Enterprise Leaders Must Perform and Transform

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Author

Lisa Stevens
Director of Executive Development
LIMRA and LOMA

April 2025

In the January MarketFacts FORECAST 2025 issue, members of LIMRA and LOMA’s Board of Directors shared their thoughts on what 2025 may hold for the industry. They highlighted several key forces of change — high interest rates, ongoing inflation and market volatility — all of which continue to impact the industry. Additionally, they discussed the regulatory climate, demographic shifts, new technologies, talent strategies and changing customer expectations. Given these forces of change, being a successful enterprise leader is challenging and critically important.

A study by Korn Ferry indicates that the future will require enterprise leaders who can simultaneously perform and transform, lead vertically and horizontally, and influence across organizations. The study found that effective enterprise leaders grow organizations 6 percent faster than their peers, yet less than 14 percent of executives are considered enterprise leaders. Results further suggest that a new level of enterprise leadership is needed for the future, which can be continuously developed as organizations evolve.

Enterprise Leadership Defined

Various descriptors for enterprise leadership exist, with some based on research and others defined through organizational competencies. Simply defined, enterprise leadership is about placing oneself in a new pair of shoes — those worn by the organization — thinking broadly, holistically and horizontally versus focusing on one’s functional area. Enterprise leadership is not about position or hierarchy, but rather about a having a holistic perspective and advocating for what’s best for the broader organization.

Many organizations have traditionally evaluated enterprise leadership based on the ability to understand many “parts,” think broadly, create alignment, influence others, and promote cross-collaboration, all of which can produce many benefits.

Enterprise Leadership in Action

Expertise in one’s silo, along with strong business acumen, are foundations for success for enterprise leaders. It’s navigating out of one’s zone that makes the difference. Holistically, enterprise leadership requires stepping beyond the day-to-day role and functional expertise to understand the business collectively for shared alignment across teams and the organization. It is a balancing act.

Amit Vashisht, assistant vice president of enterprise technology at Jackson National Life Insurance Company, emphasizes this point: “As an enterprise leader, I come to every table with a business mindset and see myself as a bridge builder between organizational needs and technology. Through outside-in thinking, I’m able to provide holistic solutions. Inability to fully understand business challenges as a technology leader sets up everyone for failure.”

True enterprise leadership enables leaders to lean in, regardless of level or experience, to listen and identify solutions or process improvements that may have never been considered. It is more than communicating a vision but rather engaging teams to achieve that shared vision, strategy and goals for the betterment of the organization.

Vashisht feels that having a holistic mindset is also critical to how enterprise leaders think about product solutions:

“It’s important for enterprise leaders to think of solutions as an experience — how customers use, think and feel about a product. This entails looking at end-to-end pain and touchpoints with cross-organizational partners — product development, technology and call centers, etc. One silo alone will not address issues and opportunities."

By looking at organizations through a broader lens, enterprise leaders are adaptable and better equipped to courageously predict and lead future uncertainties by digging deeper.

Viewing opportunities holistically does not happen naturally for some leaders. For enterprise leaders focused on understanding the broader organization, it begins by asking questions. “Being curious is a highly valued tool in an enterprise leader’s arsenal. It is through immense curiosity that enterprise leadership grows,” says Vashisht. Job immersion and shadowing are two powerful opportunities for leaders growing enterprise muscles. If trying to solve customer issues, for example, enterprise leaders can learn through a day in the life immersion in a service center. Listening to customer calls, speaking with representatives, and observing work environments (e.g., technology, teamwork, resources, etc.) will help enterprise leaders understand pain points, root causes and opportunities.

Gaining perspective through others’ eyes can create deep awareness and empathy, while also driving deeper curiosity to make change. Partnerships with other functional areas may uncover deeper pain points as a place to begin to improve current and future opportunities. “If I can see, feel and experience existing pain points,” says Vashisht, “I am better able, as an enterprise leader, to make changes through partnerships with other functional areas across the company who can help.” Leveraging emotions — what people are seeing, feeling and their reactions — as information to identify, understand, and empathize with others across the organization is key for enterprise leaders. In addition, enterprise leaders can tap into external data to understand trends and best practices and/or why customers may be navigating to competitors. It is through curiosity that leaders translate knowledge into enterprise opportunities.

The ability to grow capabilities has always been an important focus for enterprise leaders who aspire to proactively identify, plan for, and grow people and organizations for the future. Having a deeper awareness of capabilities across functional areas helps enterprise leaders to better understand company strengths and opportunities. This gives enterprise leaders the opportunity to explore, with cross-functional partnerships, new possibilities that can set the company apart from the competition. Through cross-functional collaboration, enterprise leaders also gain visibility into capability needs (people, processes and technology) to explore now and for the future, and to develop proactive plans to address potential gaps.

Making the Shift

What makes enterprise leadership challenging? Successful enterprise leaders recognize the time investment to master the skill. For some, developing enterprise leadership muscles is a step outside of one’s comfort zone, as it requires an ongoing shift in behaviors as organizations evolve. Successful enterprise leadership is watched by everyone in an organization and should set the example and inspire followers to help the organization continuously perform and transform.

Based on conversations with executives in the Strategic Leadership Experience program, there are five areas in which enterprise leaders can strengthen their capabilities:

	From	To
Shared Alignment	Communicating a shared vision, strategy, and goals	Communicating and engaging teams and key partners in achieving a shared vision, strategy, and goals
Adaptability	Predicting future uncertainties	Predicting and courageously leading future uncertainties together
Curiosity	Developing an understanding of the world around me	Developing an understanding of the world around me and translating knowledge into new possibilities
Emotional Intelligence	Self-awareness to how one shows up and models leadership behaviors	Leveraging emotions as information to identify, understand, and manage one’s own emotions and behaviors, and identify and empathize with those of others
Capability Development	Growing people and organizational capabilities for now	Proactively identifying, planning for, and developing people and organizational capabilities for the future

Developing Enterprise Leadership

Enterprise leadership can be continually developed. Whether one is a seasoned or newer leader, growing enterprise leadership skills can be a game changer within organizations. As leaders continue to develop future enterprise leadership capabilities, below are questions for self-reflection.

	As an enterprise leader, how am I . . .
Shared Alignment	Clearly communicating a shared vision, strategy and goals while seeking diverse perspectives from teams and key partners across the company? Inspiring others in translating strategy into goals meaningful to the team and the organization? Engaging horizontal stakeholders in decisions that impact them the most?
Adaptability	Asking tough questions to challenge old assumptions and to proactively explore future possibilities now versus reacting later when the organization must respond? Courageously questioning or saying “no,” when proposed actions/decisions are holistically not in the best interest of the organization? Optimizing others’ perspectives to help the organization bounce back from unexpected setbacks and remain optimistic about the future?
Curiosity	Incorporating “world” insights into data-driven decisions that inspire innovation and positive impacts for stakeholders, employees and customers? Questioning conventional wisdom to explore, and test and learn new and out-of-the-box ideas (“what if”) that align with future vision and strategy? Changing my language to be curious (e.g., what if, why do we do it this way, or have we ever thought of this)?
Emotional Intelligence	Understanding my personal areas of strength and opportunity? How do these areas impact how I lead in the organization? Genuinely interested in others’ reactions, including what they say, see, feel and how they act? Building and sustaining relationships of shared understanding and respect across the organization?
Capability Development	Exploring new possibilities when the competition is not? Proactively growing human capital as the organization/business evolves versus playing reactive catch-up? Assessing future organizational capabilities and developing a plan to fill gaps?

LIMRA and LOMA is committed to advancing the industry by providing the education and resources necessary to support leaders in navigating the ever-changing landscape.

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