6.8 Trends in Management and Leadership
- What trends will affect management in the future?
Three key trends in management today are crisis management, technological advancements, and the increasing need for global management skills.
Crisis Management
Crises, both internal and external, can hit even the best-managed organization. Sometimes organizations can anticipate crises, in which case managers develop contingency plans, and sometimes they can’t. Take, for example, the sudden death of McDonald’s CEO Jim Cantalupo. The company had a solid succession plan in place and immediately named Charlie Bell as new CEO. Only a few months later, Bell announced that he had terminal cancer. Even though the company had prepared for the event of its leader’s untimely death, surely it couldn’t have anticipated that his successor would also be stricken by a terminal illness at almost the same time. Likewise, consider the devastation caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles in 2025 or the flooding and mudslides in North Carolina as a result of Tropical Storm Helene in 2024. Part of crisis management plans at hotels, for example, could include relaxing "no pets" policies to allow customers needing shelter as a result of a natural disaster to keep their pets with them in the hotel.19
Crises cannot be fully anticipated, but managers can develop contingency plans to help navigate through the aftermath of a disaster. For example, consider the challenges that faced Rajiv Joseph, the author of several plays including Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, who was in Houston preparing to open his new play, Describe the Night, at the Alley Theatre when Hurricane Harvey hit and flooded the theater a few weeks prior to opening night. The six New York–based actors, the director, the stage manager, and Joseph decided to help in the relief efforts and made their way to the George Brown Convention Center, which had become the central location for relief efforts. When they arrived and the staffers discovered they were theater artists, they were deployed to handle the writing and deployment of public address announcements and manage the incoming crowds. What made the relief efforts successful was planning—matching the skill sets of volunteers with tasks they are best able to perform.20 Even though those in charge of the relief efforts had contingency plans, they still needed to make dozens of nonprogrammed decisions to effectively manage the ever-changing situation.21
No manager or executive can be completely prepared for these types of unexpected crises. However, how a manager responds to the situation can mean the difference between being able to survive the crisis or disaster versus not being able to recover from the event and the business eventually ceasing to operate. No matter the crisis, there are some basic guidelines managers should follow to minimize negative outcomes. Managers should not become immobilized by the problem or ignore it. Managers should face the problem head on. Managers should always tell the truth about the situation and then put the best people on the job to correct the problem. Managers should ask for help if they need it, and finally, managers must learn from the experience to avoid the same problem in the future.22 Table 6.6 describes what CEOs and other leaders learned about crisis management.
Managers and Advances in Technology
The second trend having a major impact on managers is the proliferation of data and analytics in information technology. An increasing number of organizations are selling technology, and an increasing number are looking for cutting-edge technology to make and market the products and services they sell. One particularly useful type of technology is AI (artificial intelligence). AI is being utilized across industries—from education, to healthcare, to manufacturing. Customer service "bots" are now used to solve many complaints from customers. AI assistance is used to screen résumés quickly and to facilitate onboarding activities to enhance recruiting efficiencies and reduce costs. The technology assists healthcare workers with routine administrative tasks such as billing and scheduling. AI tutors are assisting teachers and students alike. Overall, AI technologies are impacting employee productivity as tools continue to be developed to assist employees with work tasks.
| Lessons Leaders Learned about Managing Crises | |
|---|---|
| Howard Schultz former chairman, Starbucks |
Learn from one crisis at a time. After the Seattle earthquake of 2001, the company invested in a notification system that could handle text messaging. The night before Hurricane Katrina hit, Starbucks sent out 2,300 phone calls to associates in the region, telling them about available resources. |
| Mary Barra CEO, General Motors |
Redirect efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Barra was able to mobilize the company to redirect their options to producing much-needed hospital ventilators. This move was critical for the health care system, but also kept the company earning money. |
| J. W. Marriott former CEO, Marriott |
Communicate for safety. Marriott moved its email system out of New Orleans before Katrina hit. As a result, employees were able to communicate with each other and vendors to get food and water to affected areas. A massive publicity campaign helped the company find 2,500 of its 2,800 people in the region. |
| Sonja Syngal former CEO, Gap |
Listen to your people. To better understand employees in the retail sector of their business, Syngal started company-wide "listening tours" so that she could better understand the challenges they were facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| Ann Mulcahy former CEO, Xerox |
Forge a turnaround. Xerox was in serious debt and near bankruptcy when Ann Mulcahy was appointed CEO. She went to work to turn the company around by instituting cost-cutting measures and focusing on product innovations. Company net income went from around $90 million to over $850 million in one year. |
| Cynt Marshall former CEO, Dallas Mavericks |
Make meaningful change. Marshall took over when the organization was under scrutiny for workplace harassment and sexual misconduct issues. Her mission was clear: transform the culture and rebuild the organization's image. She navigated the public image crises while maintaining profitability. |
Such integrated functionality made dashboards extremely popular. A Gartner commentary suggests that companies put data and analytics at the heart of every company business decision.23 Despite the increasing popularity of dashboard technology, the control tool has some drawbacks, such as focusing too intently on short-term results and ignoring the overall progress toward long-term goals. And some employees might bristle at being monitored as closely as dashboard tools allow.
Nonetheless, companies are seeing real results from implementing dashboard software. Robert Romanoff, an estate planning partner and past managing partner at the Chicago law firm Levenfeld Pearlstein, uses dashboards that aggregate client and firm data to guide decision-making.24
Managing Multinational Cultures
The increasing globalization of the world market has created a need for managers who have global management skills, that is, the ability to operate in diverse cultural environments. With more and more companies choosing to do business in multiple locations around the world, employees are often required to learn the geography, language, and social customs of other cultures. It is expensive to train employees for foreign assignments and pay their relocation costs; therefore, choosing the right person for the job is especially important. Individuals who are open minded, flexible, willing to try new things, and comfortable in a multicultural setting are good candidates for international management positions.
As companies expand around the globe, managers will continue to face the challenges of directing the behavior of employees around the world. They must recognize that because of cultural differences, people respond to similar situations in very different ways. The burden, therefore, falls on the manager to produce results while adapting to the differences among the employees they manage.
How a manager gets results, wins respect, and leads employees varies greatly among countries, cultures, and individuals. For example, different cultures have different approaches to time. Many western countries such as the United States and Germany view time in a linear pattern where the past leads to the future. There is an emphasis on goal setting and progress. Alternatively, some Indigenous cultures view time as more cyclical, with an eye toward the interconnectedness of events. The focus is on continuity and a sense of patience as time evolves through seasons. A U.S. manager with a linear view of time will approach scheduling planning with a different approach than colleagues with a multi-active or cyclic approach.25 Despite differences such as these (examples of which can be cited for every country in the world), managing within a different culture is only an extension of what managers do every day: working with differences in employees, processes, and projects.
Concept Check
- How can information technology aid in decision-making?
- What are three principles of managing multinational cultures?
- Describe several guidelines for crisis management.