3 Critical Skills You Will Need To Be A Leader Today

At Unqbe, Papiya Banerjee and I focus on enabling leaders to be 'future-ready'.

This often means working with leaders to help them build their personal capabilities for the future.

As you can imagine, this is not easy.

The first big challenge is that not everyone realises how fundamentally the asks from senior leaders have shifted.

It is true.

It is almost un-real how much we need them to be able to do--brilliantly.

Side note: Last week, I was in conversation with Neha Shah , Principal Applied Scientist at Microsoft (Studies AI and Productivity).

Neha is wonderful.

And our conversation was fascinating.

We spoke about the many different ways in which leadership asks are changing. And just how much more tomorrow's leaders will need to do.

And what a tall ask the future brings.

Watch us here.

Our Asks From Leaders Are 'Almost' Unreal

Our Asks From Leaders Are 'Almost' Unreal

So much has changed.

Decades ago, I remember, leadership competencies used to be written up as:

--Planning and Organising

--Leading People

--Functional Expertise

--Interpersonal Skills

And a few others.

What simple times these were.

I can imagine many of you reading this and being almost nostalgic.

For all this has changed beyond recognition.

Unqbe works with leadership teams to "re-create" future leader competencies, and they look nothing like these.

Here are 3 Critical Skills that are becoming essential powers for the future leader.

Critical Skill 1: Ability To Read Future Mega Trends

We are operating in a world that is changing so fast, that the worst kind of leader is one who does not understand these mega-shifts.

No matter how skilled you may have been in any way in the past. This is simply not going to be enough

Not knowing which way the world is headed is an almost unforgivable sin for a leader today.

The strong language I am using is indicative of how true this is.

At the very minimum, an understanding of what trends to follow and how to follow them is critical.

Think of the dashboard that a leader must have in front of them.

If in the past that dashboard had just a few dials: (operations, sales, brand, human resources), today that dashboard has several additional dials (technology disruption, geo-politics, sustainability, demographics, changing employee expectations, and more).

Leaders who are ahead of the curve have been watching several of these 'new dials' over the past few years to see how they will impact their worlds. This includes extensive reading, following thought leaders in these fields, and perhaps independent research. They continuously speak with people who understand these fields, and follow trends.

At the other end are leaders who haven't realised that this is a major shift in what is expected from them. They are still looking at the old dashboard.

What will this mean?

That's a bit obvious now, isn't it.

I know for a fact that today conversations around who should be in the C Suite include judging leaders on how well they understand the forces changing our worlds.

After all, without this, our dear leader stands little chance of navigating the ship in the right direction.

This of course means at least 3 things.

1. Understanding what new dials to build on your dashboard.
2. Knowing how and where to get information for these dials.
3. Knowing how to use this information to navigate well.

Leaders who are doing well on this dimension are generally curious consumers of news and insights. They are avid readers who educate themselves from a wide range of sources. They attend conferences. They invite the right speakers to their offices.

And they understand that 'part of their job today is 'understanding change''.

Critical Skill 2: Leading in a World Where:

Every Company Is Now (Simultaneously)

A Technology Company. A Media Company. And A Data Company.

There are huge shifts in the way the world works today.

While most traditional leaders are accustomed to thinking of themselves as leading

--a bank

--a consulting company

--a manufacturing organisation.

And that, for nearly a 100 years, was, well--quite enough.

It no longer is.

The work that you do--your core--is what allows you to be 'in the game'.

It is everything else that decides how far ahead in the game you will be.

Leveraging technology, data and communication is the amplifier that determines how far in the game you really will be.

Tomorrows leaders must understand this.

Every Company is A Technology Company

You can watch this interview with John Chambers (former CISCO CEO) speak about--

"This is the decade of AI. It's the companies that can not only talk AI but producing results with AI that will be the winners... Every company has been a tech company this last decade. Now its about AI."

BTW--It's also interesting to hear how much he is betting on India

"If there's one country to bet on--it's India".

(Research Note: Jaspreet Bindra and I have been studying what's different about the culture of organisations that are ahead of the curve in AI implementation. Reach out to us if you want to find out more.)

And if you want to hear more about AI specifically from Microsoft AI's CEO Mustafa Suleyman, at the Aspen Ideas Festival just a few weeks ago speaking about what some of these changes are.

This is a fascinating conversation. And an example of the kinds of conversations that CEOs must listen to.

Mustafa Suleyman is super smart and articulate and speaks about how AI will transform industries and business.

Including:

--the challenge of students relying on AI to write their papers

--how knowledge creation will become commoditised over the next few years

--addition of emotional intelligence to AI models

--the potential arguments for 'person-hood' for AI

Of course AI is just one of the many technologies that is transforming the world of work. There is much more to become aware of.

Every Company is A Data Company

Note: Our research on AI and culture finds that the organisations that are ahead of the curve in AI implementation are those that are the most skilled in their use of data.

Their sophistication in using data leads their abilities to use AI and implement other technologies.

But for the moment keeping that linkage aside, what we are finding is that organisations that are sophisticated in their use of data are better able to :

--generate customer insights

--improve operations

--provide personalised experience to their customers

--generally take better evidence based decisions.

These are huge advantages to this two pronged: "Data and AI" approach that propel you ahead of competition and there is little else that can make up for this.

Every Company is A Media Company

And finally every company is a media company.

What this means is that we live in an attention starved world and your ability to "tell your story convincingly" matters.

Your story matters matters to:

--your customer

--your investors

--your employees

--your partners

While there is plenty of room for nuance here (e.g. who will we produce content for? how much content is necessary?), the central point remains.

Organisations are continuously telling stories to the larger world about who they are.

And how well this story is told matters a great deal.

Understanding this shift means that as a senior leader

--you need to understand the value of the story you are telling

--be able to tell this story well to your audience

--ensure consistency in your messaging (even if your story itself is fast evolving).

Critical Skill 3: Speaking Multiple Functional/ Social Languages

This critical skill is for anyone who is considering senior leadership roles.

Whenever we have done a competency mapping exercise for senior roles, being "multi-lingual" always comes up as an important one.

This is because 'getting anything done' today requires the ability to understand and communicate using languages that one may have had to learn later.

Whether this is partnerships with people or organisations on the outside. Or pulling off internal collaborations that allow you to stay a few steps ahead of your competition. This needs the ability to speak in many different languages to communicate your point.

Underlying this is the idea of "cognitive agility". Or the ability to use different prisms to understand the same idea. This ability to quickly shift perspectives is key to building win-win partnerships.

Let's start simple.

Each field and industry has its own language.

This refers to the ideas that dominate the way people in that field think. It also often includes specific vocabulary and metrics that people who have grown up in that discipline focus on.

For instance, people in operations often focus on ideas around efficiency, predictability and reliability (quite right so). Similarly their counterparts in marketing, may focus on ideas around brand, creativity, positioning (again rightly so). Or their counterparts in HR may focus on ideas around engagement, learning, or compensation.

In times gone by, (when the world was a simpler place), it was okay for a leader to only be able to be able to speak just one or two languages successfully. (Remember the world of functional silos).

Yet that is not the world we are living any more.

Today we are living in the world of partnerships, and collaborations.

Yet it is only by being "multi-lingual" that a senior leader can make the quick cognitive shifts needed to build win-win partnerships.

And being successful today (and increasingly tomorrow) will be all about being able to build win-win partnerships in unique ways.

This is because we live in a world of great flux. And responding well in such a world is all about being nimble in partnerships

Think of the recent partnership between Open AI and Microsoft. (also referenced in the Video above with Mustafa Suleyman).

Or here.

And while this is an extremely high profile partnership, smaller examples include--working with a partner with a complementary area of expertise to satisfy the needs of a client. Or working closely with a partner in another industry to create products that may benefit your customer.

Win-win partnerships are key to success in a very fast changing world.

And whether this is internal or external, it requires the cognitive agility that underlies multi-lingual abilities.

The Times They Are A-Changin

To quote a classic Bob Dylan Song, we are living in times that are a-changing.

We are asked to do more, far sooner than ever before.

If you are wondering if any of this is realistic or even fair--I hear you.

But the truth is none of this is about fairness. Only about recognising all that has already changed.

Fun Fact: Microsoft found that it takes 11 minutes a day for 11 weeks for your productivity to improve with AI. How fascinating is that!

About Our 'AI And Culture' Research: My research partner Jaspreet Bindra and I are studying cultural factors that are behind the successful implementation of AI and Gen AI solutions in organisations at scale. This is a new and emerging field and we hope to contribute to the body of knowledge by helping leaders know what is essential to focus on. Expect to read many such articles from us through the course of the year.

If you know of any organisation that is implementing AI at scale and would like to participate in our research project, please reach out.

And if you would like us to come and share our emerging findings in a leadership talk, DM us.

About Unqbe's Work:

Unqbe, and my partner Papiya Banerjee , work with leadership teams to identify competencies that are specifically oriented to a fast changing world.

We do all the things an OD consulting company would do, but with a lens on being "future-ready".

We also,

--enable and build future leaders

--enable 'future-ready' organisational cultures

--build future oriented people practices

We work with organisations from a wide range of industries. And a wide variety of sizes.

DM us if you would like to find out more here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/shalal/

Even if you are just curious, we would love to talk to you and introduce our work to you.

(About me: I lead Unqbe, a think-tank and advisory firm around building future organisations, and building future careers. We track change through commissioned and primary research. We help leadership teams build the new workplace through a culture that supports change and people practices for the future.)