reduce operational costs was seen as of the utmost importance. The ability to identify and create collaborative environments across the ecosystem and within the organisation was, therefore, identified as a critical competency for senior leaders. The top five competencies in order of priority were as follows: collaboration; vision and strategic thinking; human-centric management; adaptability to change; and talent management. Inclusiveness was mentioned, but it did not appear in the top five competencies. Meanwhile, competencies related to ESG were not mentioned, although the interviewees did point out that their board of directors often discussed sustainability initiatives. Senior leadership skillsets under scrutiny Overall, we extracted three key themes from the interviews: business acumen, talent management and innovation & change. Most organisations expect their leaders to establish a vision, be strong strategic thinkers and to deliver results. The business acumen theme, therefore, includes skills related to defining strategic objectives and a focus for the organisation, as well as orchestrating events to achieve these objectives, including the ability to form productive collaborative ventures with partners. The talent management theme is becoming increasingly important, particularly as many countries were trending at the time of the interviews towards what economists refer to as “full employment.” As one interviewee commented: “We need to retain our employees.” Human-centric managers can do so by being approachable and listening well. This theme underlies the organisation’s ability to attract and retain talent in an increasingly competitive environment. Finally, the innovation and change theme focuses on critical thinking, innovation and decision-making. Organisations need senior leaders who can quickly identify and seize opportunities to stimulate growth and long‑term success. Crucial competency sets To supplement the interview data, we distributed a survey to 179 leaders across a range of industries that included
and planning, the concept of “strategising” – ie the ability to consider a wide range of factors and chart a direction for the company – was thought to be the most important. In today’s highly unpredictable operating environment, this ability is likely to be even more in demand. Within the execution and performance management set, critical thinking (the ability to analyse information, evaluate information sources and form judgements) was ranked highest. From a behavioural perspective, the ranking within these competency sets suggests that leaders should be able to identify pertinent factors from a wide range of potential elements that influence the organisation, then critically analyse the relationships among them to develop a clear path forward. These results largely confirm what we learned during the interviews. We included two specific DEI-related competencies within the relationship building and managing relationships competency sets: inclusivity (the ability to create a safe, respectful workplace that permits everyone to bring their whole selves to work) and leveraging diversity (the ability
government, healthcare and the private sector. We asked them to rank nine competency sets in order of importance. These rankings are as follows: strategic thinking and planning; execution and performance management; relationship building; managing relationships; self-management; motivational; context management; data and digital mindset; and environment, social and governance. Consistent with the interview findings, strategic thinking and planning, along with execution and performance management, were ranked as the top two competency sets. Within each competency set, we also asked respondents to rank four to six specific competencies on a scale of one to five (with five indicating highly important relative to the others in that set). Within strategic thinking
to organise diverse teams and employees to deliver results). On a scale of one to five, inclusivity was
30 Ambition • ISSUE 4 • 2025
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