FX.co ★ What leaders future needs

The Personal Disruptor

Work experience in one sphere can not only help you succeed but at the same time limit your imagination. Proficient managers find it more and more difficult to find new models of behavior and new development paths. Sticking to old ideas that once were successful is a serious problem that hampers creation of the new future. It is extremely hard but absolutely vital to make a new self.

Taylor tells about Rosanne Haggerty who made a colossal contribution in the fight against homelessness. She enjoyed her biggest success, the 100,000 Homes Campaign, after she had re-considered all her views. “I concluded, to my horror, that we had developed a way of attacking the problem that was inherently limited. We had to blow ourselves up. Too often pride in your most recent idea becomes a barrier to seeing your next idea,” Rosanne warned. Leaders oriented towards future understand when the time comes to “self-destruct”.

The Learning Zealot

One thing that all managers enjoy is to share their expertise with young colleagues who are keen to get time-tested advice. However, only most knowledge-insatiable employees can create a company's future, and these people are most efficient and creative leaders who constantly ask themselves if they learn fast enough. Managers of the future strive to learn as fast as the world changes.

Bill Taylor names Garry Ridge, the CEO of WD-40, as the most vivid example of such a boss. Under his leadership, the company implemented product innovations and notched up unprecedented success. The secret behind such prosperity of WD-40 is that Ridge did not look for ordinary workers but for specialists hungry for knowledge and keen to learn new technologies and business models. They created a team of tomorrow with their top managers and technical specialists. The test question was: “When's the last time you did something for the first time?”

The Tough-Minded Optimist

Both emotional and intellectual components are vital for a leader. Views and opinions shape the position and future actions for drastic changes in unstable times. John Gardner, a scholar of organizational life, believes that future is created by highly motivated men and women who long to make their dream come true and believe in it.

The business model of Metro Bank, founded by Vernon Hill, is designed to change the poorly developed financial services sphere in the UK. It is Hill's mindset that helps the bank develop and prosper. “If we don't maintain a sense of energy, we are hurting the message,” he believes. That is why the company is looking for enthusiastic managers. The future of a company belongs to those who believe in it.

The Eager Experimenter

Failed projects, unsuccessful products, and futile initiatives helped the most incredible achievements to be made. That is why true leaders of the future support multiple ideas, while realizing that most of them will be applied not in the way they were planned.

Bill Taylor considers Jeff Bezos the embodiment of experimental spirit. The Amazon CEO says: “If you're going to take bold bets, they're going to be experiments. And if they're experiments, you don't know ahead of time if they're going to work.” True leaders know that there is no success without failures and no progress without mistakes.

Taylor points out that the provided characteristics of leaders do not have to correspond with you by 100%. However, choosing one of these kinds, you will see on what you should work. True leaders can experiment, look at their position from the point of view of another person, as well as re-consider and revive existing products and services. This is what moves a company forward.