Are you a CEO fit for the future?

Are you role-modelling effective leadership? You know and understand that the world is changing, increasing in complexity with multiple competing perspectives: rapid growth and development of technology; constant disruption and divergence; the ever-increasing impact of social media; and a shift towards networked organisations.

These trends have created an immediate challenge: a need to act swiftly to create enduring value across your organisation. In this new era of automation, robotics and AI, the critical requirement for ‘human skills’ (leadership, adaptability, problem solving, collaboration, emotional intelligence) that can’t be automated will not only generate value for your organisation, it will set the tone from the top in terms of the leadership you will need to navigate through the disruptive changes.

To be a leader fit for the future, those that are moving away from rationality towards this value in human skills are the new breed, these signature attributes include:

Attributes to be a leader fit for the future

• Multiple perspectives

The ability to curiously consider a broad range of inputs, make sense of this information and give meaning to your organisation.

Psychological safety and challenge

Build trust and an environment of effective risk taking, lifelong learning and personal growth.

Intentional energy and action

Regulate energy of self and others, role-model resilience.

Emotional investment

Invest in igniting the passion and significance of self and others.

Courageous vulnerability

Suspend bias, explore possibilities and openly engage to create a culture of collaboration and innovation.

Nowhere is this signature leadership style more important than in the CEO’s ability to create trust both internally and externally. Over the past 5 years there has been an exponential increase in CEOs concerned about the lack of trust in business. Trust is, at its core, a leadership issue. We believe that there are few aspects of business where the tone at the top matters more.

The above attributes rely on the ability to dial up and down human skills, to be responsive, agile and effective through a world of complexity and ambiguity. The survey uncovered CEO use of social media and digital skills: Only 40% of Australian CEOs agreed that they were active on social media and less than half agreed that they had strong digital skills. Part of this brave new human leadership is that customers/citizens and employees feel that they align with the values and purpose that a leader portrays.

Leaders will therefore require a greater focus on internal and external connectedness. Social and digital are opportunities to consider a range of views so that the mindset shift is one away from the ‘right’ to lead and more towards a curious mindset.

Transparency – and having a leader unafraid to understand what they don’t know – is something that generations of the workforce are coming to expect as the norm. 7 out of 10 Australian CEOs say they’re re-thinking their organisation’s HR function; automation will replace a lot of low-value, repetitive work and leaders need to think about the impact on both culture, people and training.

The movement needed is not only towards CEOs learning how and where value gets created in their organisation’s human system and to act on that, it is also their understanding of their own personal human skills set, as leadership is the central enabler of your organisation.

The human skills you will need to strengthen are non-negotiable, so how fit for the future are you?

Find out about the 5 key areas that Australia’s CEOs should focus on this year to set their companies up for long-term, sustainable success.