Future of leadership – Are your leadership skills & your leadership programs future-ready?

 

I read the recently published “The Self-Disruptive Leader,” – a study by Korn Ferry, of 150,000 global private sector leaders and their leadership skills.  The future of leadership is transforming. The report revealed that only 15% of the leaders have the skills to be great leaders in a rapidly changing business environment to design a future leadership program that keeps up with this transformation.

You may read the entire report here  https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/kfpublic/korn-ferry-disruptive-leader.pdf

I usually summarize the key points as it helps my learning, retention, and clarity.  Sharing and discussing with fellow professionals brings in diverse perspectives and new insights. I have found that this is an effective way to bring in / adopt some cutting-edge ideas in leadership thinking into our organizations.

Future of Leadership skills

 

Below are my brief notes from the report on the Future of Leadership skills

 

• Rapid change: The combined effect of global mega-trends has forced organizations to evolve rapidly, sometimes frenetically.
• Comprehensive study: Korn Ferry delved into 150,000 leadership profiles worldwide (18 major world markets)
• Only 15% of leaders are future-ready: The analysis revealed that, on average, only 15 percent of private-sector executives worldwide have what it takes to be truly great leaders in the rapidly changing business world.
• New skills for future survival: A majority of leaders can’t decide and take smart actions quickly enough, motivate people effectively or build trust—all of which is needed to ensure their organization’s survival into the future.
• “For the last hundred years, we have taught leaders that control, consistency, and closure are the principles of business leadership. They trained all of us in this approach.”
• Old models are outdated: Models of business leadership are based on what has worked successfully in the past, but we are not in the same business era anymore.
• Emerging leadership competencies: “But dramatic changes to the global business environment mean that this is no longer sufficient—trust, purpose and energizing others are now central.”

 

 

The future of leadership is  Self-Disruptive

 

The future of leadership is  Self-Disruptive and includes leaders who can: 

• Transform themselves
• Help their organizations transform.
• Question and shift their own and others’ mindsets
• Base their leadership success on their way of being rather than their skill at doing. 

This group represented the highest-performing leaders globally – as measured by factors that include compensation to company growth.

They defined the five leadership skills and qualities for future leaders from the analysis and turned it into an easy-to-remember acronym ADAPT. 

 

 

 

 

ADAPT – the ability to Anticipate, Drive, Accelerate, Partner, and Trust

 

Leaders will need to retain this self-disruptive outlook to succeed in the future.

• What can leaders do to inculcate the self-disruptive habit and competencies?
• How can leadership development professionals bring about the changes in curriculum or approach to get the leaders future-ready?

 

ADAPT framework is quite similar to agile leadership. It requires unlearning the ways that have made the leaders successful in the past. It requires letting go of long-standing organizational norms and getting into new and uncomfortable ways of doing things. To transform your organization from routine to agile ways of working requires courage from the top leaders.  

In today’s rapidly changing world – business is undergoing a continuous transformation.  Leadership needs to keep up and  “ADAPT” to such a world. Leadership development is critical for any organization in today’s VUCA world.

 

Read: Developing leaders to thrive in the new normal

 

 

How to design a future of leadership program for this new reality

 

 

Traditional leadership development methods involve using a defined curriculum, leadership models, case studies, and examples based on what worked in the past.  With the current business environment of rapid change, these models of learning are insufficient.  No curriculum can cover each situation’s intricacies that vary by the leader’s personality and experience, the position, the company, and the business environment.  No two leaders are in the same situation, and hence one size fits all leadership methods are ineffective.

 

Three things that can help keep up with the rapid pace are

 

1. Customized diagnosis

 

Every leader is different.  No two leaders are exactly alike.  They have different backgrounds, different upbringings, different life experiences, different strengths, and different areas of improvement.  A customized diagnosis is essential.

 

2. Individual help and support

 

Leaders are busy.  Leaders also have to portray a confident image.  We train them not to divulge their weaknesses. If they did, it might not go very well with investors and stakeholders!  Although they need help, they will rarely admit it in a public forum like a training program.  That is the reason that most leaders opt for executive coaching.  It offers confidentiality, individual help, and support to the leader.

 

3. Using team intelligence of the leader’s stakeholders (team members)

 

No one is as smart as all of us!  Leader’s stakeholders are in the best position to know the uniqueness of their own situation.  They observe the leader in action.  They are aware of the culture of the organization.  They have more combined knowledge about the problems and the solutions facing them than anyone else.  Hence their inputs are precious.  Their suggestions will help the leader a lot more than any new leadership model they may learn in a leadership training program or an executive education program.

 

Read: Organization-wide Leadership development plan example template – a real-life case study

 

Is there a future leadership program that meets these 3 requirements?

 

We offer Marshall Goldsmith stakeholder centers leadership program that meets all these 3 requirements.  It is a future leadership program that works in a disruptive world. It includes customized 360 diagnoses; it offers help and support in the form of one on one coaching, and it involves the combined intelligence of all the leader’s team members who know the right solutions suitable to the unique needs of the leader and the organization.

 

 

NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

 

That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth.  It is based on a stakeholder-centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents).  It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.

 

Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching

 

Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs.  We go to the leader and her team.  And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.

 

Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different.  One size fits all approach doesn’t work.  Individual development areas for each leader are aligned to the business strategy.

 

Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.

 

The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.

 

Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.

 

Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.

 

Pay us only after we deliver results! : We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis.  What does it mean?  If the leaders don’t improve, you don’t have to pay us.

 

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A version of this article was originally posted on LinkedIn by Tushar Vakil https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/only-15-leaders-future-ready-tushar-vakil/