In today’s fast-evolving business landscape, the role of Chief Operating Officers (COOs) is under tremendous pressure. The challenges they face extend far beyond efficiency and operational execution; they now involve navigating an increasingly complex and uncertain world. Let’s take the case of Anna, a COO at a leading European tech company, grappling with supply chain disruptions, rising geopolitical tensions, and a hybrid workforce demanding greater flexibility. Her traditional tools—data analysis, performance metrics, and optimization frameworks—have brought her to the limits of what they can achieve. Yet, the landscape continues to shift faster than her models can predict.
Anna’s initial response was analytical: she commissioned a study on supply chain vulnerabilities and conducted extensive scenario planning using AI-powered analytics. While these steps are absolutely necessary to keep up and have provided helpful solutions, the fundamental unpredictability of the environment persisted. No matter how refined the data models, they could not fully account for the complexity of the environment, particularly the human element—people's emotions, adaptability, and capacity for innovation.
Traditional Wisdom Meets New Challenges
Traditionally, COOs have relied on a set of well-established tools for solving operational challenges: lean management, process optimization, and cost control through data-driven decision-making. This analytical, mechanistic approach worked well in the era of stable markets and predictable change. Some advanced AI solutions can even help predict less predictable situations. COOs could break down problems, analyze patterns, and optimize workflows. However, in today’s volatile and complex environment—and even more so in what is to come—these methods, while absolutely necessary, are insufficient.
Modern challenges require COOs not just to manage processes but to manage polarities, navigate ambiguity, and foster adaptability. Relying mostly on linear, cause-and-effect thinking leaves leaders ill-equipped to deal with the complexity of today’s global markets. The ability to innovate, collaborate, and grow from within is becoming a far more valuable asset than ever before.
A Different Leadership Approach: Embracing Developmental Leadership
To thrive in this new environment, leaders like Anna must shift from controlling and optimizing to nurturing and developing. In this approach, the organization is seen not just as a machine to be fine-tuned but as a living system, one in which individuals grow as they tackle challenges. The focus is on creating an environment where learning, reflection, and adaptability are part of the daily routine. Some readers might start rolling their eyes and say, “We’re doing this already.” Well, perhaps to some degree, but I have seen many examples where COOs and cultures have not even dipped a toe into the water, yet the complexity is rising so much quicker, demanding faster and more radical adaptation.
Managing complexity requires embracing paradox, experimenting with new ways of working, and empowering teams to develop a collective (versus individual) resilience to uncertainty. In this leadership style, COOs are encouraged to ask different questions—ones that expand possibilities rather than narrow them to specific outcomes. It’s about holding both sides of a paradox, leading through the unknown by tapping into the strengths of the team, encouraging constant learning, and developing adaptive, emotionally intelligent leadership at all levels.
Getting Started: Moving Towards Developmental Leadership
For COOs wanting to move towards this developmental approach, here are four actionable steps that I have found helpful in my work with COOs:
Foster a Growth Mindset Culture: Shift the focus from perfection and efficiency to learning and development. This shift starts with the leader. The question is no longer, "How can we get a product optimized from 98% to 98.5%?" but rather, "I don’t have a good answer any longer. What we did in the past will not be sufficient anymore." Encourage employees at all levels to view challenges as opportunities for personal and organizational growth.
Enable Collaborative Problem-Solving: Build new teams that are cross-functional, diverse, and able to handle complexity by bringing multiple perspectives to the table. Encourage open dialogue and collective decision-making, where stepping out of the norm is not only welcomed but encouraged. Companies often build the teams, but as everyone stays within their comfort zones, no truly new ideas emerge. It’s the leadership that can unlock previously hidden ideas from each team member.
Embrace Experimentation and Flexibility: Create safe-to-fail spaces where teams can test new ideas without fear of retribution. Innovation often arises from moments of trial and error. This starts with open vulnerability and allowing leaders to fail and try again, and ends with adapting incentive systems so that they don’t only reward success but also experimentation and failure. True growth can only come from true failure. There are no perfect humans, there are no perfect leaders. Leaders need to lead by being open to personal failure and personal growth.
Bring the Full Human Potential In: COOs should embrace and develop their own self-awareness, empathy, and connection to their humanity, guiding their teams not just with strategic insight but with an embodied understanding of the intelligence of human emotions that drive behavior in uncertain times. Focusing solely on cognitive strength helps develop the next iPhone generation but not leadership in uncertainty, where all human gifts are required. Remember this: our most important decisions in life are often led by emotions and somatics (intimate relationships, buying property, having children, etc.), yet in business life, they are often left out entirely. The amount of untapped potential is huge!
Organizations cannot develop beyond the development of their leaders. Showing up with your full humanity will support a more authentic way of leading and unlock new potential and capacities for each employee—and thus for the company.
By adopting this developmental approach, COOs like Anna can not only address today’s operational challenges but also build a resilient and adaptive organization capable of thriving in the face of tomorrow’s uncertainties. This shift in leadership style, from controlling processes to developing people, may well be the key to long-term success in a world of increasing complexity.
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