Earlier in July, we had a great mega call with some of the world’s top business leaders and authors including Michael Gerber, Kimberly George, Michael Port, Andy Wibbels and a host of other great folks. The call was facilitated by David Charles Cohen of Writers of the Round Table. I was asked a question about skills leaders are going to need in the future. Here are both the question and the answer:

Question: Bea, as you know, our world is literally changing overnight and leaders are spinning and wondering which way to go next. Many are saying they cannot even plan 6 months ahead because the world changes and there strategic plan becomes obsolete. Now what new leadership skills will leaders be required to strengthen in the next 2 to 3 years in order to gain market share and stay competitive in the world talent?

Bea Fields: One of the things that we decided to do with EDGE! is to take a very radical approach by using the provocative story of a leader and his executive coach. Two of the main leadership principles that we used are really not new principles of leadership, but they are critical skills for today’s leaders: vulnerability and the ability to be candid and the book EDGE! both plays to vulnerability and is very candid. We did not really hold back on much of anything. Because this book is so unique, we were really putting ourselves in what we considered to be a quite open and vulnerable position

I actually have about 11 other areas I am working with leaders around but the next area I want to hone in on is the topic of strategic agility. Again, not a new, earth-shattering skills, but the urgency in developing out that skill is greater than any other time we have observed in history. The traditional methods of long term strategic planning taken on by a concentrated group of executive who hope the plan will then cascade down throughout the organization over a 6-9 month period are over. I don’t believe this approach is going to be quick enough in the future nor will it give us the global perspective we need to lead based on what’s happening right now…today. Our world is changing over night, and if you are leading based on a strategic plan you wrote even 6 months before, there is a good chance that the strategic plan has become irrelevant. We are living in what I call a “right now” strategic planning mode…a mode which calls us every day to pull together our teams, hold an important 5-minute meeting on what needs to get done today, and we then go do it.

The next skill area that I want to speak about is one that I know everyone is probably tired of hearing, but I am going to say it again anyway. Leaders of tomorrow have to develop the ability to lead across generations. This means that, as a leader, you have to be masterful with being able to communicate with and inspire men and women who are age 75 all the way down to age 20. They have to be able to lead across generations, cultures and a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. We have to be willing to open up our ears and our minds to a variety of perspectives from a cross section of ages and cultures. It is also critical to know that we have an army forming out there in the world right now…the army of Generation Y. And, I don’t mean an army that is going to cause us major problems, but they are forming in an effort to change the way we work and live and to be honest, they are teaching us all how to work smarter, more efficiently and in a highly collaborative way. Leaders have to stop being in denial about Generation Y being here. They have to stop rolling their eyes about their technological savvy and their view about wanting to live first and work second.

The final area to address is follower-ship. It is no longer enough to be able to just lead. Leaders have to know how to follow. I believe that the future of leadership will be based on a distributed leadership model, and leaders will be organically stepping up to take the baton every day. This whole notion of there being only one leader at the top of a hierarchy has worn out its welcome, and leaders are going to have to be willing to step back and take orders from people ages 22 and 23 and leaders as old as 80.