Responsible Leadership – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1195

Responsible Leadership – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1195

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1195 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Matheus Amaral

Preamble

This blog post is mainly based on an INSEAD article written by Graham Ward of INSEAD, and Anindo Bhattacharjee and Raul V. Rodriguez of Woxsen University. Link here. https://knowledge.insead.edu/career/three-responsible-leadership  

Why “Responsible Leadership” Matters More Than Ever

In a world defined by volatility, political upheaval, fast-changing technologies like AI, economic uncertainty, the stakes for leadership have never been higher. The article from INSEAD argues that leaders must go beyond traditional metrics of performance and profit. The challenges today call for a leadership style grounded in ethics, awareness, adaptability, and genuine responsibility.

“Responsible leadership,” as framed by the article, isn’t optional; it is non-negotiable. It demands that leaders stay attuned to stakeholder needs, be ethically grounded and true to their values, and remain flexible and adaptive in the face of rapid change.

In this post, I explore what the three “A’s”, Attention, Authenticity, and Agility, mean in practice. I also discuss why they matter for today’s leaders, and how they can be cultivated to build organizations that are resilient, ethical, and socially responsible.

The Three A’s of Responsible Leadership

Attention – Seeing Clearly and Listening Deeply

“Attention” here is more than time management. It’s about presence, focus, and sensitivity — to people, context, risks, opportunities. A leader with true attention doesn’t just juggle tasks; they stay grounded in what matters, balancing short-term demands with long-term vision.

In complex, fast-moving environments, this kind of attention is critical. The article notes, and organizational research supports, that mindless multitasking or distraction erodes engagement, undermines relationships, and reduces effectiveness.

To cultivate this, some organizations are now turning to mindfulness practices and “attention management.” Instead of trying to cram more tasks in, leaders learn to slow down, reflect, and re-assess. For example, short meditation or reflection sessions before meetings, even one to three minutes, can help reset focus and foster clarity, better decision-making, and well-being.

Leaders who master attention can better sense emerging risks, stakeholder concerns, shifting dynamics, and steer their organizations with greater foresight and empathy.

Authenticity – Leading from Your “True North”

The second A, authenticity, emphasizes ethical clarity, integrity, and alignment with values. As noted in the article, a leader’s “True North”, a deeply held sense of purpose and principle, forms the foundation for ethical leadership.

Authentic leadership isn’t just about sounding virtuous. It’s about walking the walk: being consistent, transparent, and vulnerable enough to admit mistakes. It means articulating and embodying organizational values and creating trust, so people feel safe to speak up, voice concerns, or challenge prevailing assumptions.

Research supports this: when leaders are authentic, employees are more likely to raise their voice, rather than stay silent out of fear, apathy or opportunism.

Authenticity also helps in aligning teams around a purpose or shared vision — beyond quarterly targets or short-term gains. When people see consistent values and ethical clarity, they find meaning in their work, which builds loyalty, resilience, and collective ownership.

Agility – Adapting Without Losing Your Principles

Finally, agility is the ability to respond to disruption, but to do so while remaining grounded in ethics and values. In a world marked by fast-moving crises (technological change, geopolitical instability, social shifts), long-term plans often unravel. Leaders must remain flexible, responsive, and experimentally minded.

Agile leadership doesn’t mean opportunism or compromising values for expediency. Rather, it means creating systems and a culture where experimentation is encouraged, failure is tolerated as part of learning, and adaptation is continuous. Leaders build organizations that can pivot rapidly, but without sacrificing integrity, purpose, or trust.

Agility also involves resilience and foresight: keeping ethical guardrails in place even when the landscape becomes volatile. It means designing organizations that can ride waves of change, technological, social, regulatory, without losing sight of long-term mission and stakeholder commitment.

Why the Three A’s Work, and What Makes Them Powerful

Putting together attention, authenticity, and agility creates a leadership framework especially suited for our times. Here’s why this triad matters.

Holistic stakeholder focus: Leaders with attention are attuned to a wide range of stakeholders, employees, customers, communities, society at large. Authenticity ensures they act with integrity and values. Agility lets them respond to evolving stakeholder needs. This creates trust, long-term relationships, and shared ownership.

Resilience amid uncertainty: In volatile environments, rigid leadership fails. But leaders who stay grounded (authentic), aware (attentive), and adaptive (agile) are better positioned to navigate disruption — without ethical compromise or reactive chaos.

Culture of meaning and purpose: Beyond transactions and metrics, such leaders embed a sense of purpose. That attracts talent who care, retains people through trust and compassion, and motivates beyond financial incentives.

Sustainable impact: Responsible leadership shifts the mindset from profits-only to sustainable value, economic, social, environmental. It aligns organizations with broader societal goals, builds legitimacy, and fosters long-term success.

What It Takes – Cultivating the Three A’s

How can individuals and organizations nurture these qualities? The INSEAD article offers some pointers.

For Individuals/ Leaders

Define your “True North”: Reflect on what values guide you. Why do you lead? What longer-term purpose drives you beyond profit or performance? Writing down your values, revisiting them, and making them visible helps anchor authenticity.

Build ethical courage: Leadership often involves conflict, trade-offs, and difficult choices. Cultivating moral courage, to speak up, make unpopular calls, stand by principles, is essential to authentic responsible leadership.

Embrace adaptability: Stay curious, open to learning. Accept that not every plan will work. Be willing to experiment, learn, pivot, while staying grounded in your core values.

For Organizations

Create a culture of transparency and psychological safety: Encourage open dialogue, feedback, whistleblowing, and shared decision-making. This enables authenticity and trust.

Embed values in structures: Make values part of policies, performance evaluation, hiring, not just a poster in the lobby. Reward behavior aligned with values, not just short-term results.

Support flexible, learning-oriented systems: Allow teams to experiment, iterate, learn from mistakes. Avoid rigid hierarchies or punitive cultures that suppress innovation or adaptation.

Invest in leadership development: Train leaders not just in business skills but in emotional intelligence, ethical awareness, stakeholder management, resilience, and reflective practices.

Sum Up

If there is one takeaway from INSEAD’s “Three A’s” framework, it is this: the test of leadership today isn’t only what you achieve, but how you achieve it.

Are you paying attention, to people, context, risks, stakeholders?

Are you leading authentically, with integrity, values, transparency?

Are you agile, open to change, willing to learn, ready to adapt, while staying true to your ethical compass?

Leaders who embody all three qualities don’t just build successful organizations. They build organizations that last, that earn trust, adapt to change, contribute to the common good, and leave a positive impact beyond balance sheets.

In uncertain times, that kind of leadership isn’t just nice to have. It is essential.

Concluded.

Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.

For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, any claim is lodged, it will be acknowledged and duly recognized immediately.