When the Market is Uncertain, Leadership Must Be Certain

By Ed Chamberlain, CEO of Drax Altus

Periods of economic and geopolitical ambiguity don’t just test investor resilience; they test leadership credibility. In private markets, where high conviction and sharp execution are paramount, volatility can reveal fractures in even the most polished executive teams.

Over the past 18 months, I’ve seen firms grapple with shifting conditions: tougher fundraising, prolonged hold periods, rising pressure from LPs, and more scrutiny on value creation. But whether the market is in full swing or feels stuck in first gear, one constant holds true: the strength and cohesion of the leadership team remains the single biggest variable in success.

Execution Requires More Than Credentials

Private equity is a sector that prides itself on performance. It’s why CVs, track records, and references dominate most hiring processes. But past results don’t always predict future execution, especially when the environment changes.

As we support firms in assessing or building leadership teams, we pay close attention to what's not written on a CV: how a leader makes decisions under pressure, how they influence those around them, how aligned the leadership group is around a common goal, and where behavioural blind spots may quietly be eroding performance.

These aren't abstract qualities. They have a material impact on investment outcomes, from speed of execution to quality of decisions and the morale of the wider team beneath them.

Leadership is a System, Not a Set of Individuals

One of the most common misconceptions we see is the over-reliance on individual brilliance. The “we’ve got a great CIO” or “our CEO has done this before” logic can be dangerously simplistic.

Leadership effectiveness is collective. It's shaped by how functions complement or clash, how commercial and operational leaders calibrate each other's decisions, and how aligned the team is to the investment plan.

We’ve worked with firms where an exceptional leadership group on paper was misfiring in practice, not due to lack of talent, but because the dynamic between them wasn’t fit for the market or strategy they were trying to execute. In these moments, gaining a deeper, behavioural understanding of how the team functions can be the difference between course correction and costly inertia.

What Today’s Market Demands From Leadership

This market isn’t one where you can just keep doing what you’ve always done. It requires leaders who can operate in ambiguity, pivot with clarity, and communicate with consistency, especially when tough decisions need to be made.

We’ve seen firms invest heavily in playbooks, consultants, and technology, but under-invest in understanding the actual people executing the plan. The irony is that most failed transformations, missed deals, or stalled integrations aren’t about strategy. They’re about people.

If your CFO can’t engage LPs with confidence, your COO can’t scale infrastructure at pace, or your Partners don’t trust each other, strategy becomes irrelevant. What matters is whether your leadership team is aligned, capable, and adaptable in real time.

A Better Lens for Leadership

In our work, we use a combination of behavioural insight, organisational diagnostics, and comparative data to support clients in answering questions like:

• Where are the friction points or capability gaps?

• How do we strengthen the team without disrupting momentum?

• What is the behavioural archetype of the fund? Is this causing challenges, and we need to diversify behavioural types or do we see examples of success and we need to lean into this archetype?

We don’t ask these questions because they sound good. We ask them because they’re the root of why some firms scale smoothly while others stall.

The Path Forward

In buoyant markets, leadership can be masked by momentum. When the tide goes out, as it has, we find out who’s aligned, equipped, and ready to lead.

Now is not the time to pause leadership evaluation. It’s the moment to go deeper, understand the system, and make precise, strategic adjustments where needed.

In private markets, it’s not the best idea that wins; it’s the team that can execute it.

Ed Chamberlain is CEO of Drax Altus, part of The LCap Group. He works with private equity and private capital clients across Europe to build and evaluate leadership teams that drive performance across multiple functions and geographies.