Managing change, supercharging productivity and improving employee well-being have been on the top of the mind of most leaders. The uncertainity trigerred by the pandemic and all the chaos the COVID-19 outbreak led to nudged the leaders to invest more time and effort in their own learning. Building the C-suite of 2030 report by Tigerhall reveals leaders in Singapore and other APAC countries are spending more time learning this year than last year (47% y-o-y increase). The seismic changes in work dynamics and lifestyles, enhanced by the curiosity to learn more and the drive to be a better leader, all led to leaders spending more time on learning.

As the demand for learning among the leaders accelerates, it’s important to zoom in on the specific areas of growth that leaders have been focusing on.

What's trending?

Keywords such as ‘change’, ‘resilience’ and ‘innovation’  top the charts for the most searched words. Content on leadership development, managing change and boosting productivity have soared in consumption. 

Further, well-being at work took its place in the top 10 for both periods as boundaries between work and life dissipated. Notably, the category climbed three spots in Q1 2021, highlighting an increasing importance placed on well-being this year

The changing ways of learning

 In terms of source or mode of learning, Podcasts have emerged as the preferred medium. The report highlights that leaders spend 3.5x more time learning from Podcasts than readable formats. Succinct videos are also proving to be an effective format, with a report highlighting that 1 minute of video content was found to be equal to about 1.8 million written words for training retention. As per the findings of the report, there is an increasing number of millennials taking up leadership roles. Packaging content into digital formats that are popular among this demographic such as Podcasts, live streams and bite-sized videos will be key to engaging leaders. 

CXOs: The preferred mentors 

In another interesting insight, the report shows how CXOs are the most in-demand ‘teachers’: More than half of leaders want to learn from CXOs, including C-suite leaders themselves. This highlights a strong demand amongst leaders to learn from people in aspirational positions who have plenty of insights, mistakes and successes to share from the experience they’ve gathered while rising up a particular industry.

It is important for L&D and HR leaders to take note of these emerging leadership learning trends in the APAC region and curate more effective learning solutions. With the top team immensely driven to improve their soft skills and improve their personal brands through e-learning, podcasts, and networking methods, organizations have an opportunity to reinvent their learning strategies.