Global Leadership Monitor H1 2023—US

← H1 - 2023 | Regional Reports

To be a successful leader, you must be adept at effectively responding to multiple, external threats—often ones that compete with each other for attention. This juggling act can be difficult, especially if you don’t have clarity on which threats are likely to cause the biggest impact.

What can you do as a leader to prepare for what’s next? What’s the secret to unlocking organizational resilience to face these issues? What role does leadership play?

We recently surveyed 358 US board directors, CEOs, C-suite leaders, and next-generation leaders across various industries to find the answers. 

Here, we reveal the top external threats troubling US leaders, how prepared they are to face these challenges, and the actions you can take to build organizational resilience.

01 Uncertain economic growth is the top concern for US leaders

Our research showed that 75% of leaders in the US see uncertain economic growth as their number one concern in 2023, an increase of 31% in the last year. The availability of key talent and skills is the second most concerning threat for US leaders (73%), despite it decreasing slightly in importance against last year’s figures. 

Interestingly, there are also a wide range of secondary, competing threats bubbling under the surface—which leaders can’t afford to ignore—such as technological change (44%)—which has increased by 10% in the last six months. Other pertinent external threats leaders should be watchful of are changes in consumer behavior (41%) and increased regulation (39%).

Figure 1a. Top external factors impacting businesses in the year ahead 

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates’ H1 2023 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 358 US CEOs, C-level leaders, next-generation leaders, and non-executive board directors}

Figure 1b. Year-over-year comparison of top external factors impacting businesses

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates’ H1 2021 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 343 US leaders; H1 2022 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 399 US leaders; H2 2022 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 469 US leaders; H1 2023 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 358 US leaders}

02 Leadership preparedness varies hugely across organizational threats 

Unfortunately, our research shows business leaders in the US are not ready to face existing and emerging threats.

While leaders are generally prepared to face uncertain economic growth (59%), they are less likely to be ready to address the availability of key talent and skills (46%). Looking ahead, it’s also important leaders don’t take their eye off the ball when it comes to technological change, as despite it being a top-three concern for US leaders, less than half (49%) of leaders feel prepared to face this issue.

Figure 2. Leadership preparedness to address external factor by priority 

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates’ H1 2023 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 358 US CEOs, C-level leaders, next-generation leaders, and non-executive board directors}

03 US leaders’ overall preparedness score is in line with the global average—but there’s still work to be done

Being prepared to face one key issue is not enough. To be resilient, leaders will need to demonstrate high levels of preparedness across the full range of issues they face. 

When we look at aggregate preparedness—how prepared leaders say their leadership teams are in the top five issues they identified—we found that 55% of leaders in the US feel prepared to face the top five external threats, which is in line with the global average.

Figure 3. Leadership preparedness by country

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates’ H1 2023 Global Leadership Monitor, n = 1,523 CEOs, C-level leaders, next generation leaders, and non-executive board directors}

Leadership levers to strengthen organizational resilience

The good news is that our research revealed that there are some critical steps leaders can take to secure organizational resilience.

To find out what these levers are and what you can do as a leader to ensure organizational resilience, visit: Leadership levers that drive organizational resilience

Authors

Joy Tan and Tom Handcock of RRA’s Center for Leadership Insight conducted the research and authored this report.

The authors wish to thank the leaders from RRA’s network who completed the H1 2023 Global Leadership Monitor. Their responses to the survey have contributed greatly to our understanding of leadership in 2023 and beyond.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE TEAM

2023 Global Leadership Monitor

Connect with our experts