Future Leadership

The world is changing faster and faster because of the internet and technology. The rigid models of leadership and long-standing rules of engagement and power we’ve come to count upon for generations are no longer reliable in this new hyper-connected and digitally-charged world we find ourselves in. This world is being fueled by openness, connection, transparency and shared power. The future of leadership mandates new levels of personal courage, self-awareness, and authenticity. To be blunt, navigating this new world can be incredibly confusing and frustrating.

We live in a time of vast changes that include accelerating globalization, mounting quantities of information, the growing hegemony of science and technology, and the clash of civilizations. Those changes call for new ways of learning and thinking in school, business, and the professions. Listen as psychologist Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead.

Kissinger's six leaders are Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher. All of them were formed in a period when established institutions collapsed all over Europe, colonial structures gave way to independent states in Asia and Africa, and a new international order had to be created from the vestiges of the old.

We stand at an inflection point where technology can be leveraged to unleash human potential, or it can pit humans against machines. Heather McGowan and Chris Shipley have dedicated the last five years to understanding how technical, business, and cultural shifts have brought us to this place in order to construct this comprehensive and approachable guide to the future of work.

In their book Abundance, best-selling authors and futurists Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler tackled grand global challenges, such as poverty, hunger, and energy. Then, in Bold, they chronicled the use of exponential technologies that allowed the emergence of powerful new entrepreneurs. Now the best-selling authors are back with The Future Is Faster Than You Think, a blueprint for how our world will change in response to the next 10 years of rapid technological disruption.

In Mindshift: Transform Leadership, Drive Innovation, and Reshape the Future, Brian Solis, Head of Global Innovation at ServiceNow, draws on his experience of leading initiatives that drive innovation and business transformation to deliver the empowering message that this is the time to change the world for the better. And that change starts with you.

Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight.

The Future Leader is a business fable that serves as a practical resource, offering guidance to prepare for leadership while navigating the unique challenges of family dynamics and business responsibilities. Follow a candid dialogue between Jordan, a new successor, and Kelly, a family friend who has years of firsthand experience in the trials of succession.

What is strategic thinking exactly? Are we born with it, or can we nurture it? As a distinct and important capability in leaders, strategic thinking is a remarkably poorly defined, little understood concept, confined to management courses and board meetings. But in The Art of Strategic Thinking, world-renowned expert Michael Watkins shows leaders how they can benefit from it, as long as they have the tools to nurture it.

In their years of working with senior executives around the world, MIT research scientists Stephanie Woerner, Peter Weill, and Ina Sebastian noticed that these leaders knew they had to transform their businesses, but lacked a coherent framework and a common language—a playbook—to guide and motivate their employees and keep everyone focused on a common goal. Future Ready is that playbook.

The need for skills that defy disruption has never been so urgent, as traditional workplace models give way to confronting new rules of engagement. If you’re looking for job security, growth, and acceleration in a radical, new workforce, then Future Fit is the place to start. Award-winning author Andrea Clarke shares her experience, expertise and tactical advice on how to become truly future fit.

We all know a visionary leader when we see one. They're bold and prophetic and at the same time pragmatic. They don't just promote change - they drive it, while inspiring and mobilizing others to do the same. Visionaries like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos possess a host of innate qualities that make them extraordinary, but what truly sets them apart is their ability to turn vision into action. Here, Innosight's Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz introduce a new way of thinking and managing, called "future-back", that enables any manager to become a practical visionary.

In late 2014, internationally acclaimed blogger and podcaster Chris Ducker coined the term “Youpreneur” to describe the rise of the personal brand entrepreneur, a new business model that very few people saw coming. Since then, the Youpreneur has risen to the top across sectors. A Youpreneur transcends the old rules of business and builds a sustainable business from the foundation of their experience, interests, and personality - their personal brand. Youpreneurs draw an engaged, loyal audience even as they pursue varying, changing interests.

Our future is written by hopes, fears, dreams, expectations, and decisions made about life. In the same way, organizations have futures written by history, circumstances, culture, aspirations, successes, and failures. These already-written futures determine and shape the level of performance that's possible for individuals and organizations. Authors Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan crack the code on rewriting the future for people and organizations, elevating performance to unprecedented levels.

Entrepreneur and educator Frances Valintine has spent her life trying to untangle why some people don't embrace change even when they know their future depends on it. Future You shares insights from Frances's own extraordinary career to show how breaking away from expectation and routine is integral to living a full and successful life. Frances inspires and empowers listeners to make bold self-discoveries

The much-anticipated and inspiring memoir by Indra Nooyi, the trailblazing former CEO of PepsiCo, offering clear-eyed insight and a call to action for how our society can really blend work and family - and advance women - in the 21st century. For more than a dozen years as one of the world's most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman, person of colour and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company, Nooyi transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence and a deep sense of purpose.

From one of our leading technology thinkers and writers, a guide through the 12 technological imperatives that will shape the next 30 years and transform our lives. Much of what will happen in the next 30 years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives - from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture.

Today's organizations face two daunting challenges: how to create new sources of competitive advantage to sustain long-term growth, and how to engage leaders at every level of the organization so that they are more proactive and forward-looking in their area of responsibility. The Art of Strategic Leadership uses a unique approach to examine what it means to be a strategic leader.

How did Ford Motors use Lean development to pull off one of the most impressive corporate turnarounds in history? Largely by avoiding the mistakes that so many companies make when in a death spiral. They looked beyond manufacturing efficiency to change the very fundamentals of how they developed vehicles. In Designing the Future, Lean product development expert James Morgan and world-renowned Lean guru Jeffrey K. Liker reveal why so many companies have achieved only moderate success with Lean in operations, with a limited impact on their overall business.

Lawyers. Accountants. Software Engineers. That what Mom and Dad encouraged us to become. They were wrong. Gone is the age of "left-brain" dominance. The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers - creative and emphatic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't.