Tomorrow’s leaders will meet expectations of looking beyond their own competence and involving and mobilizing the best teams towards common goals. For a leader it is important to communicate goals and direction, inspire and be close to people in order to ensure effective collaboration between cultures and spread competence.
The leader of tomorrow need to understand that multidisciplinary and diversity are about being open to the fact that different disciplines, genders, geographical locations and culture can mutually influence each other. The leader of tomorrow must bring out the effect of a greater diversity in society, therefore tomorrow’s top leaders must facilitate this in their organization.
Good management is about both delivering results and doing so in a responsible and justifiable way. The great challenges of tomorrow include acquiring and developing a certain range of skills and abilities. It is obvious that we are living in a constantly changing world, increasingly dynamic and challenging. This complexity also affects the business environment, which never stops evolving.
Demand for efficiency, more for less, better services and better utilization of resources is often a starting point for a change project in an organization.
The change chase means that organizations are in constant and complex change, and the gains are so sought after that they are often taken out before the changes are implemented. Research shows that somewhere between 50 to 70% of all change projects fail. Why is it like that? Much can probably be attributed to the fact that one has not fully understood how the human factor of change plays.
What happened as in all changed process is that the entail costs associated with a fall in production, loss of efficiency in the respective countries that got the message of downsizing of their operations activities. In particular, the cost areas are directly related to the degree to which we get the employees and the change capacity in the organization. Loss of production is related to loss of motivation, as a result of, among other things, lack of information and absent management. Loss of motivation among employees can lead to costs and reduced benefits in the short and long term. Both passivity and quitting staff can eventually cost you dearly. This is also where the leader’s role comes into play. For the employee to be able to handle the parallel change processes and a new working day, the nearest manager is the key.
The leader of the tomorrow is a leader who can lead change. The leader needs to be capable of adapting to the changes and steer the ship steady despite all those continuous changes of course
- Empathy is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow;
It is the ability to understand another person’s experience, perspective and feelings. Empathy is a neutral data gathering tool that enables you to understand the human environment within which you are operating in business and therefore make better predictions, craft better tactics, inspire loyalty and communicate clearly.
The leader of the tomorrow must be a mentor. For 12 years I was an adept of the former CEO of Statkraft, Mr. Bård Mikkelsen. He was my mentor and sparring partner. This helped me to learn and develop both professionally and intellectually. For the past 12 years, I myself have been a mentor, both in working life and at the University of East London, in London, the University of South East Norway, Drammen. One of the great challenges of tomorrow is to train leaders who can build up trust and show empathy toward others, inside and outside their own organization. In order to share a viewpoint and try to achieve a common goal, successful leadership should appeal to emotions and become a source of motivation.
- Self-awareness is important for understanding how you influence others as a leader is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow
The organizations of the future will require that leaders be trained to be leaders, that is, people who are really, prepared to lead. The real challenge is to develop those personal skills consciously (leading the change, innovation and creativity, working in a team, having the ability to apply knowledge to decision-making, communicating, etc.), Self-awareness is the key in many areas of life. I constantly preach that everyone, especially those who is my adept, they must try and see themselves from the outside. Everyone who is a leader should prioritize this, it is only when you understand yourself that you can lead others. In other words, self-insight is about a continuous self-development process where one is never fully taught. Most of us look at other people in one way or another. Some may be annoyed at the inequality of others. A successful leader tries to understand the mechanisms in different relationships and how he/she effect the environment. The leaders of tomorrow will know they are one, they will stop to have a new look at their goals before going after them, and they will count on their team and be surrounded by the most capable people to achieve the goal.
- Adaptability is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow
The functions of planning, analyzing and controlling, done by the leader over the rest of the group, have traditionally been given great importance. These responsibilities will become less and less important, as the leader cannot effectively control such an unpredictable environment. The world changes fast! What this means is that leaders need to know how to “roll” with the “punches” — whether it’s a new concept, a new technology or a team member who floats an unorthodox idea at a company meeting. Adaptability isn’t innate — it’s a skill like any other. It requires leaders to cultivate an open mind. Leaders need to be receptive to new ideas, tools, techniques and ideologies. Anything less is deliberate stagnation. Therefore, the ability to adapt to change will become increasingly valuable and successful leadership will be supported by the ability of transformation. In addition to that, leaders will move with more frequency between different cultures and business models, so they will need to show flexibility and adaptability. The leader of the future is destined to be the driving force for change.
- Focus on constant innovation is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow
Innovation is a key factor in the success of any business. The demands in competitiveness faced by any company, whether in the present or in the future, are just huge. We are living in an unpredictable environment, and that requires quick reactions not a long 5-year plan where it takes 3 years turn before you change your plans. Leading requires giving great importance to innovation in any field and understanding that the real risk lies in not innovating. I have previous stated that; “Leadership is about making your employees independent and safe in their role – and enables them to make decision even if I am are not present”. Glenn Hole, Dr. Philos
One can often distinguish excellent and less excellent leaders on how they receive input into a problem. An excellent leader emphasizes the thinking and attitudes of his employees beyond self-conceived thoughts, even if they are different from their own. It’s all about how we all perceive things objectively, and thus shape our own “realities” based on our own point of view. If we have no one to give corrective input to our reality, we often remain in our own world. It is only when we are aware of how we ourselves interpret information into a problem that we can respect that others can sit on a different interpretation from their worldview on the same problem. I often say to the boring that disagreement is not dangerous, and that agreement is good, but it is disagreement that contributes to innovation. It is precisely when we strive to understand how others perceive the world, we expand our own horizon and perspective. Research conducted at Stanford University suggests that workers can be roughly divided into two groups – those who are curious and development-oriented and those who are locked in their expertise.
Trial and error are the basis for innovation and learning. If the organization does not provide a framework for learning through problem solving, it will not help how motivated and self-driven employees are. In an organization, tasks are not solved primarily by individuals, but through collaboration between different people, different parts of the organization and with external partners. The culture of the organization, the behavior and attitudes of those working in the organization not only affect the productivity and performance of those who work there, but also their ability to learn new skills, their attitudes to failure and the pursuit of new challenges and the goals they set. themselves.
In many organizations, managers are often measured by stable operations and production. These leaders will consider failures as disruptive to their success and will therefore be negative to experimentation that will result in failure and thus failure to achieve results. The road is thus short to a controlling leadership that focuses on avoiding mistakes. Innovation and learning, on the other hand, derive their nourishment from inspiration, confidence and risk-taking. Organizations that want to meet challenges through innovation must challenge employees to set goals for their own development that are relevant to the organization. They must enable them to develop competence through training, time and space to cope with challenges and reward collaboration on results. It is not achieved by punishing those who take risks, but by giving employees room to try and make mistakes. Innovation is a result of collaboration, and mistakes made should therefore be used as a collective source of reflection and improvement rather than being an opportunity to distribute blame. In the future, employees who are curious and development-oriented will be the organizations’ most important resource. Leaders will effectively get everyone in the organization, from executives to employees, involved in developing an environment of innovation where creativity is rewarded.
- Emotional Intelligence and Soft Skills is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow
Social skills or “soft skills” will be regarded as one of the most demanded types of skill. These skills are the ones needed to persuade, influence and convince others in order to achieve goals. Leadership will categorically require these skills, and their mastering will result in a great asset for the company. The leader of the next century must stand as a ‘social influencer’ on their environment. One of the top priorities of the company of the next century will be to understand and watch the communication process within and outside the organization itself.
- Strategic thinking and acting is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow
Companies today must remain nimble and responsive to change, which is why strategic thinking is one of the most important skills. Leaders need to think about the best route to get to the outcomes that exceed the expectations for the people they serve. There are many ways to go about that, including setting a vision and being clear about what that means, along with everyone’s role in achieving that vision.
- Technology understanding is an essential leadership skill for tomorrow
The 4th industrial revolution fueled by technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics, internet of things, big data, augmented reality, and more. Just about every industry and company will change because of technology. Leaders will need to understand and have conversations and make decisions about technology. The ability to understand what tech can do for an organization is essential, and