Answering three essential questions for future leaders

Faced with uncertainty about the future, some leaders are apprehensive and try to keep the past unchanged; The blueprint's toolkit is full of confidence, only to find, to his chagrin, that the tools are inappropriate; and the leaders who will ultimately succeed in shaping the future are those who have seen the future. Drucker (also translated as "Dulac") Foundation invited 39 masters to co-author the book "Future Leaders", which is to help leaders bravely stand higher and see farther.

What will the leaders of the future look like?

To answer this question, people not only need to look to the future, of course, they also need to learn from history, because in the passage of time, there are always some fundamental things still lying quietly underwater, polished and shiny.

Management guru Edgar Schein summed up these unchanged leadership elements in detail: in the creation stage of an organization, the leader is the heart of the organization; in the construction stage of the organization, the leader is the creator of the culture; During the sustainment and development phase of the organization, the leader is the maintainer of the culture, while during the transformation period of the organization, the leader is the change agent. This is the charisma of successful leaders past and present.

Future leaders must excel in the following attributes:

extraordinary insight to see the world and themselves as they really are;

strong motivation to withstand the pain of learning and change, especially in this In a world where loyalty is becoming harder to define and boundaries are blurring;

strong-willed, leaders should be able to control their own and others' anxiety as learning and change become more and more a way of life ;

Possess a range of new skills, including the analysis of cultural premises, distinguishing between applicable and inapplicable premises, and expanding the connotation of culture by cultivating its strengths and applicable elements;

willing and able to engage other Participation and participation, because tasks are too complex and information is too widely distributed for leaders to be hands-on;

willing and able to delegate authority according to the level of knowledge and skills of employees, that is, allowing and encouraging Leaders emerge.

Another management guru, Charles Handy, from the perspective of organizational political language, analyzes the need for future leaders to learn to cultivate self-renewal on the basis of new "languages" including "assist", "won" and "virtual" The famous speaker William Bridges analyzes the future leadership from the future organizational structure of "organization without work framework" should have "formal leadership", "special leadership" and "personal leadership".

The same management topic is explained by different management experts from different perspectives, which is an important feature of this book. Readers can start with the most interesting parts and authors, and then extend to the articles of authors who have never been in contact with or have never paid attention to, brainstorming and learning from others.

What do future leaders do?

France Heselborn, chairman of the Drucker Foundation, said, "The three most important challenges facing CEOs have nothing to do with managing the company's physical assets, but are about leadership, Productivity and relationships go hand in hand.” Therefore, future leaders will:

form a distributed, diverse leadership, present a persuasive vision for the future of the organization, listen to customers, and understand their value proposition , "digging out" their will, leadership not only involves "our organization", but also the society outside the organization.

Kant is one of the few female management gurus. From the perspective of a "world-class leader," she expounds that "future leaders must possess comprehensive capabilities that transcend apparent differences in organizations, departments, disciplines, functions, or cultures."

Stephen Covey analyzes future leaders' Three roles "leader," "organizer," and "empowerer," David Knoll tells leaders about "the secret to creating cohesion," and more. The masters describe the different functions of future leaders from various perspectives and the strategic methods and ways to achieve their goals.

How to grow into a future outstanding leader?

It is not easy to answer this question. Of course, it cannot be generalized. Instead, we should gather the strengths of various schools, choose the camera to study, and give full play to the essence of "Contingency Theory". Warren William, president of the Global Consulting Industry Alliance, said that "learning from the past" is a good way, while George Weber, president of the famous humanitarian organization Red Cross and Red Crescent Federation, stressed that "growing into tomorrow's leaders" requires attention to social responsibility obligations .

Marshall Goldsmith, a member of the Drucker Foundation and a renowned leadership development expert, offers a clear path to "future leaders":

Ask. Drucker once said, "The leaders of the past are people who know how to answer questions, and the leaders of the future are people who know how to ask questions." Future leaders should be good at using a wide range of important sources of information to propose certain question of value. These sources of information include: current and potential customers, suppliers, team members, colleagues across departments, direct reports, managers, other members of the organization.

Learn. There are two keys to effective learning: listening effectively; asking, and reflecting on information. Another huge challenge for future leaders is to prioritize matters amid the flood of information.

Follow up. This is an essential step after asking, learning. Leaders can only achieve efficient results if they follow up efficiently and actively.

Grow. Future leadership improvement is no longer about "how to find good shape" but always "on good shape" as those who strive to ask for information, learn, respond in a positive way, engage key stakeholders, actively follow up leaders, are sure to become more effective and are bound to grow over time.

In fact, this future leader growth path also reminds us how to make learning in the vast sea of leadership books to have real results. As Drucker points out in the preface to the book "Leaders of the Future," it's not about reading it, it's about taking action after reading it: "This is a book about the future, but I hope it will be motivating A book for action. I hope this book will make every reader ask themselves, 'What should I do in my organization to be truly different? How can I truly lead by example?' May this book touch everyone Readers to do so."

Ada Zhang, Associate Editor, CEConline Web