Using Your Leadership to Heal Divides: Techniques from a Coventry University Peace Researcher

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“I can’t talk to people at work.”

“I can’t even talk with my family!”

We’ve heard those comments from clients and friends alike heading into elections and the holidays this year. Our divisions now draw harsh borders, with yesterday’s friendly debates replaced by belligerence. The most common advice we’ve seen boils down to “Just don’t talk about anything you don’t agree on.”

That’s rotten advice for leaders. Open and frequent communication remains a hallmark of good leadership. So how do you resolve this impasse?

Fortunately, the founding director of the Centre for Peace and Security at Coventry University—Mike Hardy—uncovered the actions and mindsets we can adopt to bridge those divides, and maximize our teams’ potential in the process.

First, adapt and reflect. Take a hard look at yourself. We tend to do that this time of year anyway as we prepare New Year’s resolutions. This year, go a little deeper. Communication is a two-way signal: do you truly listen when others are speaking? Do you know the triggers that make you react, instead of rationally developing decisions or responses? 2025 will have more changes than 2024; are you comfortable adapting as each one rushes in?

Now, look outward to others. When you actively listen, you discern their needs, concerns, fears, and passions. This awareness shows you common ground, which is the brick from which bridges for our divides are built. You can cultivate compassion, empathizing with the people around you – and consider them when you balance important decisions. In turn, empathy and compassion heighten awareness of your own personal biases. Digging under those biases helps you see the rich treasure of talent everyone around you brings to the team (or the family table). Practicing inclusion from this angle reveals diversity as a source of strength rather than division, fertile with opinions, experiences, backgrounds, and ideas.

Getting to the meat of leadership, define your organization’s (and your) values and purpose. Values and purpose should align; alignment helps the team smoothly accomplish goals. Shared goals and common purpose dramatically reduce rancor. It’s much easier to “agree to disagree” when everyone holds the same end game.

From there, be fair. Having uncovered your biases, you’re now aware when you favor one person or group over another. This inequality hinders attaining the goals you’ve set. If you’re feeling bold, look beyond your own team and spot any assumptions or biases that are systemic in your organization; these are especially common in older, larger organizations where your first red flag is hearing a chorus of “I don’t know; that’s just the way we’ve always done it.”

Finally, always remember you’re not in this alone. When things go wrong, a strong team supports you. So do family and friends. And when they go well, remember that you didn’t succeed alone, either: those same people made it possible. Go beyond them in your day-to-day thinking to adopt a global perspective. Our individual and organizations’ interconnectedness stretches across the planet like never before; odds are good your stakeholders stretch far beyond your local community, too.

Keeping these perspectives in mind will start to fill those divisive gaps around you. Before long, you will be able to talk to people at work, and your family. And you’ll find you have plenty to talk about!

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our remastered podcast episode 11 Steps to Help You Heal Divides from the Centre for Peace & Security.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

How to Change with Your Changing Workplace: Wisdom from Boston Consulting Group

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You are busy. Probably too busy.

Can you change that in the new year? Probably not. But you can change how effective that busyness is.

That’s what’s happening at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). According to our podcast guest Alicia Pittman, BCG’s Global People Chair, the firm is constantly looking at how workplaces are changing, and the most effective ways leaders and their teams can change with it. They’ve become their own laboratory, testing new ways of running the organization, which informs best practices to recommend to clients.

Here are a few of BCG’s findings and the practices she shared.

Let’s start with an admission: your life really is faster-paced and busier than the lives of past leaders. It’s not just a perception issue; it’s been objectively measured. That makes burnout a greater risk than in the past. Obviously, this means taking downtime to recharge is critical, but real vacation time is rarely easy to wrangle. To keep calm and carry on in the meantime, face your emotions. Burying them can build mental pressure, increasing your odds of burnout while also sparking temper and poor decisions. Simply acknowledging what you’re feeling can be a relief in itself. Sharing with your bestie or a trusted advisor helps even more.

It also means you (and your team) must shift to being more motivation-driven. Hierarchical command-and-control styles limit energy, productivity, and engagement. Finding what really motivates you and the people you work with boosts those performance stats instead.

Boost your agility, too. You can’t just stay in your lane your entire career anymore. Workplace changes mean you need to adopt new skill sets to meet them – including how you lead. Neither can your team. Scan ahead to determine what your industry will look like in the next three, five, and ten years, then plan on how you and your staff will upskill to succeed in those futures. That alone will put you ahead of the competition: the typical C-suiter is 6 to 9 months behind!

Are you in the headspace to absorb information? The ability to listen rests at the core of learning and agility; it’s also important in being a good boss. Your team and front-line spot issues long before you typically do, so listen to them. Listening also enables you to understand when they need your help, too. So compare your time spent listening versus talking.

If you’re hyper-busy, you no doubt have a hyper-huge priority list. As with most productivity experts, Pittman advises whittling it down a bit by delegating…but with a different lens than usual. Focus on the things that you are uniquely qualified for. Let your team tackle the things on your list they can do as well (or even nearly as well; not being a perfectionist goes a long way in productivity). This may sound counter-intuitive, but pick up the pace on the items left on your list. We have a habit of sticking to a particular cadence in our work. When you’re able to fire on all cylinders, though, you’re capable of moving faster. Knock more of those items off your now-manageable list, and that vacation may be more realistic than you thought.

Finally, give yourself some grace. We all stumble. It’s inevitable. Agonizing over a mistake or faux pas consumes energy; use that energy to grow agile, learn, and change your priority list instead. You’ll feel better, and your entire team will, too!

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode In It Together: How Boston Consulting Group Combines Strengths from Every Generation.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

Negotiate for the Win-Win: Advice from a Fortune 50 Senior Exec

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Do you dread formal negotiations?

Many of us do, but a great negotiation is a phenomenal boon. It can be hard work, yet the reward makes the effort worthwhile. And here’s a little secret:

The best negotiation rewards ALL the parties at the table.

That’s what this week’s podcast guest, Greg Moran, learned from his years negotiating as a senior executive for Ford, Chase, and other corporations. Forget about those cut-throat style negotiators who make the headlines; their battleground attitudes yield short-lived, often pyrrhic results. For long-term benefits, follow these guidelines instead.

1. Forego the Fear. Strong-arm tactics, bullying, pressure, and other tactics to induce fear in the other party limit your options and overall benefits. Instead of thinking clearly, Moran says, “They go into survival mode.” In that state, he notes, “Fear closes us off to the possibilities.” You won’t get the best deal possible because no one can fully see what’s possible.

2. Discipline yourself for a better mentality. It’s easy to view negotiation as conflict, so entering it with an aggressive, hunter-prey, winner-loser mindset. The real skill is maintaining a neutral, logical outlook: how would Spock negotiate? But the ultimate mindset, Moran found, is win-win. It can be the hardest to hold, in no small part because we’ve learned to treat business like a competitive sport. But you’re not going for the win; you’re going for the win-win. You might think of it as an abundance mindset, but the most enduring results happen when BOTH sides achieve their goals for the negotiation.

3. Do your homework. As the Scout motto says, “Be prepared.” Start with your own team before you think about the other party. What does success look like for you? Clearly define your goals and desired outcomes, both short and long-term. Once you know in detail what you want, find out what success looks like for the other side. What’s most important to them?

4. Look for the common ground. Often, the same things are important to both sides. Negotiating becomes much easier when goals are similar—it then becomes a simple process of hashing out how to reach those goals. If the goals aren’t similar, dig deep. Find out WHY they have a particular goal; you may be able to answer that with a different, even better, end result for them. There is always some kind of common ground from which you can build together.

These tips all stem from common sense, but so many negotiations bog down from a stereotypical combative, scarcity mindset in the dominant party. The best deals arise when you understand what’s important to all parties. For the optimal outcome, look across the table and simply ask: “How do we both succeed?”

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode The Three Steps for Successful Negotiation from a Former Ford Exec.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

Lean into Tomorrow: Five Essentials for Future Success

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You don’t need a DeLorean or TARDIS to travel to the future; the future is coming for you. Ken Moore wants you to be ready for it.

Moore is the Chief Innovation Officer at Mastercard. He sees five essentials you’ll need to succeed as the future unfolds.

First, lean into tomorrow. This is all about mindset. Fighting the future and clinging desperately to the past mean stagnation at best. Instead, organizations must embrace change. In fact, they need to go a step beyond and proactively invest now in emerging technologies and trends. Stagnation is a far bigger risk than taking a chance on the new; staying ahead absolutely requires continuous innovation and a forward-thinking approach.

Commit to ethics and building trust.Trust plays two roles as your future unfolds. As a leader, trust in you becomes your team’s anchor as the tides of change surge around them. Your authenticity keeps them focused and motivated. Trust extends beyond your workplace walls, though; it’s a critical currency for your brand reputation. Even as you build personal trust, your entire organization must nurture its own trust with customers and the public. Defining and holding fast to your ethics ensures this. In practice, this means not rushing the future—strive to implement tech advancements safely and responsibly.

With the ever-increasing pace of change, it’s impossible to tackle everything at once. Instead, focus and prioritize. Strategically select projects and tech that most closely align with your goals and ethics. If those items have a healthy dose of passion behind them, all the better. Be patient with everything else as they await their turn on the priority list.

Let’s revisit this statement from the paragraph above: “It’s impossible to tackle everything at once.” Even after prioritizing, you may not have the time, resources, or in-house knowledge to accomplish a goal. The simplest solution: leverage partnerships. The world is now too complex and fast-paced to succeed alone. Their PR aside, even the individualist entrepreneurs we adulate actually have teams of people making their success possible. Effective partnerships require flexibility, compromise, and innovation. Drop the ego and welcome collaboration, and you’ll co-create value far beyond any individual effort could.

Finally, be agile and digital. We can’t predict the future with complete accuracy. A healthy dose of resilience and agility will keep you on track toward your goals even as inevitable roadblocks disrupt your path. In fact, new digital tools—from automation to AI—can boost your agility and reduce your response time to those bumps in the road. In fact, the calm they provide might even help you see new opportunities as you emerge from each disruption.

These five essentials ultimately stem from three core leadership qualities: adaptability, collaboration, and ethics. Keep them all in mind, and you won’t just be ready for the future—you’ll be making it!

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Mastercard’s Chief Innovation Officer on Fostering a Culture of Innovation.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

These Three Pillars of Innovation Keep Mastercard on Top of Fintech

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Sparking innovation can sound complex, but it’s really quite simple: just ask, “What do you need from me?”

That’s the core lesson we learned from our interviews with senior execs at Mastercard, including guests Jennifer Marriner (EVP of Global Acceptance Solutions) and Sherri Haymond (Co-President of Global Partnerships). Mastercard needs innovation to pulse from its very heart: as tech changes the way people move money, the company must stay ahead of the game…even ahead of its customers, so it already has solutions in play when customers realize they have a need. It’s active curiosity that focuses on your stakeholders.

Asking your customers what they need now helps you predict what they’ll need in the future, too. Looking at that future desire can launch your innovation today.

Innovation sparks fly high and wide, though, so stay aware of other signals. Don’t take fads for granted, for example. Consumer behaviors and business models constantly change. Can you meet those changes when they settle? Freelancing, for example, used to be a small, niche market. Today, the gig economy is a major sector.

Obviously, with change coming faster and faster, continuous adaptation and forward-thinking strategies will keep you relevant and meeting future demands. “We will always skate to where the puck is going,” says Sherri.

Collaboration seeds innovation, too. Outsiders’ perspectives often create those inspirational “a-ha!” moments that pull your team’s thinking outside the box. It can be internal collaboration with other units in your organization, or external collaboration with various partners, trade groups, government committees, and researchers. The more perspectives you encounter, the broader your field of inspiration becomes.

Your leadership is pivotal here. Creating a workplace culture that fosters collaboration, adaptability, and curiosity—the three pillars of Mastercard’s innovation environment—sit solidly as responsibilities of the leader.

The past is no longer prologue. Lingering there endangers your organization. But using these tips to innovate now boosts your odds of a bright, blooming future.

We painted the simple, broad strokes we saw stoking innovation at Mastercard. What specific tips and tricks have you used to spark innovation?

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Leading Fintech: Mastercard Execs Share How They See the Future and Meet It Now.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

How the Fourth Industrial Revolution Is Changing Your Leadership

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You know something we don’t: the winner of the US Presidential election. We’re writing this article well before the polls close.

Regardless of who becomes America’s next Chief Executive, they’ll have to lead with a different set of skills than Presidents of the past. The world has changed far too much. In fact, we’re entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Our podcast guest, Dr. Éliane Ubalijoro, shared what is emerging, and how leaders must change to succeed within it all.

First, what is the Fourth Industrial Revolution? According to the World Economic Forum, it’s the rise of cyber-physical systems. That sounds a bit sci-fi, but it really boils down to technologies that are fusing digital with the biological and physical worlds. The factor affecting leadership: it’s evolving at a far faster pace than any prior industrial revolution, and it disrupts nearly every sector it touches. And here’s Dr. Ubalijoro’s surprising perspective on it: Africa and other emerging economies may be better positioned to take advantage of it than traditional “industrialized nations.” Their leaders are more flexible, ready and eager to embrace the new, instead of doggedly trying to hold on to outmoded leadership styles and perspectives. Those RTO mandates in the U.S. may well be a symptom, if not proof, of this.

So what does future leadership need?

Start with ethical responsibility. With societal shifts and tech disruptions, we’re all at risk. Leaders’ new role now includes acting ethically to maintain their people’s stability, motivation, and engagement. That means transparency and communication are priority practices; prioritizing collective well-being is a must. Workers, on their side, must adopt an adaptable mindset, and be willing to regularly enhance their skills. We’re seeing this play out at the root of recent strikes, including from longshoremen and Boeing employees.

That parallels with leaders having their own growth mindset and adaptability. Workers aren’t the only ones who need to continually learn and grow. As your team and industry change, you must change with it, and learn about the new tech and practices. Otherwise, your decisions become less and less relevant, endangering your organization. We saw this a few short weeks ago in a leadership development training for a national firm. The cohort brought up an assessment of jobs easily replaced by AI, with “CEO” in the top group. The students agreed; so many CEOs have barely changed, with so little human interaction and so little knowledge of the front line, “they might as well be AI right now.” (Bonus: AI would bring a lot of cost-savings at that salary level!)

Remember you’re not alone. No leader works in a vacuum anymore. The world is fully interconnected. Economies, health, cultural trends: they’re all global systems now. The COVID pandemic provided abundant proof of this: the bulk of the human population went into quarantine, slow-downs in one country would cripple an entire supply chain, pet videos surged worldwide…the list goes on. Your business and your leadership ultimately depend on many, many others.

Finally, your leadership decisions – directly or indirectly – put lives in the balance. A whole relatively new science of epigenetics posits that traumas can influence our genetics; in broad terms, they implant in our bodies, and their effects cascade through generations. Other studies, meanwhile, show that stress can shorten our telomeres, strands capping the ends of our genes. Shortening telomeres appears to shorten life. So you may, quite literally, be reducing your team’s lifespan if you stress them out (Fortunately, the counter also appears to be true: a study of meditating monks hinted that calm may lengthen telomeres).

This isn’t your mother’s Wharton MBA curriculum. But this isn’t that Wharton MBA’s industrial world anymore, either.

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our remastered podcast episode Leading with Purpose and Compassion in the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

Leading with Passion: How Modern Leadership Was Redefined

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We know what makes a great leader. Warren Bennis figured it out.

Bennis was a pioneer in modern leadership studies. From authenticity to ceaseless curiosity, he uncovered the key qualities today’s leaders need to be successful.

He mentored our podcast guest: author, consultant, and former Presidential advisor Betsy Myers. She discussed his importance in this week’s episode.

His interest in the field burst forth during World War II. Bennis was an Army infantry officer, and became fascinated with the dynamics of leading and inspiring others. Commanding a combat platoon, he saw directly how leadership quality made the difference—quite literally—between life and death. What he discovered is what we teach today; nearly every one of these newsletter articles and their various lists, bullet points, and explorations of leadership qualities are descended from Bennis’ work.

They really boil down to two core concepts: adaptive leadership and authentic leadership.

Leadership, he felt, is a continual journey. You never stop growing, learning, and developing. The moment you do, you begin the slide to ineffectual leadership. This eternal curiosity is the taproot of adaptive leadership. The world is constantly changing, and so is your team. You’ve got to be changing with them.

Building trust with your team is equally important. Trust requires a different kind of C-suite: Competence, Constancy in your principles and standards, Caring, Character and Candor. Taken together, these are the pillars of authentic leadership.

Bennis added a special spice to his core concepts: passion. An effective leader can’t see their work as just another job. The leader’s passion trickles down and motivates staff. Indeed, it affects the morale of the entire organization. As Bennis said, “Leaders are people who believe so passionately that they can seduce other people into sharing their dream.” (He also said managing people is like herding cats, emphasizing the fact that leadership is not easy, no matter how many qualities you master!)

Expanding on those very core concepts are seven key leadership principles. They’re so essential, we’re listing them here in short form so you can print them and keep them handy for quick reference in your pocket, purse, drawer, or taped to your monitor:

1. Self-Knowledge. Know your strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. You can’t be authentic without this.

2. Integrity & Character. You have to walk the talk. ‘Nuff said.

3. Forge a Human Connection. If you don’t care, your team won’t, either.

4. Adapt to Change. Change happens, no matter how much you resist.

5. Admit Vulnerability. You’ll make mistakes; admit them. And apologize when they affect others.

6. Share Your Vision. Vision is essential for leadership; without it, what are you leading toward?

7. Foster Talent. Empowering others motivates the team.

There are so many short lists we could add; Bennis walked his own talk and fed his curiosity right up to his final days—so he kept adding to his concepts and principles about leadership. But, you’ll be off to a great start with those we listed here.

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode They’re Always Watching You: A White House Advisor’s Lessons for Every Leader.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

Pracademics: How the Most Effective Leaders Make Theory a Reality

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You may be an undiagnosed pracademic.

We certainly hope so; it’s vital for your survival. A pracademic is someone who integrates academic research and practical experience into their job. The case for your leadership survival is simple: the world is changing too fast for your knowledge to stay static. You must keep learning and integrating what you learn into your real-world practice, or you’ll become outdated—if not irrelevant—in short order.

For leaders, this is compounded by the fact that your team members, work environment, and society change rapidly, too—so what is expected of you as a leader will constantly shift, too.

So how can you keep up with it all?

Our podcast guests—professor emerita Gill Robinson Hickman, Deloitte dean Jorrit Volkers, and International Leadership Association (ILA) CEO Cynthia Cherrey—have some pracademic advice. All three agree that collaboration is key. There’s the obvious collaboration between academics and practitioners, which enables new leadership theories to be tested. Less obvious: you’ll learn from other leaders’ experiences each time you collaborate with a team from a different department, a consulting partner, a trusted vendor, or even a rival firm joining forces with you for an industry initiative. They bring invaluable wisdom forged by their own histories and training.

Match needs with theory. The uniqueness of teams means no one-size-fits-all approach works for their leaders. Study your team, determine their needs, and then scan the dozens of leadership theories available for the framework that will work best for your particular staff. Even the most appealing theory is pointless if it doesn’t match your real-world needs.

Go beyond credentials to proof. Many theories look great on paper, but reality grinds them down to fantasy. Look for theoretical frameworks that include fieldwork in their development process. The best leadership academics test their ideas, tweaking them to accommodate real-world findings. In practice, this means the same researcher’s leadership theory will most likely change through the years. That’s a great sign.

Ultimately, it all boils down to staying informed. To quote author Roald Dahl, “Read and read and then proceed to read some more.” Leadership research constantly grows, evolves, changes, or encounters a brilliant new disruption; a single day’s panel offerings at the ILA’s annual global conference reveal sheer legions of leadership ideas, theories, and frameworks. Feed your brain with as many as you can; you’ll soon distill those that are best for you and your organization.

 

Leaders can no longer simply cruise into the future. It’s up to you to shape it. By integrating cutting-edge theories into your practical experience, you’ll be a natural pracademic guiding your team into its best tomorrow.

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our remastered podcast episode Deloitte’s Dean Explains Why Your Old Leadership Style Doesn’t Work Anymore.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

How Amazon Stays Ahead with Customer-Centric Innovation

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Do you want to know a secret?

Amazon’s success is all because of you.

One of the online giant’s fundamental mindsets is customer-back thinking. From searching their website to the delivery van at your door, every initiative starts by looking at what helps the customer (you), then working backward to figure out how to make it happen.

Customer-back thinking makes Amazon an inherent disrupter. While other companies focus solely on stockholders or operating costs, Amazon’s leaders determine what customers want, but the current market doesn’t provide. Same-day delivery of prescriptions is just one recent example.

This week, we hear from three high-level Amazon executives, each one encouraging innovative mindsets in different ways. They reveal their teams’ latest innovations, and their own leadership philosophies that keep their teams on the cutting edge.

These leaders all cited this customer-centric innovation as a keystone for their divisions. Udit Madan (VP of Worldwide Operations), for example, points out that the driving force behind using, and even inventing, the latest technology centers on making the customer experience better. The ideas often begin on the front line, with feedback from employees paving the way. Customers want faster and faster delivery; people in fulfillment centers spot areas for quicker processing, more ergonomic designs, and safety improvements. Implementing them boosts both employee morale and customer satisfaction.

In fact, Sarah Rhoads, VP for Workplace Health and Safety, spots a direct relationship between employee well-being and customer service. She works hard to make Amazon the safest workplace in the industry; a well-cared-for employee, she says, will provide better customer care. They’ll keep the innovation ideas flowing, too—Amazon is deeply committed to upskilling all team members through programs like Career Choice and their Upskilling Pledge. With their new skills, people will see fresh new ways to improve every aspect of the company.

The VP for Worldwide Prime, Jamil Ghani, sees Rufus and other AI applications improving the customer shopping experience. Shoppers disliked winnowing through hundreds of reviews to determine product quality, so Amazon developed AI-generated review summaries to quickly assess how buyers felt about their purchases. Another AI system analyzes purchase trends and histories, customizing buying guides tailored to each individual to help them find the products they love quickly, instead of scrolling through thousands of options.

Yet more systems monitor the movement of goods, adjusting the supply chain to minimize the chances of seeing that dreaded “out of stock” message on an item you really need to have ASAP.

Business customers have a seat in customer-back thinking, too. For example, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Bedrock platform ultimately enables businesses to create their own AI-driven apps and customer experiences.

The best part of customer-back thinking? You can adopt it in your organization, too. You may use it on a different scale: after all, not every company has well over a million people on its payroll! But even a simple solopreneur can find greater success thinking about the customer first. Even the Amazon megacorp started with a handful of people working in Jeff Bezos’ garage.

This article was adapted by Dan Mushalko from our podcast episode Innovation Insights: Amazon Executives Share How They Deliver the Future.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.

What New Leaders Need to Solve Global Issues, According to Africa’s EU Ambassador

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With election season running hot, issues such as migration (or illegal immigration) are prominent in campaign speeches for candidates of all stripes vying for all manner of office, from dogcatcher to president.

The harsh reality for them all: no single nation, much less a single leader, can solve these issues. They surround the world, so it will take new kinds of leaders to craft real change and viable solutions. Our podcast guest, Ajay Bramdeo, the African Union’s ambassador to the European Union, sees the need for several special qualities in our next leaders.

First, the new generation of leaders must recognize that solutions aren’t simple. Humans have been interdependent since…well, since there were humans! Intertribal, interregional, international: our web of commerce, culture, philosophy, and more is now a Gordian Knot of complex relationships. This fact alone means effective leaders must be inherently collaborative, relying on multiple allies with their perspectives and expertise to unravel solutions. And – a new term for us – they’ll grow their own global acuity: the ability to see beyond one’s own immediate environment to understand the broader impact of decisions.

Think of this first point as a variation on the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) concept, except here complexity is not negative. It’s simply the reality of our human web, taking a little more effort to understand.

Second, leaders – politicians in particular – must grow beyond consensus and embrace disagreement. Nearly 200 years ago, in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Hans Christian Anderson warned us about the dangers of everyone blindly agreeing with a leader who demands consensus. Instead, effectiveness now requires inclusive leadership, which means engaging with diverse perspectives and experiences. Abraham Lincoln proved the principle by including his political enemies in his cabinet and ranks of advisors. Actively listening to the resulting disagreements and valuing diverse opinions pulls a leader out of their tunnel vision, revealing multiple innovative solutions.

Finally, and perhaps most difficult, we’ll need to foster moral and ethical leadership. Today’s leaders face enormous pressures: rapid social change, budget deficits, powerful political interests, and more. Is it any wonder presidents and prime ministers end their terms of office with far, far more gray hairs than when they began? Their stress is real.

Yet that very stress can lead to stumbles in morality and ethics. Leading with integrity, fairness, and responsibility takes extra effort, so our leaders will need exceptional internal strength. This goes along with abandoning the need for popular consensus; effective global leaders will need a deep moral compass, committed to doing what is right even when it is not popular, convenient, or likely to win the next election. They’ll be thoughtful rather than reactive.

In this way, other leaders will know they can be trusted. Only with that trust can they come together, providing our wounded world the solutions it now craves.

Whether it’s managing your shift at the factory or running for high office, the question is: are you ready to become the new leader we need for tomorrow?

This article was adapted from our remastered podcast episode Africa’s EU Ambassador Redefines Leadership: How You Have Global Impact.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, where we bring you thought leaders and innovative ideas on leadership topics each week.

We strive to elevate the quality of leadership worldwide. Are you ready? If you are looking for help developing your leaders, explore our services.