The top 5 traits of the new-age leader

Leadership is one of the most researched topics in the corporate and startup world. Given the pace of change of industry, leadership as a skillset is also morphing into new dimensions. Having gone through my experiences at Urban Ladder for the last 7 years, I believe the following 5 skills are going to be important for people getting into leadership roles in the coming decade -

1. Story-telling — Storytelling has always been an important aspect of a strong leader. The leader needs to tell stories — in good times and in bad times, to employees and to investors, about the history and the future. Being truthful and consistent is a strong characteristic of the best stories. New-age leaders have to be very good at this because of the changing dynamics of the workforce - people are younger and more disconnected / less loyal than ever before, and this demands a different level of story-telling continuously to all parties involved. Story-telling always pegs back to the fundamentals of the ‘Why — How — What’ model (refer Simon Sinek) — the great storytellers keep a visionary ‘Why’, a mouldable but strong strategic ‘How’, and a tactical set of goals / tasks / initiatives ‘What’ at any point in time.
2. Self-Awareness — Leaders typically have strong personalities, but building self-awareness is a key trait for a strong leader. By having an effective network of mentors / coaches and by making 360-degree feedback a way of life, a leader will not only take consistent feedback to reassess self, he/she will also bring in an environment of feedback giving and seeking inside the organisation. An organisation where leaders are highly self aware, will invest in developing on the strengths and fixing the improvement gaps, so they can take a better shot at winning in their business. An external unbiased assessment of skills / strengths / employee satisfaction versus an internal assessment can indicate gaps in self awareness levels.
3. Technology & Data — There’s going to be a ton of data available for the new-age leader. Technology will be omni-present — in the form of computers, mobiles, AR/VR devices, sensors, etc. The amount of data that these different systems collect in real-time about every single signal is going to be enormous. While data scientists and analysts can demystify the data, a strong leader will look to seek out data across various fronts, and build a culture of decision making around data. Once data is embedded as a cultural element, even the newest of hires has an equal voice in the room as the CEO of the company — all discussions hover around data. Data can never lie, as long as it’s been captured in a clean manner, and is being analysed without biases and prejudices!
4. Egalitarianism — Equality across multiple fronts — women, sexual orientation, caste, religion, nationality, etc. should be a given in the workforce. Corporate responsibility, environment and sustenance are important aspects too for all companies in the capitalist era. Decades of unfair and irresponsible practices in companies have let a lot of inequality and nonchalance seep through. Modern leaders will go the extra mile to make sure these topics are shared and addressed in wider forums, and take stances on explicitly supporting certain of these causes. Given the decades of inequality, it’s important for leaders to swing more to the extreme to fix some of these issues in companies — that could mean friendlier policies, specific investments in causes, etc.
5. Change Management — There’s merit in staying the course on strategic decisions for a specific time period; on occasions though, change is the only constant (quite cliched :). Given the rapidly changing face of the macro-environment, technology, and people skills, there will be substantial change management exercises that companies have to go through from time to time. In the earlier era, maybe it used to be once in 5–7 years but in the current era, it’s become ~2 years. Processes, skills, teams, strategies etc. change in this time period. A strong leader will help the organisation through these tricky change management exercises and stay the course for a sustained period post the change. He/she will marry strong story-telling capabilities and change management techniques to get the organisation to a better stage post this change.

The core skills that have always defined strong leaders will continue to be critical — persistence, commitment, communication, showing the way, belief, negotiation skills, strategy, focus, sustainability etc. But these new age skills will start making or breaking great leaders in the coming decade.

Do comment on other skills outside of the above that you think may be relevant in the next decade.