Educating the Next Generation of Leaders
New ways of learning and becoming a modern leader
For the past decade, the way we’ve worked and lived has been dictated by various forces of disruption — the fourth industrial revolution, climate change, a global pandemic. In such times, if organisations wish to thrive — and not merely stay afloat — the next generation of leaders needs to be better equipped to answer these increasingly complex issues.
That is why organisations worldwide rely on leadership and development (L&D) programmes to train and nurture capable leaders. But for some organisations, these traditional leadership programs were not as effective as they hoped for.
As one article from McKinsey pointed out, the main reasons why leadership-development programmes fail boils down to a few things: training initiatives overlooking context, removing reflective learning from real work, underestimating the need for leaders to adopt better mindsets, and failing to measure the results of learning.
Learning to become modern leaders
The best leaders have mindsets that are well-attuned to learning and growth, as recent research in psychology shows. However, relying on old forms of L&D initiatives is unable to shift mindsets. As a result, many organisations grossly miss the mark of developing capable, global leaders.
During the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos 2018, Jack Ma, philanthropist and founder of the Chinese online retail giant Alibaba, said that in the age of technological disruption, old forms of knowledge-based L&D should be replaced by a focus on soft skills that showcase our uniquely human traits.
In a 2020 LinkedIn survey on learning, the most critical skills L&D professionals said workers need to learn are skills in leadership and management, creative problem solving and design thinking, as well as communication.
Learning to become modern specialists
Speaking of learning, it is time that we also abandon an old concept of leadership and career development — job specialisation. As industries embrace automation, today’s skills will not match the jobs of tomorrow, and newly acquired jobs can quickly become obsolete.
A 2017 report from McKinsey predicts that by the end of the next decade, as many as 375 million workers — or roughly 14 per cent of the global workforce — may need to switch careers. Reskilling and upskilling is no longer a recommendation, but a necessity. Yet, as we seek new ways and opportunities to reinvent ourselves, that also means doing away with faulty methods of self- and professional development.
One approach toward professional development that has been debunked by several studies is the 10,000-hour principle, which preaches that one should spend at least that many hours practising a skill to become an expert at it.
Instead, we should focus on widening our repertoire of skills and experiences, a concept known as skill stacking. From a practical standpoint, it is easier and more effective to be the top 10% in several skills than it is to be the top 1% in any one skill. Discovering your own stack of skills will make you stand out from the crowd.
Final thoughts
To be able to stay ahead of the curve and constantly re-educate yourself is the mark of a modern-day specialist and a modern leader. Let’s allow technology the chance to take over laborious jobs and the like, but we must develop in ourselves what machines cannot master — creativity, critical thinking, innovation, and relationship-building.
If there’s one thing that machines cannot beat us at, it is our human capacity to learn and become leaders. Join us in uncovering how we can educate the next generation of leaders in our upcoming virtual conference on 30 October 2020. Get your tickets here.
