Health Transformation Institute (HTI)
Joaquim Cardoso MSc.*
Chief Researcher and Editor
November 5, 2022
(* MSc from London Business School — MIT Sloan Programme)
Executive experience scores are dropping
Future Forum
October 2022
Between August 2021 and August 2022, executives’ employee sentiment and experience scores have precipitously dropped, while remaining relatively flat or slightly rising for non-executives.
The downward trend in C-suite sentiment is present among executives at small and midsize businesses, but it’s even more pronounced among executives at larger “enterprise” organizations of 1,000 employees or greater.
Parsing the data further by job level reveals that team leaders are struggling.
- While executives have shown the deepest declines in Pulse index scores over the past year, they’re still reporting the highest scores overall, compared with senior executives, middle managers, and individual contributors.
- The leaders with the lowest overall scores for sentiment and experience are middle managers, particularly middle managers at enterprise-level companies, who show the lowest scores for work-life balance along with the highest levels of stress and anxiety.
So what’s driving this decline in experience for leaders?
- Executives and team leaders are facing new challenges caused by shifting workplace expectations and norms.
“In times of disruption, leaders can either lean in and learn new skills or fall back on what worked for them — often decades ago.
Given macroeconomic stress, it’s understandable that many want to go back to what worked in the past.
But two generations of digital natives have now entered the workplace.
Workforces are more diverse, and there’s an accelerating pace of change and competition.
That means that the job of leaders must change as well. And change, for everyone, can be daunting.”
Brian Elliott, the Executive Leader of Future Forum
… the job of leaders must change as well. And change, for everyone, can be daunting.”
Names mentioned:
Brian Elliott, the Executive Leader of Future Forum
Slack;
mlt;
bcg;
millerknoll
How to cite this report
Fall 2022 Future Forum Pulse, https://futureforum.com/research/pulse -report-fall-2022-executives-feel-strain -leading-in-new-normal/
