April 3, 2022

5 essential skills for the leaders of tomorrow

The world is changing faster than ever before, and so are the skills required to lead. You might be wondering: what are the leadership skills that will matter most in 10 years? In this article, we examine 5 essential skills for tomorrow’s leaders and how to adopt a growth mindset.

What does a leader of tomorrow mean?

A leader of tomorrow is someone who cares about their community, or a person who dedicates time and effort to a cause that they think needs to be addressed. This can be anything from helping the homeless to developing an app or even cleaning up the neighborhood. Leaders tend to demonstrate initiative and vision.

Successful leaders are not afraid of failure because they know it will only make them stronger in the long run. They are people with integrity, honesty, compassion, and empathy. They are not afraid to speak their mind when something bothers them, but they do so in a respectful way that allows others to listen without feeling attacked. Communication skills are imperative to leadership roles since that is how you share a vision with others.

Tomorrow’s leaders have a strong sense of self-awareness and confidence that helps them recognize when something isn't right and when they need to adapt their trajectory. High levels of self-awareness make a person anticipate their weakness and optimize their strength. This honesty with themselves is what turns failures into a professional experience that will later be the source of success. But most importantly, leaders act!

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Why are leadership skills so important?

Leadership skills are important because they can be the source of countless innovations that make the world a better place. People in groups tend to get distracted from the task if there is no effective leader to delegate the work and coordinate the collective effort of all the group members.

Leadership skills are important to develop since different situations call for different leadership styles. When working on a project with no deadlines, it’s possible to have a collaborative leadership style that is more time-consuming, but when time is of the essence, a more authoritative leadership style is needed to get things moving.

What are the essential skills of a leader?

The essential skills of a leader include:

  1. Decisiveness
  2. Emotional intelligence
  3. Effort and energy
  4. Polyvalence
  5. Communication skills

1. Decisiveness

When placed in a leadership role, an individual will be compelled to make decisions that will impact all of the actors taking a part in the project. Back in the 50s, the decisiveness of a leader would be judged by how unmovable an individual was in the decision it had taken. Now with artificial intelligence and machine learning, critical leadership skills require leaders to second-guess their assumptions and adapt to an ever-changing business environment.

2. Emotional Intelligence

The ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, and empathize with others is crucial for successful leaders. Emotional intelligence is the determining factor that separates charismatic leaders from robot-like leaders. It is an essential leadership skill to possess because people will want to work with you again if they’ve felt a connection with you.

3. Effort & Energy

Leaders are hard workers who are constantly striving for success. They demonstrate effort and energy by being active participants rather than passive bystanders. They have a boundless source of energy that is contagious for those around, and that allows them to take on many different tasks without complaint or hesitation. Leaders put forth the maximum amount of effort into each task they complete, which makes them valuable team members who get things done.

4. Polyvalence

Tomorrow’s leaders will need to be proficient in multiple disciplines to be successful leaders in the business environment of the future. Subjects that are now solely reserved to a minority of individuals (for instance, artificial intelligence, coding, and machine learning), will soon become an indispensable skill set effective leaders will need to master.

5. Communication skills

Amongst all the critical leadership skills that tomorrow’s leaders must acquire, a high level of communication skills will benefit an individual in all spheres of life. If you can communicate your ideas, vulgarize when required, and give words of encouragement when needed, you’ll make long-lasting relationships wherever you go.

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How do you become a leader of tomorrow?

To become a leader of tomorrow, a growth mindset and the desire for continuous skills development are critical. No one is born a leader, you become one. Here is a list of things to consider to become a leader of tomorrow:

  • Management and planning skills
  • Analytical thinking skills
  • Team player
  • Embrace technology
  • Self-evaluate

Management and planning skills

Leaders are praised because they get things done, and not many people stumble upon success, they plan it! By learning to organize your own time, you’ll develop organizational knowledge that accelerates your task completion. The more you value your time, the less of it you will want to squander on distraction. This means you’ll progressively become more self-aware and develop a personalized work ethic.

Analytical thinking skills

The ability to analyze information is vital for the leaders of tomorrow, as they will have to connect multiple disciplines together to create new paradigms and novel perspectives. Analytical thinking skills require creativity, a critical mind, and the ability to give significance to data. This polyvalence only comes with perseverance and passion!

Team player

While leadership involves taking charge of a project, you should still be able to work well with others who can support you in this process. This means that you should let others be leaders at times. As previously mentioned, we all have a different leadership style, and by seeing someone else lead we can learn and incorporate certain aspects of their style in our own.

Embrace technology

Technology is bound to have a place in the future of work, school, and other spheres of life. Learning how to employ it and feel comfortable with it is practically already a necessity in our world. We can imagine that in the future, the average human will have a better understanding of information technology, and will find new practical ways of using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other technology.

Self-evaluating

Self-evaluating is a way of becoming a better version of yourself by thinking about how your day was spent. Questions such as: “Was I fair to my team members?”, “Did I let other people speak?” and “Did I accomplish all the tasks I had set for myself?” are all valuable and will contribute to your personal growth.

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