Leadership for the Future

“…Keeping up, staying up and getting ahead are now more difficult than we have previously imagined. There is no turning back, but there is turning forward.” Mike Jay, www.emergenics.com.

Predictions for the future can be stimulating and challenging, especially if one is a top executive in a business enterprise attempting to make strategic decisions. Our rapidly changing global environment presents problems never before encountered. No one knows what will be required of leaders in the future, but some speculation is worthy of our attention.

Predictions from experts in their fields have not always been accurate. Here are a few examples:

o  In 1899 the U.S. Commissioner of Patents, Charles Duell, declared, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

o  In 1905, President Grover Cleveland prophesied, “Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.”

o  When Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, wrote a student paper proposing an overnight delivery service, his professor wrote: “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”

o  Even Bill Gates once mused, “640K of memory ought to be enough for anybody.”

New industries are in their gestational phases. Some are already well on their way to becoming established products and services.

• Micro-robotics – miniature robots built from atomic particles that could unclog arteries

• Machine translation – devices that will provide real-time translation between people conversing in different languages

• Digital highways that will make available to any home instant access to knowledge and entertainment

• Urban underground automated distribution systems to reduce traffic congestion

• Virtual meeting rooms to eliminate business travel

• Bio-mimetic materials that will duplicate properties found in living organisms

• Satellite-based personal communicators that will allow instant communication to anyone anywhere in the world

• Machines capable of emotions, inference, and learning that will interact with human beings in entirely new ways

• Bioremediation – custom-designed organisms that will help clean up the earth’s environment

Each of these opportunities is by nature global, with no single nation or region likely to control all the technologies and skills required to turn them into reality. Any firm wishing to become a leader will have to collaborate with and learn from leading-edge customers, technology providers, and suppliers wherever they are located (Hamel & Prahalad, Competing for the Future, 1994).

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the BarOn EQi and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring and visionary leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.