10 Tips to Navigate the Future of Leadership

innie Hart, an EO (Entrepreneur's Organzation member) from Houston, is an author, brand manager (Brand Strategist) and CEO of TwinEngine and Brand in the Box, will moderate the webinar webinar , The Future of Leadership, on 30 June 2020. The Panel will include Nadim Habib, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Innovation at Nova School of Business and Economics; John Sanei, bestselling author, co-founder and Chief Exponential Officer of Future Self Academy and Erik Kruger, founder of Modern Breed, a learning and development company that cultivates a new generation of leaders and teams.

The future is today. No longer a distant concept, what we knew to be true in the past may no longer be so. Among so many uncertainties, one thing is certain: This new era requires strong and courageous leaders. People with the will to adapt, learn and grow while leading. People with the will to "get hands-on" and lead by example.

The last few months have been a rollercoaster of reinvention. We find ourselves asking "what will it take to stand out and lead effectively in this new era?"

We asked Nadim Habib, John Sanei and Erik Kruger for some insights into the future of Leadership, lessons learned and practical advice that can help you as you move forward. Here's what they shared with us:

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What is your message to the entrepreneurial community about the future of leadership?

Sanei: We are at the intersection between old and new/past and future, moving between the physical and mental landscape of the industrial revolution and a new and suddenly hyper-dynamic world. This means that leading through this transition between the past, the current void and an uncertain future, requires us to unlearn and relearn what it means to lead in Post Covid-19. The virus will have two endings - one medical and one socio-economic - and no one knows what these endings will look like. To lead in such an uncertain world, we will have to adopt a mindset of continuous learning and become leaders who can adapt, with an enabling perspective, necessary to lead others, and oneself, in the new opportunities.

Kruger: Building character in the first place. We tend to optimise performance and the acquisition of certain skills but realistically these tendencies are fragile and easily destroyed. When this happens, and eventually it will, we return to the character we have built. The depth, the seriousness with which we build thatcharacter, deep within each one of us, will generate the capacity to be able to deal with external uncertainty, anxiety and challenges.

Habib: For many entrepreneurs, the focus has always been on predicting how everything would be and, from there, building a plan to win in that given scenario. Right now, things are different. No one can realistically predict the future, which means that leaders have to accept that their role is changing. Because if we can't predict the future, then our role is to prepare our teams, our organisation to deal with any future. Look inside your organisation and build/shape the right people, the right culture and the long-term values that will support the ability of these people and teams to adapt and cope with whatever future comes/emerges. Essentially, the leader must move from someone who warns/advocates and controls to someone who cares and carefully builds lasting organisations.

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What practices will enable innovation and growth?

Nadim Habib replied:

Leaders are trying to balance the increasing pressure to deliver on their commitments in a world facing rapid and unprecedented change. This paradox of predictability versus uncertainty puts significant pressure on leaders to rethink their planning processes, how they operate and how they build organisational culture and methodologies. Three of the tools that help maintain this balance are:

1. Strategic Clarity - Make sure you have a clear idea of your strategic intentions and that everyone in the organisation is aligned with you. This requires consistency and ongoing communication.
2. Operational Discipline - Times of change trigger the need for action, which can result in taking many actions with very little impact. Leaders must help their teams stay focused and disciplined in maintaining all commitments to the various
3. Continue to build a High Performance culture - Stipulate a goal and work towards it. Great employees/people want to work for winning organisations that enable them to grow and succeed.
   

In order to overcome this phase, what ideas should entrepreneurs adopt or abandon?

John Sanei replied:

1. Free yourself from past successes because they will become immensely irrelevant as we transition to the first evolution of global dematerialisation. I don't think we are moving towards the fourth industrial revolution; where we are heading is neither industrial nor the result of a revolution. Rather, we are progressing into the age of digital abundance.

2. Build/create businesses based on your curiosity and not on what you think the market might need. The new generation of entrepreneurs will need a spectrum of skills hyper focused on their curiosity because that is the path that will spark their genius and identify what the world will need.

3. Focus on adaptability and robustness instead of certainty/conviction and efficiency. Certainty/conviction is an illusion that has locked companies into permanent competition for centuries, but these empires, built on this way of thinking have been defeated by this pandemic. Now, those that collaborate and interrelate will thrive, for in such an environment we need less and less of each transaction but can achieve exponentially more.

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What mindset should entrepreneurs adopt at this time?

Erik Kruger has identified three behaviours and mindsets:

1. Accept uncertainty as a constant. Life has always been unpredictable. But with the world in overdrive, everything is maximised. Create more time during your day to alleviate this uncertainty: time to breathe, reflect and chat with friends or colleagues.

2. Test your limits. In my experience, we don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. When we work on understanding ourselves and try to know ourselves better and know what we are really good at, we can stand out confidently in a world full of uncertainty.

3. Accept the Stockdale Paradox, the idea that we must always believe that things will turn out well, while being confronted with the brutal facts of reality. Admiral Stockdale was a prisoner of war for seven years. It was his firm belief that we must face the circumstances in which we find ourselves - however serious or extreme - but still keep our gaze fixed on the horizon.

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What will it take to stand out and lead effectively in this new era?

Winnie Hart replied:

Lead with your heart and your head. Navigating an uncertain world requires leading with both the heart and the brain. Finding the balance between the emotional side of leadership - authenticity, empathy and compassion - and the rational side - performance, financial guidelines and the stipulated goal. Think beyond ROI and introduce ROC (return to compassion).

As leaders, we are formatted to make difficult and important decisions rationally. Leading from the heart requires understanding that the emotional part will constantly develop as the future unfolds. We have to be honest and accept that as leaders there are things we do not, and will not, know and that the core of leadership is to serve, with our hearts, the people and teams we lead. The future lies in our ability to support and make positive connections that will create the trust that will encourage others to survive and thrive in any condition.

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Article originally published by Inc.