'Gen Z will bring in a fresh perspective on leadership': Top UAE CEO offers tips for aspiring leaders

The need for a new kind of leadership often arises in response to shifts in societal, economic, or technological landscapes. As we navigate complex global challenges such as climate change, technological disruption, and recovering from a pandemic, traditional leadership models may prove insufficient. So, is it time for a new kind of leadership?

This new leadership approach may emphasise collaboration, empathy, and the ability to navigate uncertainty and change effectively, argues Renée McGowan, chief executive officer, Marsh McLennan IMEA. McGowan, an Australian-born global citizen, has cultivated a 25-year career steering regional and international businesses across prominent cities worldwide.

Her insatiable thirst for knowledge and innovative approaches to strengthening human-to-human connections as a leader have culminated in her debut book, The Friday Email—88 Tips for Aspiring Leaders—at the heart of which lies her dedication to fostering the leaders of tomorrow.

In a deep-dive conversation with Khaleej Times, the CEO-turned-author delves into the importance of choosing mastery over success, the concept of slowing down to accelerate progress, and the pivotal role cognitive diversity will play in shaping business success in the years ahead.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

Q. How did you come up with the concept of the ‘Friday Email’?

I came up with it during Covid. It was a conversation with the team about how to manage in this environment where you can't meet people, when I had been used to travelling around all the countries and spending time with colleagues. It started off as an open conversation with the people that I was working with: How am I going to do this? How are we going to establish connections?

One of the ideas was to start with an email, but nobody wants another email, especially during Covid. Despite that, we decided to give it a try. One Friday, after I had been out for a run and was feeling quite euphoric, I recorded a little video. So the first one was actually a video. It received such a positive response that we decided to write again the following Friday, and then it just spiralled from there.

Q. As a business leader, what was the biggest emotional challenge you saw emerge in organisations during the pandemic?

The biggest thing when the pandemic hit was the stress that it caused everybody to have, for obvious reasons. But then when you add on to that employment stress, that's a whole other level of worries. I was very proud of our organisation; we came out very early in the pandemic and said that no colleague would lose their job at the peak of the pandemic globally. I wanted to reinforce that as well, so that colleagues knew that it doesn't matter if you're not doing the very best job you can right now; we know that you've got other things on your plate.

It was so they didn’t have to worry about their job on top of everything else they had to worry about, such as their family’s health, how their kids are going to school, and how people were struggling with getting food at different points. Part of it was to really remove that huge stressor that was there in terms of work uncertainty. And then it just moved into really positive messaging, which could uplift the teams.

Q. This is a really good example of empathetic leadership, which has been the need of the hour, especially since the pandemic. You speak in the book about how the leaders of tomorrow are going to be very different from the leaders of today. Could you walk me through that difference?

I have to say, it was our global CEO and president, Daniel S. Glaser at the time, who made that statement globally, setting a tone from the top. What the leadership and management does in an organisation sets a tone that then permeates throughout the entire organisation. And what Covid did, as I mentioned earlier, is that it really opened up this human-to-human connection.

It doesn't matter what your role is in the organisation or what level you're at; there's a human-to-human connection that we're all experiencing. This is what I think will be really impactful as we move forward because it will become easier to have more information at your fingertips, more decisions made through insights that are served up to you.

What's going to get harder, probably, is identifying what type of people you need, what type of skills you need, and how to develop people and skills. That's going to require this human-to-human connection and empathy, which will be critical for tomorrow's leaders.

Tomorrow's leader won't be able to just ask the person they're closest to for one perspective. Our issues will become far more complex, and we're going to need diverse perspectives — cognitive diversity, cultural diversity, all of those pieces. This was a huge realisation for me.

I thought I had a diverse team around me. But there was this aha moment; we were an awesome team, the most fun, high-performing team I've ever had. But it reached a point where we actually realised we were going to be limited in our high performance because we all thought the same. And that’s why we enjoyed working together.

Q. How can leaders cultivate cognitive diversity in their team?

This is why I specifically talk about cognitive diversity in the book as well because it's far more challenging as a leader to surround yourself with people who think differently than you. It feels uncomfortable, challenging, and new. And sometimes it probably would be easier and a bit more fun to have people around you who reinforce what you're thinking.

You could even laugh along, and maybe things would move quicker. Whereas surrounding yourself with people who think differently means you're going to have to talk through things because you'll have different perspectives. That can be a very different challenge for a leader but in the long-run, this is what will really determine the growth of the team.

Q. How do you define professional growth?

It's about constant learning. I believe that if you come to work one day and there isn't anything new to learn, you should start thinking about your next move. I've been with the organisation for 22 years, and literally, every day, I'm still learning something new. So, for me, growth really revolves around that continual learning process. What you want to do is absorb as much knowledge as possible and also learn how to ask good questions, so you can gather more information.

Q. In the book, you also mention that there's space for everyone to win. In a competitive professional setting, it often feels the opposite of that...

There's more than enough room for everybody to win because we're all going to thrive in different ways. Even if two people are doing the same job, they'll approach it differently, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. So, it comes back to that diversity puzzle for me. Once you realise that everybody is different and will bring different skills and perspectives, there's more than enough room for everyone to thrive. This is why I also speak about the importance of cultivating an abundance mindset as an essential pillar of leadership.

Q. How can we cultivate an abundance mindset? What are the main challenges people still face when trying to adopt it?

An abundance mindset is related to a ‘growth mindset’ — how you think about opportunities as being almost infinite as opposed to a scarcity mindset, where you focus on the limitations. When you think like that, you think about opportunities being sliced like a pie, so some get larger slices, others get less. This constant fear of “not enough” breeds competition instead of collaboration. When one is naturally ambitious, there's often a tendency to equate personal success with others not being as successful by the same definition you have for success.

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