It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Kul Mahay, leadership and emotional intelligence expert; founder of Ignite Your Inner Potential.
The pandemic and lockdown experience has been the single-most powerful experience most of us have been through in our lifetimes, insomuch as the incredible amount of change that took place with such immediacy.
Business leaders were left wondering how they should respond to these unique circumstances with the whole concept of people working in isolation, away from their normality of offices and being surrounded by colleagues, leading to additional and perhaps unforeseen challenges for everyone.
As we look ahead to 2022 – and there is, once again, uncertainty with regards covid, planning seems to be more difficult to do, bringing about fresh challenges. People, as well as the organisations they work for, have changed too; we’re all starting to recalibrate our priorities, particularly when it comes to achieving that work-life balance.
In 2022, I believe we will see businesses and organisations recognising the need to become more people-centric, with empathetic, emotionally-intelligent cultures.
Change is something that we, as a world, will become more accustomed to. The pace of change is likely to increase in this digital world and businesses will be challenged to manage this more effectively.
Over the last two years, business leaders have been pressured into making decisions that have been outside of their comfort zone; from motivating and monitoring remote resources to working in isolation themselves. Self-leadership and self care has become more vital and this will continue well into the new year.
Many organisations have recognised the need to ensure their leaders are afforded coaching, mentoring and perhaps even counselling in a safe environment so that they are able to deal with any personal self-esteem issues, and this will be at the forefront of business decisions in 2022.
