6/07/2011

The Crucial Skill for Tomorrow's Leaders


LEVEL: Intermediate +
AGE: Adults
 




DISCUSS BEFORE YOU WATCH
·          




  • ·         Which of the following characteristics do you consider the most important in a leader and why? Rank them in order of importance and account for your answer.

    TRUST                       MINDFULNESS                        CURIOSITY                        SENSITIVITY            A SENSE OF DIRECTION          ACCOUTABILITY                    EMPATHY                        A SENSE OF CALLING

  • What is the single most important skill that the leaders of the future will need? 
WATCHING FOR MAIN IDEAS

 
            •  Is any of the ideas you've discussed mentioned? 

    WATCHING FOR DETAILS
  
            •  Watch some people answer the question "What is the single most important skill that the leaders of the future will need?"  and complete the chart below.
 

Position/ Company
Most important Skill Leaders of the future will need
Why?
Angel Cabrera



Bill George



Daisy Wademan Dowling



Andy Zelleke



Batia Mishan Wiesenfeld



Evan Wittenberg



Dr. Ellen Langer



Scott Snook





 
    KEY


Position/ Organization
Most important Skill Leaders of the future will need
Why?
Angel Cabrera
President of Thunderbird, school of  Global management
Have the trust of followers
Be reliable/ trustworthy
It’s hard to build/ easy to lose
Especially useful in this era of new communication tools with lots of exposure.
The leader should use the tools at hand to build and preserve trust.
Bill George
Professor, Harvard Business School
Leadership is not about skill but a question of character of the person within.
The leader should be genuine and have an understanding of themselves and a sense of purpose, passion and mission.
If they don’t know where they are going they cannot rally people and align them along this common sense of purpose.
Daisy Wademan Dowling
Executive Director, Leadership Development at Morgan Stanley
Have Empathy/ a relentless desire to build capacity in the people around them (they should be teachers)
Without empathy they can’t understand other people’s motivation and get them excited about the direction they’ve set for the company.
Andy Zelleke
Lecturer in public policy, Harvard Kennedy School.
Having a devotion to the interests of others (that’s a timeless aspect)  

Batia Mishan Wiesenfeld

Professor, Leonard Stern School of Business NYU
Having the habit of explaining what drives your actions/ decisions.
It forces you to understand the underlying values that are driving your behavior and allow you to ensure that you’re conveying/ communicating those to others. This creates a dynamic of accountability. The values get aligned with the practices.
Evan Wittenberg
Head of Global Leadership Development, Google inc.
Curiosity/ inquisitiveness
The world is terribly complex and leaders are working more across boundaries. Therefore you need to be able to admit you don’t know everything and not  make assumptions.
Dr. Ellen Langer
Professor, Harvard University
Mindfulness (noticing new things and take advantage of opportunities)
You no longer have people applying yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems.
Scott Snook
Associate Professor, Harvard Business School.
Having a clear sense of their calling/ purpose
No matter how competent or skilled they are if they don’t have a clarity of purpose, which is the bedrock of what leaders of the future need.

 
Vocabulary for exploitation

·         Followers take a leap of faith
·         Trust  is all you have
·         Use the tools at your disposal
·         Have a sense of direction, passion and mission.
·         You need to understand the people you’re working alongside.
·         They need to have a relentless desire to build capacity in the people around them.
·         They need to have a devotion to the interests of others. That’s a timeless aspect of leadership.
·         The most important trait when a leader is giving direction is to get into the habit of always explaining why.
·         This forces you to identify the underlying values that are driving your behavior or your request.
·         This allows them ensure they are conveying their values to others.
·         The values should get aligned with the practice.
·          Leaders are working across organizational boundaries.
·         Leaders should be curious and inquisitive.
·         Leaders of the future would prosper enormously by becoming more mindful.

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