How Ready Are You For The Future?

Let's just start with a fun quiz to see.

Just go with the flow. These are Yes, No or Maybe kind of questions.

1. Do you read widely about the big trends in technology?
2. Does the idea of change fill make you anxious or excited?
3. Do you understand how young people today think? And what they want from their world?
4. Are you able to build connections with people quickly?
5. Are you good at spotting mutual opportunities to build win-win partnerships?
6. Are you able to translate what you have just learnt in one field to a completely different one?
7. Are you excited by the idea of coming up with new ways to solve old problems?
8. Do you often sit with your team to think of new opportunities?
9. Are you and your team skilled at building new solutions and quickly trying them out?
10. Do you wonder how the push for sustainability and climate change will impact your business?
11. Do you know and follow at least 3 trusted thought-leaders relevant for your field?
12. Do you believe in the power of data? Do you know what data will help you do what you do far better?

(Scoring: 1 for each statement you said yes to. 1/2 if you said maybe)

How did you do?

If you scored 8 and above you are doing well.

(Side note: This completely unscientific quiz is simply intended to get you to start thinking about your own mindset and habits towards change).

Competencies For Future Leaders

There has been a big SWITCH in the leadership competencies that prepare us for the future. We all sort of know that things are different, but not everyone is sure what that really means.

You will notice that becoming a successful leader (or even professional) now is so much about adapting to a changed world.

What's that saying again?

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change" Darwin.

Given that we are in the midst of so much change--technological, cultural, sustainability, geo-political, demographical; so much of future leadership competencies are about change.

It is about understanding the changing context within which we operate; creating the cultural capabilities around change and innovation; and finally being able to respond as a human being to immense change.

So much of this is new.

When we work with leadership teams, we find that there is usually a fair acceptance that the change they are experiencing is real, and that it will need new capabilities. Yet what those capabilities really look like, is not always clear.

Our work at Unqbe , suggests that these cluster under three.

1. Understanding the Context:

What will it mean to experience more change in the next 10 years than we did in the past 100?

Different speeds of change, need very different strategies for survival.

Leaders today need a far more pro-active approach to understanding our changing world than ever before.

It means learning about emerging technologies. How can they help us serve our customers better? How can they empower our employees? How can they build efficiencies?

Or learning about shifting cultural trends that impact the products, advertising, services that will hit just the right note.

But, shifting cultural trends equally impact what employees are looking for in their work, their workplace and their leaders.

For instance, did you know that employees feel they have very little uninterrupted time in the day--the kind they need for focused work.

Or that despite the concerns employees have around how AI will impact their jobs, an overwhelming majority look forward to using AI to delegate tasks.

And there are many other sources of change that we haven't even begun talking about here.

Like how the move towards sustainability will fundamentally shift consumer behavior.

Given how much is changing in the very context we operate in, leading the future is all about recognising and understanding change.

2. Changing Ways of Working With People:

It means being a very different kind of leader. One who understands shifts in employee expectations and is able to respond to these.

For instance, did you know that a Hybrid WFH had a significant impact on employee quit rates?

Or, did you know about the rise of Friday as the day to WFH?

But that's not all, it is about leading teams that have the capabilities for innovation that teams in the past did not need--at least with the same intensity.

So the second dimension of future leadership capabilities is all about developing a sharpened sensitivity to what it takes to lead teams with changed expectations. And what it takes to build cultures of innovation.

The leadership styles for this are fundamentally different from leadership styles that relied on promoting efficiency. They are about developing mindset and skillset of creativity, innovation and experimentation.

And this takes a new leadership style.

3. Personal Capabilities For Change

And finally, all this is personal.

At the end of the day, we are all human. And even the most successful leaders have to work at building their own personal capacity for change.

Whether this comes from developing and growing a comfort with ambiguity.

Or it comes from knowing how to keep learning and re-inventing yourself.

Or perhaps staying resilient in the course of adversity.

Each of these are inner reserves that allow us to create and build change.

As people, we are all fallible, and yet have the capacity for tremendous strength. So this dimension is about all things personal.

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

DM us if you would like to find out more.

-----

(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.)