LET’S LEAD FOR THE NOW AND NOT FOR THE FUTURE
The reality the COVID-19 pandemic challenged us to accept has put leadership, its honesty, and its effectiveness to the test, not just at companies, but also in all of society.
The pandemic turned a spotlight on three issues closely linked to how leadership has been implemented up until now, even among leading businesspeople: Continuity, sustainability, and people management, including virtually nowadays. This situation has caused many leaders to feel like the protagonists, or even those responsible for a scene change that will help us tackle new ways of living day-to-day.
This situation has caused many leaders to feel like the protagonists, or even those responsible for a scene change that will help us tackle new ways of living day-to-day.
We are at a point when the priority is to restructure and rebuild our principles of what makes a successful leader. COVID made it very clear that nothing stands still for long. Furthermore, we now have full access to the technological transformation due to accelerating future plans (2025-2030), and that is what the new generation of leaders is reevaluating.
There are certain behaviors, ways of thinking, and especially important skills, that cannot be left until last on a checklist: Be able to learn to learn and learn to concentrate. Concentration is a major plus. Today’s reality is forcing us to focus on many things at the same time, without losing track or slowing down. But what is the new generation of leaders looking for?
They seek to emphasize what other generations did not consider important: Finding new ways to communicate and analyze. The fruit currently being harvested from technological advancements is that the immediate and the visual are here to stay. They are not just a stepping stone to another stage in mankind’s productive season.
We know we will soon have to undergo further changes, and the question now is simply,
“Are we ready?” We have an opportunity to harness the COVID crisis to reevaluate and highlight agendas seeking to tackle strategic movements in search of progress, goingbeyond a mere attempt. If we fail, we are going to continue running a race without an objective, risking a regression to an old, obsolete normality.
This new era is changing how we live, in particular causing a quick and meaningful transformation in global labor markets. Rapid technological advancements, such as Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality, are changing how we work. Although it’s true that this has made certain jobs easier and faster to do, it has also meant people are no longer essential for certain jobs.
This is why the new way of consolidating a good project team depends on the vision of its leader. Just a few years or even months ago, it would have been “futurist” to talk about what is now a reality. The future we have been talking about so much over the last 10 years is now. COVID-19 was an extremely radical catalyst, but it did us the favor of propelling us forward and force us to start living how we expected to be living in 2030 right now, in 2020.
The future we have been talking about so much over the last 10 years is now. COVID-19 was an extremely radical catalyst, but it did us the favor of propelling us forward and force us to start living how we expected to be living in 2030 right now, in 2020.
For this to happen, we need to give ourselves new skills and tools, but the first thing we should do is stop thinking they are just “soft skills” when they are actually essential skills. Noncognitive, socioemotional skills will enable us to perform all sorts of tasks, without needing to have studied them.
Furthermore, a study conducted by researchers at the World Bank in 2018 reveals that the advanced development of noncognitive skills, including the five personality traits of extroversion, awareness, openness to experience, emotional stability, and kindness, are related to holding positions that will not be replaced by technology. The World Economic Forum speaks of the “4Cs” as the skills that differentiate humans from machines, robots and applications: Communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.
I will finish by saying that, from now on, we must embrace the fact that commitment from all of us – and each worker must be focused on this era of immediacy, flexibility, and adaptability.
