These are the fundamental skills leaders will need in order to survive, and thrive, in the future of work.
Many leaders have spent their careers under a work model focused on jobs centered on a command-and-control hierarchy. Reorienting to a more agile, skills-powered model will be a major paradigm shift for them. Furthermore, the future of work requires not only a change of mindset for leaders but also a shift in skill set. What it took to be a successful executive or manager using the old way of work will simply not translate. New skills, social values, and behaviors will be required. In a system of continually reinvented work, there are fewer places for leaders to hide and thus more visibility. The success of leadership will be less defined by title than by projects and accomplishments and, ultimately, character. As we have shown, leaders will need to rethink fundamentals like attracting, retaining, motivating, and engaging workers and will need to attend to their individual leadership brand.
