the phrase Ambidexterity and states what we’ve known all along at The Roundtable: “There is no longer one best way to lead.” Ambidextrous leaders are agile and adaptive. See them balance innovation with discipline, boldness with restraint, and authenticity with professionalism depending on the context. The broader your leadership toolkit, the more value you create in changing conditions.
3) The biggest derailers? Resistance, blind spots, and arrogance: Our poll results pointed to resistance to change, lack of self‑awareness, and arrogance as the behaviours most likely to knock leaders off course. These show up when strengths get over‑played—e.g., confidence becomes dismissiveness, consistency becomes rigidity, high standards becomes micromanagement. The fix: build feedback loops (e.g., LEA360) to spot your liabilities-in-disguise and intentionally widen your behavioural range.
Keep learning & take action
Unfortunately, technology wasn’t on our side for this event so we don’t have a recording handy but you can download a PDF of the presentation here.
And, build leadership capability with The Roundtable for Leaders open‑enrollment program. Offered two times each year, our signature program is trusted by clients like Pepsico, CAA Club Group, Infrastructure Ontario to develop their high potential leadership talent. With over 16 years of ongoing refinement, this is the gold standard leadership program in Canada and we have the awards and results to prove it. If you’d like to learn whether it’s a fit for your organization, you or a member of your team, book a time with one of our coaches to learn more. As a special thank you, tell them you attended our September webinar and we’ll give you a $500 credit towards the program fees. Our current cohort is enrolling now and launching in January. Space is limited to 8 carefully selected leaders at Director level with 5 seats currently available.
Coming Up Next:
Don’t miss The Roundtable Report Reveal with MRG’s Maria Brown, PhD on November 13th. Register here.
