{"id":48255,"date":"2020-11-11T10:15:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T15:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ccl.org\/?post_type=articles&p=48255"},"modified":"2025-05-08T07:07:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T11:07:27","slug":"leadership-skills-for-an-uncertain-world","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/www.ccl.org\/articles\/leading-effectively-articles\/leadership-skills-for-an-uncertain-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership Skills in an Uncertain World"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Leadership Skills Will Be Needed in the Future?<\/h2>\n

The current coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath have abruptly reminded us how \u201cVUCA\u201d the future is, and will inevitably continue to be.<\/p>\n

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity \u2014 VUCA \u2014 are the realities of today, and as noted futurist and author Bob Johansen says, \u201cIt won’t be getting easier. Leaders must accept this reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his book, Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World<\/a><\/em>, Johansen says that leaders increasingly will face challenges that have no solutions. Of course, they will have to make decisions anyway.<\/p>\n

The VUCA world will also have both danger and opportunity, he explains. \u201cLeaders will be buffeted, but they need not allow themselves to be overwhelmed, depressed, or immobilized. Leaders must do more than just respond to the whirl of events, though respond they must. They must be positive change agents in the midst of chaos, creating<\/em> the future.<\/strong> Some things can get better, even as other things get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncertainty and complexity aren\u2019t going away \u2014 and confusion will remain part of the mix. The next 10 years will be exceptionally volatile, with many make-or-break decisions to be made.<\/p>\n

10 Future Leadership Skills You Need<\/h2>\n

To survive, lead, and create the future, Johansen argues that leaders must build and apply these 10 future leadership skills:<\/p>\n

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  1. Maker instinct:<\/strong>\u00a0The ability to exploit your inner drive to build and grow things, as well as connect with others in the making. How can you draw out your inner maker instinct and apply it to your leadership? Future leaders \u2014 working with others \u2014 will need both a can-do and a can-make spirit.<\/li>\n
  2. Clarity:\u00a0<\/strong>The ability to see through messes and contradictions to a future that others can’t yet see. How can you communicate with clarity in confusing times, so you’re simple without being simplistic?<\/li>\n
  3. Dilemma flipping:<\/strong> The ability to turn dilemmas into advantages and opportunities. How can you improve your skills at dilemma flipping so that you succeed with challenges that can’t be solved and won\u2019t go away?<\/li>\n
  4. Immersive learning ability:<\/strong>\u00a0The ability to immerse yourself in unfamiliar environments and to learn from them in a first-person way. Do you have what it takes to learn by immersing yourself in new physical and virtual worlds that will take you out of your comfort zone?<\/li>\n
  5. Bio-empathy:\u00a0<\/strong>The ability to see things from nature\u2019s point of view \u2014 to understand, respect, and learn from nature\u2019s patterns. Can you learn from nature and use that wisdom to inform your leadership?<\/li>\n
  6. Constructive depolarizing:<\/strong>\u00a0The ability to bring people from divergent cultures toward constructive engagement. How can you calm and improve tense situations where people cannot agree?<\/li>\n
  7. Quiet transparency:<\/strong>\u00a0The ability to be open and authentic about what matters without being overly self-promoting. How do you lead so that you inspire credibility and trust?<\/li>\n
  8. Rapid prototyping:\u00a0<\/strong>The ability to create quick, early versions of innovations, with the expectation that later success will require early failures. How can you do rapid prototyping that allows you to fail early, fail often, and fail cheaply \u2014 while learning along the way?<\/li>\n
  9. Smart mob organizing:<\/strong>\u00a0The ability to create, engage with, and nurture purposeful business or social change networks through intelligent use of electronic or other media. How can you organize smart mobs using a range of media, choosing the best medium for each communication challenge?<\/li>\n
  10. Commons creating:<\/strong>\u00a0The ability to seed, nurture, and grow shared assets that can benefit other players. How can you create settings within which both cooperation and competition may occur?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Moving beyond a new list of skills, what kind of leadership development or training can prepare us for the future? Leaders need to shore up the skills that\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0enduring (see below), but \u201cimmersion\u201d is the key to learning the 10 new skills.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s staying the same? These things endure with leadership:<\/p>\n