How to Navigate Leadership Opportunities in a Challenging Market

In the global hiring race, the UK is currently trailing behind. Hiring growth is also on shaky ground Stateside, as tariffs and immigration policies have bewildered the US labour market. Casting a wider net, employment growth in APAC is slated to be lower than anticipated. Frankly, it’s a trend that our executive search practice has seen on the horizon for a while now.

But what does this tough climate mean for leaders who are seeking out new employment prospects? Does this mean that it’s the wrong time to embark on a fresh job search?

Well, though new roles may not be as abundant as they once were, there are still opportunities around if you keep your eyes – and your mind – open.

So this one’s for the leaders who are exploring their options amidst the turbulence. Because I believe that this market can still provide fertile ground for finding work that truly drives you. Here’s my advice.

Double Down on Your “Why”

I think it’s safe to say that most of our readers will have heard Simon Sinek’s famous “start with why” talk. It hits upon a crucial element of human motivation: that establishing and communicating your purpose (your “why”) is a solid foundation to attracting and doing business with people who share your values and outlook.

Having a solid “why” is essential for anyone looking for new employment opportunities. It’s especially important for leaders, whose role relies heavily on strategic and cultural alignment.

I won’t patronise you by holding your hand through discovering your own personal principles. However there are a few questions that I frequently ask candidates that might be useful for refreshing your current, professional “why” – whether you’re asking it about an incumbent position or one you’ve recently parted ways with.

Let’s start with the easy stuff:

• What is currently making/made you uncomfortable and why do you think that discomfort is/was being triggered?
• What is your current/most recent employer “doing wrong” and what do you perceive other employers as “doing right”?
• Is/was there any situation or change at your current/most recent employer that rubbed you up the wrong way in terms of your personal morals or ethics?
• Additionally, for those currently in employment what is driving you more in your job search: the push to escape a bad situation or the pull towards pastures new?

Carefully interrogate what is giving you that knot in the pit of your stomach when you wake up on a Monday morning. Are you anxious? Frustrated? Overwhelmed? What is causing your stress – do you feel like you’re constantly being asked to work at the limits of your capability – or the opposite, were you are crying out for new challenges and opportunities?

Or maybe it’s a cultural or interpersonal issue. Has new leadership or a merger created changes that are at odds with existing culture and direction? Are you being expected to continually do more with slashed headcount and constant budget constraints? Or do you simply feel you can do more good in the world elsewhere?

And let’s not forget those who have been forced to move on due to redundancy or reshuffling. Though it’s not a great position to be in, it does give you space to reassess and realign with what truly drives you.

The goal of this soul-searching journey is to move beyond surface-level job dissatisfaction and understand the deeper motivations driving your potential career transition.

When you can pinpoint precisely what you are trying to move toward/away from, you will have a clear picture of what you want from work, and with that, you can approach other opportunities with laser focus. And with your well-rounded “why” to hand and tentatively put out into the world, like-minded employers will be better equipped to find you too.

Your Current Position is Your Position of Power

Even if you are financially able to walk out of your position right now, we strongly advise against it (unless staying is adversely affecting your health, of course). You will always be in the stronger negotiation position if you’re currently employed. Here’s why.

Firstly, is the matter of stability. You aren’t desperately waiting on the next job offer in order to pay your bills. This means that any prospective employer has to work a lot harder to win you over – after all, if they let slip any red flags whatsoever, you are free to go running back to the relative security of your existing role.

Your illustrious career achievements as a leader, along with the criteria you identified above, gives you all the bargaining power. If the position allows, you would be in a far stronger position to stride into negotiations and state your requirements for hybrid working, annual leave, perks, professional development, and so on; firmly (but please not literally) stating that “These are the criteria that will get me to move. You want me? This is what you’ll have to do.”

Secondly, the process of replacing a team member – especially a senior leader – is incredibly expensive. Built In statistics report that replacing a C-Suite executive can cost up to 213% of that role’s yearly salary!

Your current employer doesn’t want to go to the significant expense of replacing you. Your prospective employer needs someone like you in position so they can stop feeling those expenses.
And finally, in my opinion, when it comes to prospective employers, I think there’s natural psychology around wanting something that someone else already has. The fact that you’re already in an organisation, whether it’s right or wrong for you, can make you an attractive prospect in and of itself.

Due Diligence – Assess Organisational Culture on Both Sides

Culture is the hardest thing to change in an organisation. It’s the easiest thing to let slip if it’s not carefully cultivated, and a real uphill battle to claw it back to satisfactory levels once lost. Toxic workplace culture, alongside lack of trust in leadership, remains a strong driver of employee attrition.

With culture being such an essential sticking point, I urge you to carry out granular due diligence on any new potential employer’s culture and internal politics. This is much more than just checking out a few Glassdoor reviews and browsing a company’s LinkedIn posts. I have a few quick-fire ideas on how to get a good handle on this:

• While you’re on the lookout for new roles, take a look at your network. Do you know anyone “on the inside” at these organisations? Ask them for a warts-and-all view of life there.
• In a similar vein, do you have any contacts who are in that organisation’s supply chain? What is the target organisation’s reputation like in those circles? Would your contact change anything about that relationship that you should be aware of? Were any red flags raised at vendor assessments?
• You can also try and explore things at your current organisation, if it won’t ruffle feathers. Ask other trusted department heads whether they are feeling the same strains and changes as your team are. At the very least, you can commiserate together!

My advice is to treat potential employers with the same scrutiny as you would a vendor assessment – likely an activity you’ve carried out countless times in the past. It’s the sort of detective work that is essential before investment in any business relationship. Employment is no exception!

Be Flexible Through Uncertainty

The turbulence of mergers and restructuring can understandably play a significant part in a professional’s decision to either jump ship or stay put – whether that transformation is current, foreseen, or merely whispered about at the coffee machine. Currently, the market is seeing a rise in cautious hiring and organisational restructuring, which in itself presents unique opportunities, challenges, and anxieties.

Transitory phases like these can have a massive impact on all things that matter to employees: culture, workflows, job security, budgets (and therefore, sometimes pay progression), employee engagement, and more. Corporate culture is the one thing that is most sensitive to being buffeted by any winds of organisational change.

Though personally, I don’t think this is a time to be despondent. It’s fertile ground for finding work that truly aligns with what drives you.

It’s a given that when mergers and transitions happen, companies rarely retain duplicate leadership roles – especially in specialised functions like tech and cyber. Can this create anxiety? Absolutely. But it can also create new and unique opportunities for the right candidates who can demonstrate adaptability, value, humility, and alignment with new strategic priorities – either within or without their existing organisation.

Case in point: the application of soft skills and new approaches. A CISO from financial services, for instance, might find exciting opportunities in fields like healthcare or AI – their fresh, different perspective could make them highly sought-after.

Recent high-profile cybersecurity incidents have demonstrated that an organisation’s ability to communicate, manage, and recover from crises is just as important as maintaining robust defences. I’ve no doubt that leaders who can showcase crisis management skills, business continuity expertise, and operational resilience will stand in good stead in the coming years.

But we can’t avoid the challenges of transition either. If you are looking to join a company that is currently in the middle of a merger or restructuring, it might be a bit of a chaotic atmosphere until the dust settles. Great if you thrive in that sort of environment – horrendous if you don’t!

Crunch Time: Navigating Interview and Negotiation

So you’ve applied for a few positions and you have one or more interviews lined up. Here are some nuggets of wisdom for when the rubber hits the road at the career crossroads:

• Be wary of interviews that feel a bit one-sided. If it feels like they are just throwing concepts and questions out there to mine you for ideas, then there’s a good chance they are. That’s a possible red flag.
• Get your interviewers involved in any scenario-based questions. If they want to know how you would handle a given situation, give your answer, but ask them what they would do to support you and your team through it. If they bristle at this approach, that could be a red flag.
• Don’t be shy about grilling your interviewers about the organisation’s culture. Simply asking why the position is currently available can be an eye-opener.
• Ask them how they would rate the company’s culture out of 10. If they immediately and unflinchingly respond “10!!!” then that’s a red flag of the “Stockholm Syndrome” variety! If they give a more realistic answer, then ask them what would need to change to make it a 10. This can also be enlightening.
• Meet all key stakeholders before you come to your final decision. If a crucial individual seems conspicuously absent from the hiring process, this might be a deliberate effort to hide a red-flag-wielding gremlin from you! Aim to reach out to this person and assess them too. They could just be really busy at the moment – or they could be lying in wait to make your life a misery.
• If the option is available to you, make a house call. Visit your prospective employer’s offices in person and check out their culture and interpersonal vibes with your own 6 senses.
• Be wary of procedural red flags, like the overuse of AI throughout the hiring process, delayed responses, dodged answers to valid questions, and overreliance on entry level teams throughout your application process.
• Here are a few more quick-fire questions that can give you added insight. Press them on any responses that are unsatisfactory to you:

-What are your expectations for me in this role?

-What is my first 6 months likely to look like?

-How would you consider my placement in this role to be a success?

-What are the key challenges that I’m likely to face in this role?

Counteroffers and Bidding Wars

Be cautious about pitting your existing employer and any prospective employers against each other in a bidding war. I’ve seen people do this, and it generally ends spectacularly badly for the candidate! It can paint you as rather petty and reduces the whole situation as a bit of a peeing competition between both organisations.

It’s also worth mentioning counteroffers. 90% of professionals who accept a counteroffer leave their current employer within 12 months anyway. Be warned!

In Conclusion: Overcome Your Natural Market Hesitation
Making big changes is never easy. We are wired for safety and security, after all. This programming was incredibly useful when we were sitting around the fire, crafting stone tools – but it can be a bit of a hindrance when trying to make clear decisions in our unnatural world of jobs and mortgages and P&L reports.

Our innate status quo bias embeds an innate preference to keep things as they currently are. We also fight against familiarity bias, giving us a tendency to prefer things, people, or ideas that we’re already well familiar with, even when an unfamiliar one would clearly be better for us. The sunk-cost fallacy keeps us from forging a new career path because we’re so invested in the current one.

But there’s never any point in slogging away at a job that you’re quickly growing resentful of in the hopes that in future “things will be better”. And there’s certainly no point in clipping your own wings when you know you’re capable of so much more in the here and now.

It’s easy to look at the shaky job market, the drop in vacancies, and the flurry of restructuring and kick the can down the road to an undetermined time in future when “things will be better”. But the fact of the matter is that opportunities exist now. They’re here. You just need to dig a little deeper to uncover them at the moment.

And if you’re ready to make the leap, we’re here to help.