How To Be A Dynamic Leader During Changing Times
There are various traits proven to be conducive to effective leadership, but I believe that adaptability is one of the most important. An ever-changing working world calls for equally dynamic leadership-especially amid recent macro events like the Covid-19 pandemic, the fluctuating economy and complicated geopolitics.
As leaders, we need to be able to adapt our approach to reflect these changes while upholding the fundamentals of a healthy, vibrant workplace. In my experience, doing this requires a fluid approach that blends transparency, agility, creativity and empowerment.
Reflecting On The Past (And Present)
Dynamic leadership may seem like the antithesis of reflection, as the latter usually involves long periods of looking back rather than planning for an uncertain future. However, to properly instill adaptability in your workplace culture, it’s important to first understand the weaknesses, deficiencies and outdated methods currently in place that can undermine that value.
Take time to reflect on your current leadership approach and how it has translated to your workplace’s readiness to embrace change. While every leader’s style is slightly different, you should broadly identify the fields that could be improved in terms of variables like modeled behavior, internal planning and engagement and ongoing employee development.
Empowering Your Workers
Worker empowerment-a partial offshoot of the reflection phase-also plays an important role in finding the path to a more adaptable workplace. Your employees are the backbone of your business goals and aspirations, so actively seek out opportunities to better equip them for a more dynamic work ideology.
Don’t simply tell your workers to become comfortable with rapid change; take steps to implement necessary training, create avenues for transparent feedback and communicate evolving goals and expectations. In my experience, having reliable personnel makes it easier for a business to navigate turbulent times and keep internal focus on both its overarching goals and the well-being of its staff.
Building A Culture Of Resiliency
In addition to general empowerment and transparency, seek to instill a culture of resiliency and composure in the face of uncertainty. An important element of creating this culture is to lead by example, demonstrating to your team what it means to be resilient in both practical workplace planning and personal demeanor. Seek to embody levelheadedness, optimism and productivity, even during your company’s most challenging periods. I have found that this can help leaders circumvent harmful groupthink amongst staff, mitigate unneeded stress and keep the workplace forward-focused and capable of formulating innovative solutions.
Staying Consistent
Once you have established a well-rounded, dynamic leadership approach, it is important to remain consistent with those values. As technology, infrastructure and society accelerate toward ambitious new horizons, you can treat your workplace as a microcosm of this journey, consistently encouraging your team to find new ways to expand, learn and improve. Inconsistency and uncertainty could undercut your hard work, alienate your staff and ultimately render your vision performative and unviable.
At its core, dynamic leadership is the middle ground between urgency and empathy, past and future, speed and stagnation. Adaptable leadership can allow you to strike this balance and build a fast-paced yet cohesive work environment, better leading your team into the unknown.
Originally published at https://www.forbes.com.
About Dylan Taylor
Dylan Taylor is a global business leader, commercial astronaut, thought leader and philanthropist. Currently, Dylan serves as Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space exploration firm focused on building the next generation of space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies.
Dylan has been recognized by Harvard University, SpaceNews, the BBC, the Financial Times, Pitchbook,CNBC, CNN and others as having played a seminal role in the growth of the private space industry. As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging space ventures, including Axiom, Kepler, York, Astrobotic, LeoLabs, Relativity, and Planet, Dylan is widely considered the most active private space investor in the world.
Dylan’s technical background, global business experience and unbridled passion for space make him a unique figure within his industry. As a thought leader and futurist, he has written many popular pieces on the future of the space industry for Forbes, FastCompany, Newsweek, SpaceNews, The Space Review, and Space.com. As a speaker, Dylan has keynoted many of the major space conferences around the world and has appeared regularly on Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNBC.
Dylan has extensive global business experience as both a board director and CEO in several industries, including advanced electronics, finance and real estate. He previously served as a Director for UMB Bank, a Fortune 500 company based in Kansas City and as a mutual fund director for the Jackson Funds where he oversaw assets of $8B across 130 distinct funds. He has also served in the roles of CEO, President and Board Director for multinational companies like Prudential PLC, Honeywell, Colliers and Jones Lang LaSalle. Dylan was recognized as a Fortune 1000 CEO with P&L responsibility in excess of $3B and operations encompassing 15,000 employees in over 60 countries. In addition, Dylan has participated in 4 IPOs over the course of his career.
Dylan is a leading advocate of space manufacturing and the utilization of in-space resources to further space exploration and settlement. In 2017, he became the first private citizen to manufacture an item in space when the gravity meter he co-designed and commissioned was 3D printed on the International Space Station. The historic item is now housed in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Dylan is an explorer of note. On December 11th, 2021 Dylan became just the 606th human to go to space as part of the crew of Blue Origin’s NewShepard Mission 19. Accordingly, Dylan earned his commercial astronaut wings with the FAA and his universal astronaut wings from the Association of Space Explorers.
He is also one of only a handful of humans to have descended to the deepest part of the world’s oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench as part of the Limiting Factor Expedition in July of 2022. In that mission, Dylan descended with pilot Victor Vescovo to a depth in excess of 10,800 meters (35,500 feet) into an area of the Mariana Trench that had never been visited by humans. Dylan is the youngest human to have been to the deepest part of the world’s oceans and crossed the Karman line into Space. Dylan has been a member of the Explorers Club since 2014.
Dylan maintains an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Dylan founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems. Space for Humanity has successfully sent two citizen astronauts to space via Blue Origin including both the first Mexican-born woman (Katya Echazareta), and first African-born woman (Sara Sabry). Building upon his passion and support for the space industry, Dylan serves as a strategic advisor for both the Archmission and the Human Spaceflight Program and is a co-founding patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which promotes the growth of commercial space activity. Additionally, he is also a leading benefactor to the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and Mission: Astro Access.
Dylan is the founder and Chairman of Multiverse Media, an integrated global media company focused on science and technology, with an emphasis on space. Multiverse is the parent company of the popular space philosophy website 2211.world as well as the Ad Astra Dinners, a Jeffersonian-style dinner series featuring some of the world’s leading influencers discussing the future of humanity in space. Another subsidiary of Multiverse Media, Multiverse Publishing, publishes books by leading authors including Frank White, Isaac Asimov and Gerard K. O’Neill. Multiverse is also the executive producer of the documentary film, The High Frontier and the forthcoming film, Fortitude.
For his influence as a global leader and his commitment to creating a positive impact on the world, Dylan has been honored with numerous personal and professional accolades in recent years. The World Economic Forum recognized Dylan as a Young Global Leader in 2011 and a full member of the World Economic Forum in 2014. That same year he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. In 2020, Dylan was recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following in the footsteps of 2019’s inaugural winner, the late Paul Allen
and subsequent winners Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Dylan Taylor earned an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and holds a BS in Engineering from the honors college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated Tau Beta Pi and in 2018 was named Alumnus of the year. He is also a graduate of the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century program at Harvard University.
Dylan and his family reside in Denver, Colorado where he is active locally with Colorado Concern and theColorado Spaceport. In his spare time, Dylan enjoys hiking, competing in triathlons and spending time outdoors. As a weekend warrior athlete, Dylan has more than 25 top ten finishes and 25 age group wins to his credit, and he regularly interviews world class athletes whom have shown extraordinary resilience as the host of the Legendary Podcast. He is married to legal expert, consultant and author Gabrielle V. Taylor with whom he has two teenage daughters.
