What will differentiate leaders of the future?
Is it communication skills? Emotional intelligence? Resilience?
Yes, these capabilities are vital for leadership success, and we believe strongly in an approach to leadership founded on humanity and compassion. But also no; they aren’t the differentiator for the future.
It's learning.
The need for learning
In an increasingly uncertain, volatile world, the future belongs to skilled, adept learners. Or as Alvin Toffler puts it, those who can ‘learn, unlearn, and relearn.’
It’s true that we’ve been in the age of learning for a long time. But as new technologies rapidly change our workplaces, leaders are faced with ever more complex challenges, and the impact of our actions reverberate across broader, interconnected systems, the need for learning is coming at us at an accelerated pace.
For example, AI is pushing us to adapt, upskill and learn faster than ever before, with researchers now estimating the half-life of many skills to be just 2.5–5 years.
We cannot expect to solve emerging problems with the same old solutions.
Leading learning
Whilst leadership potential might historically have been identified based on someone’s demonstrated performance, now the focus is on their ability to learn new skills and behaviours that will equip them to adapt and lead in dynamic and complex situations.
In other words, it’s not about what you’ve known or done in the past; it’s about your ability to keep up with what’s needed now and into the future.
The greatest leaders in the years ahead will be skilled, adept learners. Leaders who can balance an orientation towards results alongside an orientation towards learning, noticing gaps in their skills, knowledge, and capabilities, and closing them in the flow of work. And – importantly – who can role model this and create the conditions and environments for others to do the same.
How to improve your learning skills
So how does someone get good at learning? Isn’t it an inherent human ability?
Yes, but once we get to adulthood we’ve usually developed a set of biases, judgments and other mental shortcuts that help us make sense of things, and the curiosity and openness we experienced so naturally as children has dwindled. This can mean that many of us risk going through the rest of our lives without learning much at all, entering every situation with preconceived assumptions and not hearing other people because we think we already have the answer.
It’s easy to get attached to ways of doing things that have served us well in the past; but this isn’t learning, it’s repetition.
We believe that becoming a great learner requires paying attention to three focus areas:
- A learning mindset
- Learning agility
- Collaboration