Vuca leadership model redefining strategic management

Kenya: Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Each of these situations pose a unique challenge for managers, more so in commercial enterprises. Yet that is how the current business world is being defined these days. This new order is known in shorthand as Vuca.

Modern-day managers work in complex, volatile, ambiguous and uncertain business environments. With the world interconnected through technology and increased trading ties, you can’t avoid this world of Vuca.

“This is the new world that we have to operate in, one where you must be ready for complete surprises and be able to survive them,” says Dough Baille, the Unilever Global HR director.

Baille says business creates new roles for employees and demands new sets of skills.

“As a global leader you should have the ability to change and transform yourself and the organisation because moving is very important,” he said.

Even global corporations like General Electric have adopted the Vuca model. The common usage of the term Vuca began in the 1990s and derives from military vocabulary, and has been subsequently used in emerging ideas in strategic leadership that apply in a wide range of organisations.

Job opportunities

The tenets of Vuca tend to shape an organisation’s capacity to anticipate the issues that shape conditions, understand the consequences, appreciate the interdependence of variables, prepare for alternatives and challenges and of course interpret and address relevant opportunities.

“It is based on the fact that most problems and opportunities are unpredictable and to handle them you must approach them with a Vuca mindset,” says Baille. He says Unilever is using Vuca to hone its leadership and management teams.

In this, he says agility is a virtue that should be backed by developing systems that can handle unpredictable events in good time.

“In the Vuca world, Unilever has a comprehensive approach to growing leaders. Part of it is learning done at various levels.” The company runs a three-year Unilever Future Leaders Programme targeting fresh graduates, as well as other programmes focusing on new managers and senior leadership. All the programmes have an element of leadership and business acumen,” says Baille.

The company uses internationally recognised training or learning experts and runs two leadership development centres in London and Singapore. “The training is very intense and is done in response to many factors including phase of growth, demand for leadership, changes in business environment, preparation for VUCA and many others,” he says.

Bigger role

The shift of global economic growth from developed countries to developing and emerging markets means Africa is playing a bigger role in the global economy and thus needs well-groomed leaders.

This way, as investors flock Africa in search of new opportunities, the continent’s managers can take advantage to supply the needed personnel to drive businesses. He said colleges should collaborate with industry to produce graduates who are relevant to the changing business environment, fuelled by globalisation and increased use of technology.