Effective Leadership for 21st Century Organisations
Effective Leadership for the host of challenges that face modern organisations.
Leaders are facing a new set of challenges due to; Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA). Due to changes in the world of work such as hybrid and remote working leaders need to work more collaboratively. Certain Leadership behaviours and capabilities are required to be enacted more to help teams navigate the uncertainty and change to increase engagement and enhance a greater connectedness and collaborative working approach.
At Real World Group we believe that how a leader behaves is just as important as the competencies, skills and experience they bring. We have found that day-to-day behaviour is what maximises performance in a sustainable way – especially in uncertain and highly pressurised times. As you will know many of the most popular leadership assessments are decades old, not well-researched, and not fit for purpose in today’s ever-changing environment.
We are already seeing the disastrous effects of man-made climate change and many CEO’s and C-Suite leaders are actively involved in social issues, re-thinking how they lead and manage, their people, supply chains, stakeholders when evaluating a company’s sustainability.
Leaders must place the morale and wellbeing of all their employees centre stage, not simply on moral grounds, but because they are the very means of achieving success.


The evidence is clear that a culture of psychological safety provides a rich environment for generating ideas, innovation, learning, sharing information and expertise, flexibility and agility in response to change.
Since leaders, particularly those in the most senior positions, either create or inhibit such a culture, this approach is central to how they must lead. What is needed are simple and, to a large extent, common-sense behaviours, but at the same time they are the enactment of essential values, beliefs and attitudes of managers.
“Successful leaders leverage extraordinary performance through simple behaviours that engage people. Those who fail to appreciate their impact on others squander talent and potential every day”
Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe, Founding Director
Sadly, these behaviours are far too often missing in the culture of organisations. Our evidence suggests that they can, however, be learned. Going forward, organisations should both ensure that they are embedded in the DNA of what is expected of leaders, and provide leaders with the opportunity to reflect on and develop the extent to which they enact these behaviours. Through this, a true culture of psychological safety can be created so that individuals, organisations, and the customers or communities they serve can thrive.
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How we can help.
There are numerous ways in which businesses have changed how they provide services and care for both the people and planet and undertake their roles. At Real World Group we work with organisations, individual leaders, teams and boards to help enhance leadership behaviours increasing, wellbeing, productivity and reducing on the job stress. Real World Group leadership assessments are highly respected and utilised around the world.
They have been proven to increase performance, enable organisations to achieve more with less, improve wellbeing and engagement, innovation, collaboration and many other key factors in success.
Significant changes, such as those on hybrid and remote team working create more demands on the leadership required in this time of extraordinary and unpredictable challenges, requires a more complex model than being supportive, consultative, and inclusive, although they are indisputably essential for creating a climate of psychological safety.


Other Private Sector leadership demands include:
- How to unite employees behind a shared vision?
- How do you address the workforce, eg) Selection, recruitment and retention, to thrive in the new world of work?
- Can you demonstrate your Bcorp is well led?
- How do you build and develop the resilience in leaders to navigate the new world of work?
- How to ensure Diversity and Inclusion is an organisational priority?
- How to encourage continuous improvement & innovation?
- How to empower people effectively?
- How to develop the future generation of Talent?
- How to encourage readiness for change/change readiness/innovation?
- How to strengthen team adaptability to change?
- How to understand which leadership behaviours you need to enact more of?
- How to future proof your People Strategy?
- How to strengthen team potency (confidence to cope with pressure and achieve goals)
- How to increase collaboration between hybrid, remote teams or other groups of stakeholders inside or external to the business?
Fact Box
In 89% of UK businesses hybrid working will be permanent.
Robert Half, 2021
How are you embedding hybrid working changes in a collaborative manner that supports all of the organisation fairly? How are you supporting your staff to remain “connected” to their teams and organisation? How can you be sure you get hybrid working right?
In a rapidly-changing world out tools help your leaders and teams achieve greater, more sustainable performance through innovative, engaged employees and high change readiness.
We have a strong reputation for excellence in understanding what kind of leadership, governance and team working is required in today’s challenging world worked with a very wide variety of private sector organisations, and having been invited to present at many national conferences.
Selection of Real World Group clients












“As a highly successful business present in multiple countries, we looked for exactly the right behavioural-based and proven tool to help us understand our leadership culture and ensure we maintain the most effective approach going forward. We selected Real World Group and the TLQ 360 to work with as their evidence-based approach clearly demonstrates how leaders can ensure their people can fulfil their full potential for performance while enhancing their motivation and wellbeing. A range of senior colleagues completed the TLQ 360 and found it a very valuable process in increasing their understanding of how they lead and the impact it has. I would wholeheartedly recommend Real World Group if like us you are looking to foster an empowered culture that is right for the 21st century world of work.”
Paul Aldrich – Partner | People, Performance and Marketing
Pemberton Capital Advisors LLP
A Selection of Private Leadership challenges we can enhance and improve
- We understand the very real challenge of adapting to the new world of work and we might help you to ensure exactly what to focus on in order to create and enhance your hybrid, Integrated and fully remote teams.
- We can help you to maximise the potential of the whole workforce by enhancing engagement, innovation, efficiency and leadership capacity across your organisation. Increasing organisational resilience and growth to build capacity and capability.
- To ensure that your leaders are equipped for an uncertain future and new demands through development and culture enhancement programmes.
- We provide a highly effective and refreshingly different way to develop your teams. Rather than relying on personality-based self-assessment and introspection as a means of understanding the team, it gathers a wide range of feedback to enable teams as a collective to assess their behaviours based on contemporary understanding of how high performing teams operate.
- The impact of the pandemic on the workforce, eg) Selection, recruitment and retention, coaching and development to develop and build capacity. To thrive in the new world of work, selecting & promoting leaders based on the right behaviours is critical.
- We might assess individuals leadership behaviours that are key to readiness for change, innovation, team connectedness and dealing with uncertainty.
- Given how strongly Executive Teams influence the leadership culture of their organisation, it is essential they reflect on their collective. We can deliver a true multi-source feedback for assessing and developing your Executive Team as a collective.
- Leader behaviour is the key to organisational success and a leader’s behaviour makes the all difference in a team’s performance, significantly more than their competencies or personality preference. We might focus on how leaders behave is particularly essential right now, in an era of major disruption and reinvention of how we work together.
- Ensuring you level the playing field for recruitment and internal promotions and reduce bias, D&I benefits of the RWL – Selection – Real World Group (realworld-group.com)
Real World Group assessments are highly respected and utilised around the world. They have been proven to increase performance, enable organisations to achieve more with less, improve wellbeing and engagement, innovation, collaboration and many other key factors in success .
Talk to us about what your organisation needs, and we’ll be happy to assist you in fully engaging your potential.