the 21st century leader What are the key skills needed to be a modern leader? How do the current frameworks for leadership fit the modern corporate world? What will modern leaders be drawing on for inspiration? If you want to be a successful corporate leader what abilities will you need over the next decade or so? There are many contenders, ranging from handling complexity to the skill of inspiring others, from business acumen through to managing risk. No single ability is likely to count above all others. As now, great leadership will hinge on achieving a unique mix for each person, and as the particular situation requires. The environment in which you will lead is likely to be full of complexity, ambiguity, risk and the impact of numerous innovative technologies. Today, the leader is expected to show that the organisation is more than just a money-making machine. This is already showing up in the flourishing corporate responsibility movement and is likely to be even more relevant to the future. Another clear sign on the horizon is about availability of talent and how best to exploit it. At one time this issue could be safely confined to the local environment of a company. Now talent is increasingly mobile and able to contribute from anywhere, using new media technologies some of which are still in their infancy. So future leaders must be particularly adept at managing talent and the best companies are already deep into this challenge. With the above in mind we can identify some important leadership capabilities for which there will be strong demand, almost regardless of the sort of company you lead. These abilities are both learnable and teachable. The less good news is that they require time and resources to achieve. Andrew Maynard’s research indicates that the five key leadership abilities most likely to be required will be the ability to generate trust, respect, integrity, inspiration and innovation. These look hard to beat in any beauty parade of what to look for in leader and the first four might fairly be summarised in the catch-all label of “leadership character”. Trust Without the ability to create trust, few leaders can expect to function effectively and in particular to get the best from people. Since trust is earned not mandated, learning how to generate it will almost certainly be a prime leadership requirement in the coming years. To build trust as a leader you need to develop enhanced listening skills, be able to build relationships with important stakeholders, generate openness, and know how to create and use an active network of supporters who in turn influence others. Respect Why will respect matter so much in the future? Because it is through generating a culture of respect that leaders start to extract the best from people. There is nothing moralising or sanctimonious about this leadership requirement. In a highly competitive environment that will face most companies in the future, it makes absolute business sense to be able to convincingly demonstrate respect for diversity, differences, the environment, and talent. It allows collaboration to flourish and indeed empowers talent. Integrity This too is likely to be a significant aspect of any successful leader’s armoury for the foreseeable future. It has been brought into much sharper focus by some of the illegal, questionable or poor practices in recent times of both leaders and their organisations. Inspiration We tend to associate this leadership ability with people of great charisma. Yet recent research into outstanding companies shows that often the most inspiring leaders can be almost the opposite of the cliché of the charismatic individual. They are often, modest and humble yet also persistent and fearless. Again being able to inspire people is something that is learnable and teachable. Leaders who learn to inspire release people’s potential and tap into their commitment and energy. These make the difference between merely running a competent company and one that excels. Innovation Innovation is not simply about being able to handle creativity and the long term. It is equally about discipline, ensuring that the organisation has a focused approach to developing new products or services. Companies are far more likely to fail from too many initiatives than too few. One of the key leadership skills is therefore being able to steer the organisation so that it get its priorities right and concentrates resources where they will produce the best result. The X Factor While these five leadership abilities can be strongly tipped as essential for future leadership success, something entirely unexpected may still emerge as critical. What are your guesses about what this unknown may be and why? Source: Andrew Leigh, Maynard Leigh Associates