CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

Presenter

Dr Joseph SmithAssociate Vice President,

Student Services

– Eric Hoffer, quoted in On Becoming a Leader

• “In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists”

–quoted in On Becoming a Leader

• “These are the hard times in which a genius would wish to live…. Great necessities call out great virtues” – Written by Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy Adams

– Bennis p. 186.

• “If America is to regain its edge, and face and solve its myriad problems, leaders—the real thing, not copies—must show the way”

– Bennis p. 186.

• “The philosopher, not the tycoon or the mandarin, is king, because history proves that sooner or later ideas take root”

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

• Rosabeth Moss Kanter described some of the attributes mandated by the current chaotic environment in When Giants Learn to Dance: Mastering the Challenge of Strategy, Management, and Careers in the 1990s:

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Think strategically and invest in the future—but keep the numbers up

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Be entrepreneurial and take risks—but don’t cost the business anything by failing

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

• Continue to do everything you’re currently doing even better—and spend more time communicating with employees, serving teams, and launching new projects

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Know every detail of your business—but delegate more responsibility to others

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

• Become passionately dedicated to “visions” and fanatically committed to carrying them out—but be flexible, responsive, and able to change direction quickly.

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Speak up, be a leader, set the direction—but be participative, listen well, cooperate

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Throw yourself wholeheartedly into the entrepreneurial game and the long hours it takes—and stay fit

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Succeed, succeed, succeed—and raise terrific children

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

•Ten Important Personal and Organizational Factors for Future Leaders

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

1.Leaders manage the dream

a. Max De Pree, in Leadership Is An Art, WROTE, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the leader is a servant.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

1. Leaders embrace error

a. “Failure is not the crime. Low aim is”

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

2. Leaders encourage reflective backtalk

a. Your spouse or a good friend

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

3. Leaders encourage reflective backtalk

a. Your spouse or a good friend

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

4. Leaders encourage dissent

a. “Leaders tend to come in two sizes: those who hire reflectors, clones who will mirror the leader’s (their) opinions and desires, and those who hire compensators, those who have complementary views of the organization and society.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

b. Story: When Nikita Khruschev visited America, he gave a press conference at the Washington Press Club. The first question from the floor—handled through an interpreter—was: “Today you talked about the hideous rule of your predecessor, Stalin. You were one of his closest aides and colleagues during those years. What were you doing all that time?” Khruchev’s face got red. “Who asked that?” he roared. All 500 faces turned down. “Who asked that?” he insisted. Silence. “That’s what I was doing,” he said.

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

5. Leaders possess the Noble Factor: optimism, faith, and hope.

a. An old Chinese proverb says, “That the birds of worry and care fly above your head, this you cannot change; but that they build nest in your hair, this you can prevent.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

6. Leaders understand the Pygmalion effect in management.

a. According to Sterling Livingston the following are the Pygmalion effect in management:

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

i. What managers expect of their subordinates and the way they treat them largely determine their performance and career progress.

ii. A unique characteristic of superior managers is the ability to create high performance expectations that subordinates fulfill.

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

iii. Less effective managers fail to develop similar expectations, and as a consequence, the productivity of their subordinates suffers.

iv. Subordinates, more often than not, appear to do what they believe they are expected to do.

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

7. Leaders have the Gretzky Factor, a certain “touch”

8. Leaders see the long view

CHARACTERISTICS OF

LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE

9. Leaders understand stakeholder symmetry

10. Leaders create strategic alliances and partnership

Common Traits

of Future Leaders

•Broad education

•Boundless curiosity

•Boundless enthusiasm

Common Traits

of Future Leaders

•Contagious optimism

•Belief in people and teamwork

•Willingness to take risks

Common Traits

of Future Leaders

•Devotion to long-term growth rather than short-term profit

•Commitment to excellence

Common Traits

of Future Leaders

•Adaptive capacity

• Empathy

•Authenticity

• Integrity

• vision

Reference

•Bennis, W. (2009). On Becoming A Leader. New York, NY, Basic Books.