Executive Briefing Series on “Leadership in Times of Disruption and Crisis”

OVERVIEW

“The world faces significant disruption and increasingly urgent global challenges affecting individuals, families, organizations, governments, and society. This VUCAD-driven (volatility, uncertainty, complexity,  ambiguity, and disruptive) era brings new complexities, opportunities, and risks for businesses. Today’s businesses face unprecedented challenges operating in a VUCAD (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and disruptive) global environment that demands a more cohesive support structure for leaders who face crises of increasing magnitude and frequency and, sometimes, multiple crisis events simultaneously.

The right leadership is critical for organizations to successfully resolve insurmountable challenges in any crisis event. Leaders must learn, unlearn, and relearn effective crisis leadership.”

– Sattar Bawany,

Author, The Making of a C.R.I.S.I.S. Leader (2025), Business Expert Press LLC, New York, NY, ISBN 9781637427842

In recent years, the world has witnessed a plethora of fundamental crises and challenges, including, but not limited to, the COVID-19 pandemic, transformative megatrends including disruptive technological innovations such as gen AI, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which has undermined core principles of international law, and the genocidal campaign by Israel in Gaza; climate change impacts leading to extreme weather events, and a growing economic strain due to rising inflation and interest rates; all of which are contributing to significant humanitarian needs worldwide.

These crises and challenges can be characterized as both “permacrisis” (a prolonged state of crisis) and “polycrisis” (a confluence of multiple interconnected crises) which are all taking place within the context of global instability, fragmentation, and polarisation, with war as a means of politics returning and ‘my country first’ becoming a strong political feature in many parts of the world, despite the need to tackle the common global challenges we face (Bawany 2025).

“Permacrisis” is a term that perfectly embodies the dizzying sense of lurching from one unprecedented event to another as we wonder bleakly what new horrors might be around the corner. When present and future risks interact with each other, the result is the formation of a “Polycrisis” which can be viewed as a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part.

In the face of these unprecedented challenges, effective leadership plays a critical role in navigating complex and challenging environments. These situations demand a nuanced and adaptable approach to leadership that emphasizes resilience, strategic thinking, and collaborative problem-solving, which forms part of the “cognitive readiness” suite of competencies.

This Executive Briefing Series will include the latest research on the best practices for leading the organization and teams during times of crisis and disruption in an environment characterized by rapid and continual disruption, organizations which are published in the latest book The Making of a C.R.I.S.I.S. Leader (2025).

At the end of the session, the participants will be able to develop their understanding of the following:

  1. What are the leadership lessons from past decades on how leaders respond successfully to crises?
  2. What future mega-disruptive forces will lead to crises that may potentially impact organizations’ supply chains and business sustainability plans?
  3. How can organizations develop future-ready crisis leaders by leveraging the best practice “C.R.I.S.I.S.” Leadership Model that outlines the critical skills and competencies that leaders demonstrate effectively during times of crisis?

How can boards, CEOs, and senior leadership teams successfully navigate the challenges posed by crises by adopting the best practice, the “5-Step Crisis Management Planning & Strategy” framework?

BRIEF PROFILE OF KEYNOTE SPEAKER – PROF SATTAR BAWANY

Professor Sattar Bawany is the CEO of Disruptive Leadership Institute (DLI) LLC, New York, and the  C-Suite Certified Master Executive Coach of the Centre for Executive Education Pte Ltd.

He has 35 years of international business management experience, including 25 years in executive coaching, group facilitation, and leadership development and training with global management consulting firms.  He has over 25 years of concurrent academic experience as an Adjunct Professor at various leading universities and currently serves as a Professor of Practice in Disruptive Leadership and Digital Transformation with the European International University – Paris (EIU). He is also a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council.

CEO Weekly magazine in its October 2, 2023 Edition, named Prof Sattar Bawany alongside Dr Marshall Goldsmith and Tony Robbins as the top 15 exceptional executive coaches who have had a major influence in leadership development and coaching.

He was recognized as one of the “Top 10 Best CEOs in Singapore” by CEO Insights Asia magazine in 2023. He was honored with the “2019 Executive of the Year for Human Resources Consulting” award during the 2019 Singapore Business Review (SBR) Management Excellence Awards.

Prof Bawany is an accomplished author and has published an extensive series of articles and books on leadership. His book “Transforming NextGen Leaders: Meeting the Leadership Challenges in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0)” was published in July 2019 by Business Expert Press (BEP). His second book entitled “Leadership in Disruptive Times” (2020) also published by BEP examines the best practices approaches and tools for meeting the leadership challenges in a disruptive, VUCA, and digital-driven workplace. The revised edition of “Leadership in Disruptive Times: Negotiating the New Balance” was published in April 2023.

Prof Bawany’s latest book “The Making of a C.R.I.S.I.S. Leader” (Business Expert Press, 2025) is scheduled to be released globally in 1st quarter of 2025.

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