24 Mar 2025

Five leadership behaviours to get you through difficult times

Remember, 'Smooth seas don’t make good sailors.'

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Written by Andy Dawson, director and co-founder of Curium Solutions Ltd

This week the Chancellor will present her spring statement, which will be followed by April’s tax increases, when there will be an inevitable squeeze on businesses.

Some sectors will feel it more than others, as business leaders are faced with rising costs in an uncertain market.

It is a dilemma that will have been discussed in boardrooms all over the country in recent months. What do we do? How do we react? What will our customers say?

In recent times we have navigated financial crises, Brexit, the pandemic and geopolitical uncertainty, so we are accustomed to many challenges.

One thing that differentiates successful leadership teams, is how they react in times of adversity.

Yes, there is a time and a place for managing costs, but winning businesses seem to thrive in uncertainty, working out how to be at the front of the queue when things settle down, rather than sitting it out on the sidelines.

So, as we enter what could be an uncertain few months, we encourage you to remember these five key behaviours:

1 Focus on communication

Not just with customers, but especially with your own teams.

Engage them in the challenges and opportunities, whilst also seeking their ideas and input.

A 'people first' approach will reap long-term benefits by fostering a culture of continuous learning, feedback, and collaboration.

This ensures that people feel valued and capable of contributing to the organisation's success. Effective communication builds trust, and we know that a high trust environment reduces stress, increases engagement and improves productivity.

2 Prioritise critical areas

Focus on areas that will be crucial to your future success. When times are good, budgets and change initiatives can grow legs and arms. This is the time to home in on key priorities and commit to those. It's not a time for hobby or vanity projects, it is time for relentless focus on what matters, especially your people.

3 Execute with discipline

Where you continue to invest, focus on the execution and delivery of key projects and programmes, ensuring everyone concerned is 100 per cent focused on delivering to time, cost, and quality.

It’s crucial to align your teams, so they are crystal clear about what is expected of them. If you want to reduce uncertainty in the outside world, you need to reduce uncertainty in the business too.

4 Ensure the basics are in place

Not everything has to cost millions. For example, we recently helped one of our customers to boost the revenue in one of their teams significantly.

Just by sharpening up some fundamental performance management disciplines. No magic tricks, just embedding some brilliant basics.

5 Lead with intent

Stay calm and keep driving forward at pace and investing, as this presents you with an opportunity to lead for in the future.

And if the situation changes, adapt, quickly.

It may seem counterintuitive to accelerate in challenging times, but with the right mindset and behaviours, you can create some strategic advantages whilst others adopt a “wait and see strategy”.

How can Curium help you?

We help businesses navigate transformational change by putting people at the heart of our approach. Clear communication, strong leadership and project disciplines are key to successful navigating your plans.

With a practical, hands-on approach to working alongside you we help leaders and their teams to succeed, whatever challenges they face.