Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
As COVID-19 unfolded, leaders who embraced agile principles were more successful
Agile | Consumer | Retail
February 22, 2021 – In our survey of retail and consumer-packaged-goods executives, five of the top eight behaviors seen in successful leaders aligned with agile principles. Of the five, being a supportive and caring leader (+25 percentage points) and being employee-focused (+23) were the most adopted.
To read the article, see “How consumer companies are adopting agility during the COVID-19 pandemic,” February 12, 2021.
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Visual form
Five-category before-and-after slope comparison chart.
Layout / body structure
The chart is a single row of five panels, each built as a small vertical comparison between a pre-COVID-19 point on the left and a COVID-19 point on the right. Reader moves left to right across the five leadership behaviors and reads each mini-panel as an upward shift over time.
What is being compared
It compares the share of successful leaders displaying five behaviors before COVID-19 and during COVID-19: supportive and caring leadership, employee-focused behavior, empowering leadership, promoting an open and trusting work environment, and rapid decision making.
Measurement system
The measure is percent of respondents. Each behavior prints the pre-COVID-19 value at the lower point, the COVID-19 value at the higher point, and the change in percentage points inside the shaded shape between them.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Every category uses the same anatomy: a white dot for pre-COVID-19, a dark dot for COVID-19, a connecting line, and a gray filled wedge beneath the line. The repeated slope layout makes the size of the behavior shift easy to compare without a full axis running behind each panel.
Main takeaway from the visual
Successful leaders shifted toward more agile behavior during the pandemic across every category shown. The upward slopes are universal, which makes the change look broad-based rather than driven by just one standout leadership trait.
Key standout values or extremes
Supportive and caring leadership rises from 21 to 46 percent for the largest increase at plus 25 percentage points. Employee-focused behavior rises from 20 to 43 for plus 23, empowering leadership rises from 43 to 59 for plus 15, promoting an open and trusting work environment rises from 34 to 49 for plus 15, and rapid decision making rises from 15 to 29 for plus 14.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.