Finding the optimal leadership trend in the new normal

In the new normal period as today, facing challenges and undefined risks, leaders have to take considerations of how their own businesses are affected by the pandemic and what they have to do next. In the sharing section about the topic “Leadership trends in the new normal”, Prof. Pieter Jan Perrett – Consulting expert with 10+ years of experience working as a company project manager and consultant for an International Swiss consulting company, also the lecturer of school of business at FHNW – shared leadership trends which leaders should concentrate on to maintain the business and help it to survive.

Prof. Pieter Jan Perrett was sharing the topic “Leadership change” in the Episode 3 “Leadership trends in the new normal” of the short course “Leading in the new normal”

Facing these problems, leaders should define the inspirations and motivation which help themselves to overcome obstacles that the pandemic has brought to businesses. Since then, leaders need to alter ways of leading an organisation in order to have appropriate plans and specific solutions for them to solve problems of their own corporations. A wise leader should find out the most relevant leadership trend for themselves which brings the most benefits for their own companies. 

In the sharing, Prof. Pieter Jan Perrett introduced the authoritarian leadership trend, a leadership style that associates with well-known business leaders such as: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos, … admired by a lot of people. We cannot deny plenty of advantages which authoritarian leadership trend brings the success of large corporations in the world like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon. However, there were some downsides in this way of leadership, for example, easily leading to the struggles in points of view and the wrath among members in a group, or the authoritarian nature of leaders can eliminate creative solutions for many issues, so this feature will “harm” the success of the whole team. 

To help the students have a more multidimensional view, Prof. Pieter Jan Perrett together with attendants analyse a case study of Rocket Internet Corporation from Germany. With an extremely strict leadership of Samwer brother: Marc – Oliver – Alexander. In the position of CEO, they are always willing to get in touch with customers to understand what their customers need. Therefore, this feature is also one of the key factors that helps Rocket Internet become the “empire” of E-commerce during the last 2 decades when they have extended the business model throughout the world through the establishment of many companies, especially Lazada, Zalora, or Foodpanda, … under a variety of forms from E-commerce to traditional trading.

Nevertheless, besides the success of the first days, Rocket Internet starts to fall down due to some reasons, for instance, the difficulties in leadership principles, more especially the strategy of Oliver Samwer named “You will not want me to come” has become an obsession for many employees of this corporation, with the reason of not being fond of employees’ attitudes and working ability, Oliver laid off a numerous labourers. Besides, the management of many companies has led to a massive recruitment in high-level positions, inexperienced leaders being put in the wrong position has resulted in the decline of Rocket Internet. One more reason why many employees do not actually associate with Rocket Internet is that the company rarely pays stock to employees in the company, Even for the outstanding individuals who bring huge success to many company’s projects. 

In general, there is no leadership trend bringing completely effective solutions to the business. However, leaders should observe the downsides of ways of leading which they have been using and figure out the crucial solutions in order to get the maximum efficiency. 

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