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Growing as a leader: 3 key considerations for young professionals

Article by Jacob VAKKAYIL – Academic Director of the Global MBA and Professor of Human Resources Management

01/07/2026

7 min

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Many young professionals with a few years of work experience feel the need to break the routine, and invest time and effort in their personal growth and developing leadership qualities.  This is often driven by the realization that technical expertise and personal performance do not always lead to effective team and company performance.

Moreover, in today’s world of interconnected markets and culturally diverse workforces, they also recognize they are unlikely to gain acceptance as leaders merely through the possession of formal authority. Leaders operating in companies working across borders must navigate complex organizational dynamics and cultural differences while inspiring teams and stakeholders to work toward common goals.

Pointers for young professionals

This makes it necessary to examine personal growth strategies in the light of broadened perspectives on business and management. Here are some pointers that provide a basis for young professionals embarking on this journey of personal growth and development.

1. Cultivating self-awareness

Effective global leadership invariably begins with a plan to develop deep self-awareness. Leaders and future leaders must take the time to identify their strengths, challenges, values, priorities and motivations. This involves asking themselves meaningful questions such as “What are my strengths?”, “Where do I belong?” and “What should I contribute?” and seeking honest, evidence-based answers. Such reflection is essential for managing oneself and for cultivating the authenticity and credibility needed to operate confidently in multicultural environments (Drucker, 2017).

Equally important is awareness of one’s “dark-side” traits. These are tendencies that, while coexisting with strengths like ambition, sociability, or intelligence, can become counterproductive if overused. These traits, if left unmanaged, may derail careers or harm organizations. Although personality traits are difficult to change in adulthood, leaders can mitigate risks by increasing self-awareness, seeking feedback, adjusting behaviors deliberately, and monitoring their reputation (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2017).

For example, the status-quo bias, the sunk-cost trap, and confirming-evidence trap (seeking evidence to confirm what we already think), all illustrate how mental shortcuts, though helpful in simplifying decisions, may lead to suboptimal outcomes.

By recognizing these tendencies, challenging assumptions, seeking diverse perspectives, and fostering cultures that reward sound decision processes, leaders can make more balanced, ethical, and effective choices (Hammond et al., 1998).

Locating oneself in a new context or situation can accelerate this process of self-discovery. This can take multiple forms. Very often young professionals find it beneficial to work in a different sector or function that they are familiar with. Another way to explore a new context is to actively seek opportunities for being involved in projects with team members who are vastly different from oneself. Further, they could also locate themselves physically in a new location with vastly different social and economic characteristics. In these novel situations habits can be challenged, thinking patterns can be identified and assumptions can be re-examined more easily than being immersed in routine jobs with established processes. Obviously, this is likely to generate some degree of discomfort that is inevitable in any serious attempt at self-discovery.

2. Exploring the context

Once this internal assessment is established, leaders can further expand their perspectives by directing their questioning outward, towards their organizational work environments, markets or the broader social context. This requires observing patterns and disruptions, identifying opportunities. Key questions can involve looking for the anomalies are observed in the market, and any emerging trends etc. (Sawhney & Khosla, 2014). For example, a marketing professional associated with a cosmetic company could pay attention to changing social values and attitudes to issues such as skin color in certain markets.

An additional layer of complexity arises from social diversities that young professionals will encounter when working in international environments. Exposure to new contexts involving unfamiliar cultural norms and managerial expectations will enrich contextual understanding and are likely to provide new patterns of analysis. The challenge here is to examine these differences with an open mind with a stance that is oriented to learning and self-critiques. Effective leaders acknowledge these differences and adapt their approaches across cultural boundaries (Meyer, 2017). Global exposure equips leaders with the ability to integrate diverse insights and make informed decisions that consider cultural and ethical dimensions.

Equally important for young professionals is understanding social dynamics within organizations. People often favor likability over competence, choosing “lovable fools” over “competent jerks.” While this can facilitate collaboration, it may limit access to critical expertise. Leaders can address this by fostering shared identities, leveraging well-liked individuals as connectors, and coaching skilled but less personable colleagues to improve relational effectiveness. Navigating these dynamics strategically encourages knowledge sharing and better organizational performance (Casciaro & Lobo, 2005).

The immediate context of the leader is likely to be defined by a team of close associates. Modern teams face added complexity: they are increasingly diverse, distributed across geographical boundaries, digitally connected, and dynamic.

Research identifies four critical conditions for successful teams: a compelling direction with meaningful goals, a robust structure encompassing skills, tasks, and norms, a supportive context providing resources and information, and a shared mindset that bridges gaps and prevents divisive “us vs. them” thinking. By reinforcing these conditions and regularly assessing alignment, leaders can enhance collaboration and performance even in challenging, high-pressure environments (Haas & Mortensen, 2016).

Consequently, global leaders must act as coordinators, guiding individuals with varied backgrounds and priorities. They cultivate psychological safety, clarify roles, foster trust, and navigate cultural and hierarchical differences, all while maintaining cohesion and a sense of shared purpose.

High-performing teams differ from ordinary working groups in their discipline and cohesion. They are small, focused units with complementary skills, a shared purpose, well-defined goals, collective accountability, and structured approaches to work. Unlike standard groups, teams generate results that exceed the sum of individual contributions. Team cohesion and effectiveness are influenced by factors such as appropriate team size, complementary skills, established early norms, and a focus on performance-driven tasks. (Katzenbach & Smith, 2005).

3. Developing agility 

By combining inward reflection with outward observation, leaders can build a solid foundation to anticipate challenges, respond strategically, and navigate their professional journeys with intentionality and insight. Effective leadership also requires aligning personal style with the context in which one operates.

Unlike relatively stable personality traits (such as extraversion, agreeableness etc.), leadership style is flexible and shaped by behavioral choices. These choices often fall into two categories: power and attractiveness.

While individuals naturally gravitate toward one style or a blend, successful leaders recognize their tendencies and adapt them to fit varying contexts and audiences. Growing as a leader, therefore, involves learning to “read the room,” adjusting behaviors to suit the situation, and expanding one’s repertoire of leadership approaches (Peterson et al., 2020). Imagine a leader who is capable of working across national contexts, and sectoral differences and who is able to manage highly diverse sets of stakeholders with multiple agenda. To be effective, this leader needs to be highly agile while maintaining a core set of personal values and a clear vision for the organization.

Ultimately, therefore, leadership effectiveness emerges from the ability to maintain coherence between one’s traits, societal or organizational cultures, and other situational demands. Leaders who can recalibrate their natural tendencies appropriately can thrive in dynamic global environments.

Core capabilities and strategic thinking

Leadership in global contexts therefore demands the cultivation of core capabilities and the adoption of strategic ways of thinking that allow leaders to navigate complexity and achieve meaningful impact. Those who develop these qualities of adaptation and deliberate situational coherence can inspire confidence and guide diverse teams and stakeholders with effectiveness.

Nevertheless, this raises questions of authenticity and faithfulness to one’s true self while responding to situations with agility.  This tension needs to be managed effectively by aspiring leaders who value trust and confidence of their fellow workers. Personal charisma and associated communication skills can go a long way in illustrating moral conviction and inspire others (Antonakis et al., 2012).

In this process, leaders must be particularly concerned about developing and maintaining a high degree of trust. This is particularly true for situations characterized by a very high degree of uncertainty.  An emotional engaging mission that is closely linked to an organization’s original mission can help in these settings. The speech of John F. Kennedy entitled “We choose to go to the Moon” is often cited as an example of how emotional appeals can galvanize enthusiasm for a collective mission. However, here again leaders manage the tension between acting decisively while communicating with and empathy and understanding (McDonald & Bremner, 2020).

Finally, I always stress to my MBA students that it is important to recognize that leadership is continuous journey of growth that lasts a lifetime. By investing in personal and professional development on an ongoing basis individuals can become resilient and influential leaders, shaping both their organizations and the broader world in transformative ways.

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Jacob VAKKAYIL

Human Resources Management

business and societycross-boundary collaborationorganizational studies

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