What are your predictions for the future of leadership?
We have come a long way from the days of command and control leadership, where giving orders was the standard way of relating to employees, and information was doled out only to those already in the know. Now, an endless flow of information and learning opportunities are available to new managers, simply by googling, “How to be a good leader.” Anyone now can learn from the pros about techniques for engaging, empowering and motivating employees. But what really matters among all these tips and ideas? How can we sift through the information overload to find what works in our own situation?
Leadership Capabilities for the Future
In his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith identified capabilities that future leaders will need in order to be effective:
Consider these quotes, each aligned to one of Goldsmith’s future leader capabilities:
On Thinking globally:
Leaders who are stuck in local thinking will be hard-pressed to compete in a global marketplace. Leaders who can make globalization work in their organization’s favor will have a huge competitive advantage. – Marshall Goldsmith
On Cross-cultural diversity:
We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion. – Max de Pree
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. – Maya Angelou
On Technological savvy:
The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. – Steve Ballmer
On Building alliances and partnerships:
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” –Ken Blanchard
On Sharing leadership:
“The role of a leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas” – Sir Ken Robinson, Creativity Expert and Speaker
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it” – Andrew Carnegie, Business magnate and Industrialist
On Learning agility:
“Learn early, learn often” – Drew Houston, CEO and founder of Dropbox
Now it’s Your Turn!
Here are two questions for you:
1. So, has leadership really improved?
Are we thinking globally, embracing diversity, seeing the possibilities with new technologies, building those crucial alliances and partnerships, sharing leadership and continuously learning?
2. Where should we aim for our future?
What would you like to see happen in Leadership moving foward, or what are you afraid of happening? Feel free to express anything and everything related to the future of leadership as you see it.
Please share comments with your ideas for the future of leadership.
During two decades of leading teams toward extraordinary results in health care, pharmaceutical, arts & cultural, university and military organizations, Susan Hendrich has always been inspired by the stories of people achieving uncommon results through perseverence, positivity and prying opportunity from challenge. Susan’s mantra is “ganbatte kudasai,“ which means, “Always try your best.”
Susan E. Hendrich 
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