CEO of Global Fortune 500 Company On The Top 3 Mindsets For Future Leaders

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What will it take to succeed as a leader over the next decade? It all comes down to how you think.

Candido Botelho Bracher has decades of experience in finance in Brazil. His current position is CEO of Itau Unibanco, the largest financial conglomerate in the southern hemisphere. Candido leads more than 100,000 global employees and more than $400 billion in assets.

I had the chance to interview Candido for my book, The Future Leader. Throughout his career, he has worked with leaders and future leaders around the world. Candido has a reputation of being a tough but compassionate leader, which is something he expressed future leaders would need to emulate.

According to Candido, here are three of the skills and mindsets future leaders must develop in order to succeed.

Open-Minded

Future leaders can’t believe they have all the answers on their own. They must be willing to listen to outside perspectives and consider new ideas.

Candido greatly stressed the importance of being open-minded for future and current leaders. This is especially important as business transformations become more frequent and necessary and companies adapt and evolve. Future leaders must always be open to questioning ideas and assumptions from people on their team and outside voices. With so much change, leaders can’t be expected to always have all the information and answers. Instead, they must realize the value of the people around them and be open to new ideas.

Candido told me this: “Increasingly, leaders will have to rely on their people with varied backgrounds and perspectives to make the best decisions. This means that in order to have a successful company, leaders must be open-minded to ideas that are not their own.”

Being open-minded means not making decisions until hearing multiple perspectives, talking to different groups, and asking questions. Candido surrounds himself with a diverse team that provides him different points of view and often challenge his own ideas. Staying open to new perspectives helps him see what is best for the company and its customers instead of what he alone believes is right.

Focus On Customer Satisfaction

Leaders have numerous responsibilities, from representing their companies to developing employee experience and creating future leaders, but Candido believes that above all, future leaders must be tireless in seeking the maximum satisfaction of their clients. Successful current leaders are focused on their customers, and that will increase greatly for future leaders.

Leadership is changing. What are the skills and mindsets you need to master in order to lead in the new world of work? According to over 140 of the world's top CEOs there are 4 mindsets and 5 skills that leaders need to master. Learn what they are and hear directly from these leaders by downloading the PDF below.

One of Candido’s main objectives at Itau Unibanco is make customer satisfaction the most important part of the company. That means that every decision Candido and his team make has the customer in mind, from what technology to use to what people management tools will create the best experience. The company is working to become increasingly agile and efficient, all in the name of improving customer satisfaction.

In order to stay focused on customer satisfaction, future leaders must have a broad-based vision of all the variables that affect their business. There are numerous factors that contribute to the success of a company and the satisfaction of its customers. Leaders must stay organized and have an ear to the ground to understand everything contributing to their organizations. In many cases, that comes from delegating and staying in regular communicate with frontline employees to see how the company is interacting with customers in action and getting feedback and suggestions from them.

Collaborative

Future work isn’t done by individuals—it’s done by teams working together with each person contributing. Leaders have the unique role of not only establishing the goals and vision for the company, but also in creating a collaborative environment where work can get done.

Candido says future leaders will need to be able to stimulate collective work, which means combining an elevated degree of entrepreneurship, initiative, and autonomy with clear processes to achieve results. Teams must have the freedom to make their own decisions to move towards larger goals.

Leaders participate in the collaborative environment, but they do so by listening and becoming part of the team. Candido said that listening has been one of the biggest contributors to his career success.

“I ask a lot of questions, and I listen even more. I am obsessed with the quality of the atmosphere in my team and stimulate emerging conflicts so that they can be resolved in a transparent manner,” he said.

Leaders can’t simply sit back passively and expect their teams to come together. They must foster the environment to drive collaboration by creating cohesive teams, stimulating opportunities for growth and development, and providing tools and resources that help teams get their jobs done well.

Take it from someone with a decades-long career at the top of his field—future leaders must be open-minded, customer-focused, and collaborative. These three mindsets are crucial in setting leaders up for long-term success.

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If you enjoyed the article and want more content like this here’s what you can do:

1. Subscribe to The Future of Work Podcast where I interview business leaders around the world each week. 

2. Grab a copy of The Future Leader which has been endorsed by the CEOs of MasterCard, Best Buy, Oracle, Audi, Unilever, Domino’s Pizza, Ritz Carlton, Kaiser, and Marshall Goldsmith. It explores the most essential skills and mindsets for future leaders.

3. If you are or want to be an entrepreneur then my wife and I just launched a brand new podcast on how to Be Your Own Boss, called the BYOB Podcast where we share what we did and how we did it. You can subscribe to that here.