Leaders Make the Future
Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World
By: Bob Johansen
Published: May 2009
Format: Hardcover, 194 pages
ISBN-13: 9781605090023
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
"My goal is to help leaders make the future a better place in which to live", writes futurist and Fellow with the Institute for the Future, Bob Johansen in his visionary book Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World. The author describes the vital new skills, that leaders must learn, to meet the challenge that their organizations, our society, and the world will face in the future.
Bob Johansen understands that the change is happening very quickly in the world around us. Whether at the level of the business or non-profit organization, a community, or on a global scale, new leadership skills are essential to avoid being swept aside in the many transformations taking place around us. The old leadership techniques will no longer be effective to move organizations forward in the rapidly changing business, societal, and political landscapes. The author points out that leaders can only make sense of the present if they examine and listen for the challenges presented by a very different future.
Bob Johansen (photo left) recognizes that change will also present new, and seemingly unsolvable problems. Indeed, those problems are beyond the ability of many traditional leadership skill sets. Future leaders will not only need their can do attitude, but must also have can make skills to rebuild and remodel their organizations and communities to meed changing needs and circumstances. The author suggests that many current leaders are not listening to the changes as the future draws closer, and are even in denial that the current order is in transition to a new, and different world. The author forecasts that what was regarded as stability, and a familiar set of rules, are about to be changed forever. Failure to address the future will lead to failure of the organization and of the community as a whole.
For me, the power of the book is the author's understanding that the world around us is changing very rapidly in all areas. Bob Johansen recognizes that no one can predict the future, but through careful examination of current trends, that reasonable forecasts of future events is possible. Because the future will be so different from today, and with an entirely new set of problems facing leaders at all levels, a new set of leadership skills must be learned now. The author describes those new leadership skills in detail, and shares ideas about how a leader won't have to simply react to change, but can be a positive change agent for the betterment of the organization, the community, and the world as a whole.
I highly recommend the groundbreaking and insightful book Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World by Bob Johansen, to any leaders who seek to be positive change agents within their ever evolving organizations and communities. The leadership skills outlined in the book can be the difference between meeting the future head on in a positive way, or falling by the wayside, as the world passes the outdated leadership behind.
Read the essential guide Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World by Bob Johansen, and learn the ten new leadership skills that help a leader meet the future successfully. Discover how studying the future can build better leaders for the present. The future is coming, and smart leaders must be prepared for its myriad of problems and challenges.
