There are so many amazing things happening in the world right now. Yes, there is also travesty. Our work as leaders is to envision a future we wish to inhabit, and work towards it. We’ll need some critical skills to get there. Here are seven of the most important.
Tip: You can learn all these skills with us in the Amplifiers™ Academy
The Future of Leadership is Leadership FOR the Future
In all my research there is one theme that stands out: leadership is about working with others in search of a better future.
Most of the time we focus on three to five year planning cycles. Sometimes the best we can manage is simply having a better day.
Here’s what needs to change: a focus on long-term impact beyond quarterly reporting.
Our current environmental issues are a result of short-term thinking. We can no longer put off tomorrow what we need to address today. The dance between NOW and NEXT has never been more important: focus on long-term impact while delivering on outcomes now.
Where do we start? We need to ensure our skills are fit for purpose.
Skill 1: Explore
We need to anticipate the challenges — and opportunities — that come from emerging technologies, social movements, environmental patterns, economic fluctuations, political vagaries, and organisational shifts.
To capitalise on all that, we need to explore the possibilities. Try new things. Be curious. Have our head above our own patch.
Tip: Ask ChatGPT-3 what the trends are in a completely different industry.
(I asked ChatGPT-3 what trends public servants in Australia are most concerned about, and it came back with:
Budget cuts
Job security
Workload and stress
Changing policy priorities
Technology disruption.)
Skill 2: Map
Mapping helps make sense of the world around us. There are several ways to map:
Map trends (hint: use ChatGPT-3 to help you).
Map out the ‘what ifs’ impact on your organisation of these trends
Map the systems in your organisation, in your organisation’s ecosystem with suppliers and clients.
Map possible scenarios with their relevant threats and opportunities.
Tip: Use visuals like a mindmap to make sense of your research.
Skill 3: Adapt
We’ve moved beyond resilience. Radical and accelerated change is our default. It’s no longer just about being able to withstand the pressures of these changes. We need to lean into change.
To do this, we need to experiment, be okay with failure, interrogate lessons learned, and adopt new skills.
Tip: Start with easy stuff. Pick a new habit to embed, like reading a futurist blog over lunch. Try a new app. Ask ChatGPT-3 for suggestions! Remember to apply the experiential learning cycle: Plan, Check, Do, Review.
Skill 4: Lead Culture
This is a biggie! It has many components. Start with:
Identify what kind of culture you want to embed.
Identify the values and behaviours that will bring this to life.
Identify the results of that culture and how you might measure it.
Develop a culture manifesto and Culture Compass™.
Develop rituals and a regular pattern of engagement with your team (s).
Tip: Learn these skills now in the Amplifiers™ Academy. We’ve got templates for meetings, how-to build your Culture Compass™, and suggested rituals.
Skill 5: Lead Change
When we’re looking at moving quickly into future paradigms, then this is also a biggie. What is most affected by change? People. Start with:
Map the threats that your people will be challenged by with the new initiative. How might these push their amygdala into survival mode?
Map your team members’ leadership maturity stage: how will the change serve or threaten their particular stage of development?
Identify mutineers, opponents, fans and champions. Develop strategies to defuse and leverage the attitude and energy of each respectively.
Tip: We go into a huge amount of detail in the Amplifiers™ Academy.
Skill 6: Lead Strategy
This is where the Explore, Map, and Adapt skills come to life. The best strategies:
Look far. Leaders and teams consider the intersection of long-term trends and patterns on a global to local scale. Time horizons span five, 10, 20 years and more.
Go deep. These strategies do deep diagnostics of what is happening below the surface of challenges, both within and outside the organisation.
Reach wide. Leaders and teams consider how their choices might affect the organisation, its stakeholders, and the community.
Tip: Use a problem tree to map out challenges in your organisation. This is just one of the tools we use in the Amplifiers™ Academy to show leaders how to lead strategy.
Skill 7: Lead Performance
This is where the rubber hits the road. It’s the culmination of building a great culture, growing teams through change, mapping out a comprehensive and far-reaching strategy.
In leading performance, we need to ensure:
Our KPIs are carefully crafted. They need to measure progress towards our destination.
Our measures are an integral component to the system of business, showing us how we can improve the whole system, and not just generate outputs in isolation.
KPIs are used to help us improve, not punish or reward our individual behaviours.
Tip: Crafting useful measures is a tricky skill. Start by drilling down and asking, ‘what will I see as a result of this measurement? What is the end game?’ When we know the end game, it makes it easier to create measures that are useful.
We drill down into the step by step process for developing useful measures in the Lead Performance module in the Amplifiers™ Academy. We also look at how to have performance conversations, how to report your measures, and obstacles to performance.
There’s a lot to master when we are looking at leadership for the future. Start by taking a few steps. Have fun!
Live well, lead well.
About Zoë Routh, Canberra Leadership Expert
Zoë Routh is a leadership futurist, podcaster, and multiple award-winning author. She works with leaders and teams to navigate future horizons.
She has worked with individuals and teams internationally and in Australia since 1987. From wild Canadian rivers to the Australian Outback, and the Boardroom jungles, Zoë is an adventurist! She facilitates strategy and culture sessions with audacious teams.
Zoë's fourth leadership book, People Stuff - Beyond Personality Problems: An advanced handbook for leadership, won the Book of the Year at the Australian Business Book Awards in 2020. Her fifth book is a near future science fiction dystopian novel, The Olympus Project.
Zoë is the producer of the Zoë Routh Leadership Podcast, dedicated to asking “What if…?” and sharing Big Ideas on the Future of Leadership.
Zoë is an outdoor adventurist and enjoys telemark skiing, has run six marathons, is a one-time belly-dancer, has survived cancer, and loves hiking in the high country. She is married to a gorgeous Aussie and is a self-confessed dark chocolate addict.