How many great leaders recognised over the course of history, would make great leaders today? And would today’s great leaders, possess the skills to thrive in the future?

This raises the question of the dynamic nature of the skills required in a world that has become increasingly turbulent, unpredictable, and uncertain. We are at the threshold of a complete transformation of our workplaces, with a report going back to 2023, predicting that 300 million jobs would be replaced with AI.

Our understanding of AI now, makes those numbers seem conservative. With so many leaders removing the option of working from home, stuck in the mindset of how work has conventionally been carried out, it raises the question of whether the current leadership population have the skills and competencies required to embrace the rapidly changing world, and how HR can cultivate the leaders of tomorrow. Whilst there is so much innovation in every aspect of our working lives, it seems that leadership doesn’t seem to be innovating at the same rate.

So, just what are the skills and competencies required for tomorrow’s leaders and how does HR help identify these people and develop their skills?

AI literacy

Leaders cannot be experts in all the emerging fields, but they do need to embrace and be aware of change. Future leaders should have a broad understanding of how this is happening through technology, and have their finger-on-the-pulse. According to the WEF, ‘44% of executives are actively upskilling themselves’. This means the majority are not. This could be a critical role for HR, to support the development of leaders in constantly looking and planning ahead.

There are very few leadership development programmes that make it mandatory for leaders to attend external events and conferences while expecting them to be the first to learn about emerging technologies. With the exponential pace at which technology is advancing, this skill of consistently planning ahead and being the first to know, will be essential.

Innovation

The greatest innovations have often emerged from taking concepts from unrelated fields and applying those to current societal challenges. This is the same mindset that requires leaders to have curiosity, combined with a problem-solving focus to drive greater innovation across organisations.

This ability to think, reflect, and as Einstein called it, carrying out thought-experiments, will support leaders to make informed decisions in an environment where the ‘right’ decision may not exist. The skill of conceptual thinking will allow leaders to play out the consequences of decisions, and while gone are the days of deliberate strategies over numerous years, this will provide a basis for a deliberate strategy, albeit lasting for a much shorter duration.

Multi-strategic approaches

M&S have a now famous quote focused on sustainability that states ‘Plan A, because there is no Plan B’. Evolving leaders will be thinking in a completely inverse way.

They ‘will’ have a plan A, B, C, D, E etc. They will have multiple strategies prepared and ready, depending on the external environment. Rather than living in hope, future leaders will be anticipating the many ways in which they may need to react. Their time will be spent considering multi-strategic approaches. Currently, we still find leaders locked in meetings, focusing on daily challenges, spending less time on strategic planning. HR will need to help leaders develop their strategic thinking and avoid getting caught-up in the weeds of daily issues.

Cultural alignment

Whilst the world goes through rapid change, future leaders will look to create a stable foundation in the form of the organisational culture. The biggest risk to organisations during change, is organisations changing.

Whilst every organisation needs to adapt, unless there is a real focus on maintaining a defined culture, the very identity of an organisation could be at risk. Evolving leaders will know of the importance of social identity and building strong and deep connections with employees and suppliers. Therefore, cultural alignment will provide vital stability whilst providing resilience for organisations to continuously adapt and react to change.

Identifying and developing leaders

Becoming the barometers of change, leaders will need to become more receptive and observant to the external environment, allowing them to see patterns forming and plan accordingly. For HR, the focus will need to be in how they identify those individuals who see the world differently, who see problems in a different way, and those who plan ahead for every eventuality.

Rather than formal interviews, the way forward might be observing potential leaders solving real-world problems and assessing how they go about doing this. By being shown how other organisations have overcome seemingly unrelated issues, and by looking at how well they can relate such patterns and apply them to their own world of work. This isn’t just about conceptual thinking, but defining multiple paths forward, knowing that with so many variables changing, it will be difficult to find the ‘right’ way forward, and instead the focus should be on steering the organisation to make the most from the decisions made for the path ahead.

These skills of curiosity, problem solving, abstract thinking, conceptual thinking, and planning for multiple avenues, cannot be assessed in a standard interview. These should be observed in real-time, with real issues. The same is true for developing future leaders, with HR focused on honing their skills in these areas, it will be an essential way to cultivate adaptive leaders.