The future of leadership looks technological. Are you up for it?

One of these days, when I was feeling a bit indulgent, I asked Alexa ‘what does the future of leadership looks like?’. Swiftly came the answer, ‘technological.’ Well, technically this is not exactly how the conversation unfolded between my trusted virtual personal assistant and myself but I am guessing the answer would not differ if I asked the same question to any industry expert today, in person.

Let’s face it, the world today is addicted to technology futurists and if you are looking at being at the top of the leadership tally in the future, you’ve got to go beyond being a ‘generalist’. Keeping yourself abreast with trends, upping your technology literacy, learning to deal with widespread redundancies and establishing new ways to harmonise technology with human efforts are few things leaders of tomorrow will be required to deal with without fail.

Because we are talking future here, it is also to be noted that skills that are important today or what we predict to be noteworthy in the near future, they might just become commonplace or obsolete few months from now. It is so because of the way the world is changing and double the speed to that the way technology is advancing.  It is being anticipated that by the time we hit 2020, more than half of the world’s current workforce would have become adapt at working with advanced robotics, AI, machine learning, biotechnology and genomics. Those not being able to lap up the trend would have disappeared from the job scene and those willing to find newer and innovative ways to use them to their advantage and staying ahead of the curve would be ruling the roost as leaders!

There’s no doubt that workforce of tomorrow will have to align its skillset to keep pace with the changing times, but what about the leaders? Rise in automation remains a real threat to jobs but how it is being perceived as essential to success by the workforce and how they continue to be positive about this change is something only leaders can foresee and manage. They would be required to get creative in their ways of thinking to be able to deal with the avalanche of change in technologies, products & services and working process. Robots may be able to complete the same job in half the time as humans but to be able to make humans understand the ways in which they can use machines to maximize their potential, a prudent, emotionally intelligent, complex problem solving & creative kind of leader is a must.

In a nutshell, as flexible upskilling will become a key part of career progression of workforce in future, leaders will not only have to strive to continuously develop their staff’s skill sets but also their own. Going forward, staying curious and engaged in technology will for sure become a benchmark against which future leaders will be measured.

Are you one of them? Let me assume, the answer to this lies within you and not Alexa.