When the Market Shifts, Growth Slows, the Real Leaders Appear

Every week, I speak with executives across Specialty Care and MedTech organizations facing the same reality. Growth has slowed, market dynamics have shifted, and the strategies that once produced reliable results are no longer delivering the same momentum.

Moments like this reveal the true nature of leadership. Some leaders respond by pushing harder on the same plan, increasing pressure on execution, and hoping the numbers recover. Others take a different approach. They engage their teams, listen closely to what the organization is seeing in the market, and mobilize people to find a better path forward.

The leaders who sustain performance in uncertain conditions understand a simple principle. Results are created through people.

Throughout my career as both a healthcare operator and an executive search partner, I have watched this pattern repeat itself across organizations. Leaders who consistently deliver results know how to align teams around a clear objective, invite insight from those closest to the work, and build trust during periods when direction must evolve.

When companies engage me to help identify leadership talent, that capability is one of the first things I evaluate. Titles and credentials provide useful context. The more important question is whether the individual has demonstrated the ability to mobilize people, create shared ownership, and move an organization forward through engagement.

That leadership capability becomes especially visible when the market shifts.

When Pushing Harder On Execution Becomes The Only Strategy

When organizations encounter turbulence, the instinctive response often centers on execution. Revenue flattens, the board grows concerned, and leadership pushes and usually pressures the organization to work harder, faster, and talks about the end results only.

Short-term activity often increases under pressure. Teams respond to urgency and work hard to meet expectations. Over time, however, effort alone cannot compensate for a changing market environment or what people are feeling, not saying, and no one is asking.

Momentum slows when employees feel disconnected from the broader strategy or uncertain about how their work contributes to the path forward. People may still be working hard, yet engagement begins to decline because their perspective is not actively shaping the solution.

Leaders who regain momentum approach the situation differently. They create space for conversation across the organization and invite insight from those closest to customers and daily operations. Field leaders, operational teams, and customer facing employees frequently recognize shifts in the market long before they appear in executive reports.

When leaders engage those perspectives, organizations gain a clearer understanding of where opportunities exist and where adjustments are needed. Teams become more invested in execution because they see their contributions reflected in the direction of the business.

Execution remains important. However, engagement strengthens it.

Force Multipliers Do Not Always Come From The Obvious Places

One leader I worked with earlier in my career continues to illustrate this principle clearly. At the time, I had joined a private equity-backed hospital services organization as the financial crisis of 2008 was beginning to reshape the healthcare market. Budgets tightened quickly, and uncertainty spread across the industry.

This individual approached the environment with remarkable clarity. Her formal education ended with a high school diploma, yet she possessed an exceptional ability to connect with people and understand what customers truly needed.

She spent time listening to both her team and her clients. She asked where processes were slowing them down and where additional support could make their daily work easier. She encouraged her team to share what they were observing in the field and incorporated those insights into the approach.

As a result, her team became deeply engaged in improving service and strengthening relationships with clients. Customers experienced a higher level of partnership because solutions addressed the realities they faced every day. Tremendous growth followed because the team delivered meaningful value at a time when many competitors were simply trying to maintain stability.

Today, she is one of the most successful BD leaders I know in the MedTech sector. Every company that gave her the opportunity discovered the same strength. A force multiplier of people! She knows how to produce results by engaging people, strengthening relationships, and aligning teams around delivering value together.

Her resume alone would not have predicted that outcome. Her people leadership and capability made the difference.

Investing in Your People Like It Is a Marriage

In Specialty Care and MedTech, we are seeing a lot of people movement right now. We are getting more calls, which means your employees are unsettled. Management is making direction changes. And in some cases, companies have swapped out their top leadership twice in three years. I am going to tell you, if you have made a leadership change twice in three years at the top, you have got an unsteady organization below. Additionally, recent hires who were hired for their great vertical knowledge, great educational background, titles held, and less on their ability to harness their team's energy and get results with their people is causing the stall.

The leaders who treat the employer-employee relationship like a marriage. They invest. They get out of the office and start dating their people again. I mean that seriously. Do you know the names of the people beyond your direct reports? Do you know what makes them really tick? Do you know how they find the wind in their sails? What obstacles are causing roadblocks and causing them to miss the best opportunities for growth? Are you harnessing the power of the team or just talking about output, or just what they did for you last week?

When I am evaluating a candidate for a leadership role, I am listening for how they engage and invest in their people. Tell me exactly how you communicated to your team when things got hard. What were the actions you took with your team? Were they in the trenches with them or sitting in the office? Did they give them better tools, better technology, and provide clearer direction? Or did they just explain how they met weekly to hit the number? Because here is the thing about Gen Z and the generation coming up behind them. They are looking for that connection point of why they want to be on the team. Are we in business together? Am I a contributor, partner, or just executing the task? And if you cannot answer that question as a leader, they will find someone or another company who can.

The best leaders I have placed can articulate all of it. They can tell me what and how they got in the ugly with the team. How they communicated, what part they played, and, just as important, what part they gave up. They let someone else own the execution – someone more adept at the execution and growth delivery. They coached and supported instead of controlling. And when I ask them where they failed, they can speak to it. Because if you cannot talk about a failure you learned from, you probably are not listening too well either.

The leaders who produce lasting impact know how to mobilize people across the organization. They engage their teams in understanding challenges, invite insight that improves decision making, and build commitment around executing the solution together.

What Results Through People Really Look Like

During leadership searches, I spend significant time exploring those people's experiences. I ask how leaders engaged their teams when strategy required adjustment. I ask which voices from the field, customers, or manufacturing influenced key decisions and how those insights shaped the outcome. I ask how responsibility was shared so that individuals across the organization felt ownership of the result.

Those conversations reveal leadership maturity and the ability to align people around meaningful objectives.

Over the course of my career as both an operator and a search partner, one belief has consistently proven true. The “Right” leaders combine industry experience with the ability to harness the power of their people when markets shift, and growth becomes more difficult. Those are the leaders who rise. Those are the leaders who deliver results time and time again.

About the Author

Laura Klein is an executive search partner specializing in Specialty Care and MedTech leadership roles. A former healthcare & consumer C-suite operator, she spent more than 30 years leading teams, owning P&Ls, and making the hiring decisions that shaped organizational performance before moving into executive search. She leads her firm out of GRN Plano Executive Search in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, where she is probably asking a candidate right now to tell her about a time they failed. You can reach Laura at lklein@grnplano.com or through the website at grnplanoexecsearch.com.