Leadership development is for the future
The picture depicts a woman washing down her living room with a hose. Water splashes off the sofa and runs to a drain the middle of the room. The woman is wearing a dress and heels. There is an ashtray on the table.
That picture is in an article in a 1950 issue of Popular Mechanics. The title of the article is, “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years.”
We humans are awful at predicting the future. Pull up almost any prediction article from more than a few years ago and you’ll see that we get more wrong than we get right.
Leadership development is about helping men and women prepare for the future. But if we can’t predict that future, what can we do?
What we know about the future
There are only two things we can really know about the future. We know that we can’t do a good job of predicting it. The world’s best minds have failed at that.
We know that the future will be different than today. We can expect change.
Leadership development should be most about what doesn’t change
Technology changes almost hourly. Leadership fads come and go. People are the one constant because human nature doesn’t change. That’s why there are four things that every leadership development program should have at the core.
People skills will always matter
Leaders need to get along with people. They need to be sensitive to the wants and needs and strengths and weaknesses of the people around them. They have to communicate effectively. Help future leaders develop people skills that will serve well in any future.
Critical thinking will always be necessary
Part of a leader’s job is making sense of the world. A leader must seek out important information and make sense of it. Help future leaders develop the critical thinking skills that will serve well in any future.
Decision making will always shape the future
Leaders decide. It’s part of the job. Help future leaders develop the decision making skills that will serve well in any future.
We can’t predict the future. But we can make sure that today’s leadership development prepares people for the challenges that never change.
