Institute For The Future

Four Practical Ways for Leaders to Make the Future

Bob Johansen recently published the second edition of Leaders Make the Future. In the book, Bob presents an expansive ten-year forecast about the key future forces that will impact our world in the decade ahead, pointing to the shift towards the global well-being economy, the growing impact of digital natives, and the emergence of cloud-served supercomputing. Bob reminds us that we live in an increasingly VUCA world, characterized by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity, and that the VUCA World presents both danger and opportunity. 

Leaders who make the future will make sense of the VUCA world and transform Volatility into Vision, Uncertainty into Understanding, Complexity into Clarity, and Ambiguity into Agility.  What skills will allow future leaders to thrive? With four decades of wisdom and knowhow as a ten-year forecaster at the intersection of technology and society, Bob identifies ten new leadership skills for the future. He brings each skill to life with personal stories and examples from around the world.  The ten-year forecast and ten skills point to the Why and What of successful leadership in the future.

The second edition of Leaders Make the Future also distills the How, providing practical ways for leaders to make the future and improve upon their own future leadership skills:

• Bob, a proponent of immersive learning, says that the "best way to learn from the future is to immerse yourself in it." Throughout the book, he highlights opportunities for immersive learning and for practicing the ten future leadership skills in low-risk environments.

• The book, written in collaboration with the Center for Creative Leadership, aligns IFTF's Foresight to Insight to Action methodology and the ten future leadership skills with prominent leadership and organizational development models and strategies, creating a blended model that provides grounding for future-oriented leadership development programs.

• The last chapter presents leaders with a self-assessment of their own future leadership skills, complete with questions and suggested actions. The book's publisher, Berrett-Koehler, also offers an online self-assessment, the Future Leadership Skills Indicator.

For More Information

Please contact Sean Ness, Director of Business Development, at [email protected] or 650-233-9517.