FIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE

Abstract

AbstractNoting the need for what Harvard Kennedy School professor Ronald Heifetz calls “adaptive challenges” to areas such as environmental issues, and systemic racism, the author has “found that five critical leadership skills are vital for creating an environment in which learning things the organization does not know how to do is valued over executing flawlessly on what it knows already.” The five skills, in the author's words, are cross‐cutting, collaborating, coaching, culture shaping, and connecting. Within cross‐cutting, she notes that Google “found that its higher performing employees tended to build larger, more productive networks by using intentional strategies like deliberately eating lunch with different people in order to do so.” In collaborating, she writes of the importance of psychological safety. In coaching, she explains the crucial nature of “using questions to spark insights in the other person and a choice to give support and guidance rather than instructions.” In culture shaping, she writes about how Microsoft eliminated its quarterly business reviews, “in favor of a more learning oriented session in which coaching could take place.” And in connecting, she employs the example of two different leaders, New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Kaiser Permanente chief executive officer Greg A. Adams.