Leadership Agility: Developing Strategic Leadership in Unilever

Running head: LEADERSHIP AGILITY
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Leadership Agility
Institution
Student
Date

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Development of Strategic Leadership Agility Practice
Introduction
We are living in a gradually more interconnected and multifaceted world, where eminence
attention to external and internal strategic allies, customers, and other stakeholders is vital for
business success. Whilst certain future developments are becoming harder to forecast, there are
two profound trends as managers we can forecast with immense conviction: The rapidity of
change shall keep on increasing, and the level of interdependence and complication shall
continue to grow. For over a decade, organizational change specialists, highly receptive to these
influential trends, have been talking about the necessity to develop “agile” corporations —
organizations which foresee and react swiftly to changing conditions by leveraging exceedingly
productive external and internal relationships (McKenzie, & Aitken, 2012). In order to develop
organizations and teams with the level of agility required by present day’s tumultuous business
environments, companies require leaders who embody an equivalent level of agility (Aitken,
2019). It is no wonder, then, that higher-ranking leaders have positioned agility amongst the
most vital leadership competencies looked-for in their firms today. Leadership agility in essence,
refers to the capability to lead efficiently under situations of hasty change and increasing
complexity (Bill Pasmore & CMC, 2010). Since these trends impinge on all levels of
management, I tend to think that this is a competency that is even more required not simply in
the managerial suite but throughout the organization.

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Unilever Company leadership case study and its strategic challenges for remaining ‘fit for
future purpose’
The terminology “strategic challenges” is used to refer to those difficulties which put forth an
influential pressure on a company’s possibility of future success (Kunisch, Keil, Boppel, &
Lechner, 2019). Such pressures often are driven by a firm’s future competitive situation in
relation to other providers of similar goods and services. Whilst not entirely so, strategic
challenges in general; are outwardly driven. Nonetheless, in reacting to outwardly driven
strategic challenges, a company might encounter internal strategic difficulties. External strategic
challenges might affect market or customer needs or anticipations; technological or product
changes; or social, economic, and other needs or risks (Dahl, & Rasmussen, 2018). Internal
strategic pressures can affect a corporation’s abilities or its human resources and other
possessions.
Unilever Company is among the organizations facing immense strategic challenges. This
company is encountering a sequence of strategic challenges ranging from the battle for talent to
questions over sustainable business and the mounting menace of disruptors and direct-to-
consumer brands. Unilever former CEO, Paul Polman’s pronouncement to retire after ten years
at the control of the company comes in the middle of increasing challenges for the Fast-moving
consumer goods (FMCG) industry as consumer trends shift and future growth emerges harder to
find (). After taking a closer look across the entire industry I have noted that numerous world’s
leading firms have changed the individual at the senior level in the last couple of years, from
Mondelēz to PepsiCo, Kellogg to the Nestlé Company. That appears in the midst of an
environment of slothful development in the consumer goods sector and increasing competition
from smaller and newer brands. Every eye has now turned to Alan Jope (a marketer) to navigate

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political and economic uncertainties, disruptor pressures at the same time maintaining profit
targets and improving growth in Unilever (Fleming, 2019).
Discussed below are the key strategic challenges Jope has been facing since he assumed office
on January 1st this year.
Paul Polman’s sustainability legacy: After a decade as CEO it is a disgrace Polman’s legacy
has been affected by the substandard effort to strengthen the company’s headquarters. Even
though Unilever is obdurate this is not the cause of his departure it undoubtedly hastened his
retirement and many shall remember Paul Polman for his botched endeavor to change Unilever’s
dual-ownership configuration and shift its headquarters to the Netherlands. A longer-lasting
legacy shall be his dedication to sustainability, which was the main focal point for Polman all
through his term as CEO. He constantly supported a kinder capitalism and under his leadership
the corporation formed the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in 2010. The strategy embarked on
determined targets on environment, health, and work, including bisecting the firm’s water
consumption by 2020. That time limit is now almost over. Unilever has accomplished some of its
obligations already but some of them are further off, for instance the corporation’s present water
impact per consumer use has only diminished by approximately 2% from 2010. Unilever has
continually championed for the company impact of sustainability, not simply its environmental
and societal impact. However, the Kraft Heinz’s 2017 attempt to acquire Unilever shows it has
not completely won that argument. Jope, the new CEO shall without a doubt have his individual
unique infatuation points, although environmental obligations have to be fulfilled or surpassed in
order to maintain consumers on side. More than ever the publics are scrutinizing corporation’s
sustainable decisions and two years down the line, Jope shall have to push the company to make
sure it fulfils every target promised (Fleming, 2018).