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Essential leadership skills for the next generation of leaders

Essential leadership skills for the next generation of leaders

Leadership skills are very important for anyone who wants to take leadership positions in the future work environment. Besides the fact that robots and bots will be doing most of the complex and complicated office and industrial work, humans need certain skill sets to be able to effectively carry out leadership assignments.

The workplace of tomorrow will be fast-moving, technology-driven, and interconnected. What this means is that anyone who wants to lead tomorrow must brace up and adapt to the new realities of the 4th industrial revolution in order to excel. Individuals with a passion for leadership can learn the essential skills while those who are born with this ability can do a little bit of training to be in absolute shape.

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The under-listed are some Leadership Skills for the Future Workplace

Actively Agile

Just like we pointed out above, the future work environment will be pacy. Thus, leaders of the 4th industrial revolution will have to be able to embrace and celebrate change. Leaders of the 4th industrial revolution will be very agile. They are to see change as an opportunity to learn, innovate, and grow and not as a burden.

Agile leaders focus on the needs of others. They acknowledge other people’s perspectives, give them the care they need to meet their work and personal goals, involve them in decisions where appropriate, and build a sense of community within their teams. This leads to higher engagement, more trust, and stronger relationships with team members and other stakeholders.

In the modern business world, many leaders emphasize the importance of being “agile.” Borrowed from the software world’s concept of agile development, this management style requires a leader to be flexible, adaptable, and fast in their decision-making.

One might ask “What does it take to put agile leadership into practice”? To several successful leaders, agility means could mean different things. Agility is an important quality to cultivate if you want to be a successful leader. Below are some of the best attributes of agility to leaders.

An agile leader is Present to Gain Insights

You know agile leaders by their level of presence in their organization. While being strategic is critical to success, it is just as important, if not more, to lead effectively in the present moment. Being present creates greater awareness in addressing the right challenges facing your team. Listen deeply and ask powerful questions to gain insights and makes the right decision to help your organization move forward through every problem.

Agile leaders Inspire Creativity And Innovation In their Employees

Agile is both a way of working and a way of being. To foster an agile culture in an organization, it’s not enough to establish methods of automation and develop a cadence of project planning and review so work is constantly improved upon. Leaders must inspire creativity and innovation within employees so that, as the organization propels forward, employees are directly contributing.

Agile leaders Move Quickly

What agility means is “able to move fast”. Speed is essential to business success. The company that moves faster to solve a problem, create a product, or respond to a need will be the business that wins. Agility is often more available when actions are led by aspiration. When everyone knows what they are working toward, then people become more creative to accomplish the vision.

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Agile leaders Adapt To Any Situation As It Happens

Being agile means you are able to quickly adapt to situations as they come along. Every day brings new challenges to leaders, and you cannot always rely on what worked yesterday to solve tomorrow’s problems. Leaders should always use their experience as a tool but not rely on it solely to solve problems.

Agile leaders Have The Flexibility To Take Quick But Sure Actions

They (leaders) should be agile in their decision-making and actions. Leaders who can look at the big picture, break it down into smaller chunks, then execute are simply more productive than those who don’t share this flexibility. By implementing smaller portions of the plan, one can easily determine where adjustments should be made to prevent resource drains and develop more efficient systems.

Agile leaders are Resilient And Creative

Companies need to be adaptable and flexible in their approach to maintaining competitiveness. Agility is a sign that someone is flexible, open to change, and growing. What this means is that agile leaders don’t get stuck in what change means to them and their ego; instead, they take pride in being resilient and creative in their approach.

Agile leaders Navigate New Waters And Chart New Successes

These leaders use their intuition to read the room, the person in front of them, and the people who energize their quest for a great workplace experience. They know their assets for leadership and implement them daily. Also, they ask defining questions and listen actively to determine the next priority. Agile leaders communicate and motivate as they navigate new waters to chart new successes.

Agile leaders Continuously Learn And Embody a Growth Mindset

When you set out to be a continuous learner and have a growth mindset, you are always looking for ways to improve your product, your services, and yourself as a manager and leader. Agile leaders are those who can adapt to an ever-changing and uncertain environment. Learning from every opportunity prepares you to handle whatever happens and makes you an excellent role model for others.

Embrace Change By Driving Value

Agile leaders thrive in the face of uncertainty and rapid change. They do this by creating an environment where stakeholders push change forward by driving adoption through frequent, incremental changes that constantly produce value.

Agile leaders Let Go Of What Doesn’t Work

Being agile means being willing to quickly let go of what is not working and try something else. As I was taught, the problem with our beliefs is we tend to believe them. Once accepted, beliefs can become a reality that is hard to alter. Agile leaders constantly challenge their beliefs and assumptions so they can meet the needs of the moment versus clinging to a cause that is perhaps already lost.

See also: 9 Leadership Strategies and Traits of Successful CEOs



Listens, Learns, and Adapts

We live in a world where leaders are expected to be consistent, firm, and resolute. However, we also live in a fast-paced and chaotic environment with few constants. Leaders who are firm may appear strong, but they often fail to adapt. The ability to listen, learn, and adapt to one’s position is a valuable skill that requires vulnerability, confidence, and psychological safety. Agile leaders get this.

Agile leaders Connect the Dots

Agility isn’t an excuse for chaos, continual pivoting without strategy or indecision on your team. In tech development, it’s a defined approach. In leadership, agility implies a desire for speed, commitment to change, the capability to iterate, and communication skills to navigate ambiguity while remaining connected daily. It promotes connecting the dots and operating as one.

Agile leaders Shift their Management Style To Match their Employees

There are many ways in business to be agile, but one of the most powerful ways is demonstrating agility with your employees. People like to be communicated with and recognized differently. It is never one-size-fits-all. Show how much you value your team’s contribution by understanding and being what they need. Productivity and engagement will benefit tremendously.

Emotional intelligence (EQ)

This is another essential leadership skill for the next generation of leaders. Leaders in the future work environment should be able to perceive and understand the emotion of the members of their team. Also, they should be able to manage their own emotion.  What this means is that employees and leaders will require a good level of emotional intelligence.



Humbly Confident

The leaders of the 4th industrial revolution should be absolutely confident in their decision-making ability. Much as they are confident in their ability to make right and informed decisions, they should also be humble enough to listen to suggestions from their team members. Tomorrow leaders will help and encourage others to succeed.

Accountable

leaders of the 4th industrial revolution will need to earn the respect of the other members of their team by being responsible and accountable for their decisions. The workplace of the future will be collaborative and transparent. The leaders’ actions and policies will be in tandem with the objectives and goals of the organization.

Visionary

Anyone who wants to lead in the future workplace will be visionary. The person will have the ability to lock into the future and predict trends. A future leader will be able to analyze and understand how each stakeholder, be it an employee, shareholder or supplier will be affected by decisions. What this means is that the leader will learn how to manage everyone’s needs without affecting the productivity, reputation, and takes of the organization.

Courageous

Because the future will be very uncertain, anyone who aspires to lead tomorrow will have to be very courageous. The leader will have to have the courage and determination to face the unknown and navigate difficult terrains and circumstances. Most importantly, the leader will have the courage to change the direction in the event a situation calls for that.



Flexible

Shifting demand for tomorrow’s workplace, tools, and even workers requires that leaders will be very flexible. The success formulae of the past will not be the same as those of future organizations. To accommodate this new reality, leaders will have to flex. Unfortunately, the reality will cause the leaders to continue to bend because of its continuous shifting.

Tech Savvy

The 4th industrial revolution is fueled by technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, augmented reality, the internet of things, and more. Leaders of future workplaces will have to make decisions about technology and how it can be deployed for the optimum progress of the organization. The ability to understand the addition that tech will bring will very essential. Leaders will continually embrace new tools and platforms.

Intuitive

This is at the moment one of the most sort after skills. It is the ability of leaders to “hear” or “read” what has not been saying. The leader of the future work environment will have to be more human more so because of the influx of robots and bots into the future workplace. For a leader to be able to succeed in the future workplace, the ability to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly from their team are important.

Collaborative

This is another essential leadership skill for the next generation of leaders. The future workplace will require enormous collaboration for success to be achieved. Leaders wouldn’t have to sit in the comfort of their office but would have to work together with others, that way they will get to know their strengths and weaknesses. This will enable them to acquire new skill sets for successful career professional career development.

Quick learners

Leaders in the future workplace will be people who yield to learning and who grab whatever knowledge they are presented with swiftly. They will have the capability to access a situation and quickly learn what they need to know for effective decisions.

Authentic

With a multicultural and multi-generational workforce, leaders will have to be very authentic and original. They will have to be themselves. Authentic leaders build connections and trust easily.



Focus

A future leader will be someone who can maintain focus on the goals and objectives of the organization, even when under pressure. This is particularly because the future work environment will be pacy and flexible. Leaders will be responsible for the stability of their organization and the rallying point of other employees. A strong leader will have the ability to steady the developmental ship of the organization while

Essential leadership skills for the next generation of leaders, see video 

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