Future leaders will lead differently from today’s leaders. While the core of leadership — mobilizing others to achieve results — remains timeless, the context in which leaders operate will demand new approaches and mindsets. These are the three most important shifts in leadership over the next decade:
- Complicatedness Remains, Complexity Will Increase
Organizations will remain as complicated as they are today, but in addition, complexity will increase. The main reason are the dynamics of human interactions, which are at the core of every organization, and are unpredictable by nature. This means that predictability will decrease even more than it already has. This will require leaders to make more decisions based on incomplete information and to take into account non-linear and volatile patterns, which are open to multiple interpretations. Dealing with external complexity requires internal fortitude; if you are easily upset, you won’t make it as a leader in a complex world.
Leaders will need to embrace ambiguity as a normal state and develop the ability to make decisions with incomplete information. This requires a mindset shift: from seeking control to fostering adaptability. Ambidextrous leadership — balancing short-term performance with long-term innovation — will be critical.
- From Top-Down to Distributed Leadership
The traditional top-down leadership model is already losing ground, and this trend will only intensify. Leadership will become more distributed, with decision-making shared across teams and individuals. This shift reflects the growing complexity of organizations and the need for agility.
Hierarchy is becoming much less important as a result. The flattening of organizations, which is already underway, will continue. Employees will have more autonomy and classic hierarchies will be turned upside down: bosses will work for their people instead of the other way around; they will facilitate their employees to do their work optimally. Leaders will act more as facilitators and coaches, empowering others to take ownership of decisions and outcomes. The heroic leader is a myth, the future belongs to those who can foster collaboration and shared accountability.
- Soft Skills Are the New Hard Skills
Soft skills will become the hard skills of the future. Emotional intelligence — empathy, self-awareness, and the ability to connect with others — will be at the core of effective leadership. As organizations become more diverse and inclusive, leaders will need to navigate cultural differences, foster psychological safety, and build trust across teams. This human-centered approach will be essential for attracting and retaining talent in an increasingly competitive labor market
Future leaders will be people people. As leadership is about mobilizing others to achieve results, leaders must be adept at understanding themselves and others in order to use their influence effectively. It doesn’t get any softer than that, but it is all-important in order to achieve the hard outcomes.
This does not mean that leaders must become softies. There are many communication styles that can be deployed when dealing with people. It often helps if employees feel supported by their leaders, but it also helps for the leader to be honest and not beat around the bush. Leaders must be firm and caring at the same time.
But Much Will Stay the Same
While these three shifts will shape the future of leadership, the fundamentals remain unchanged. Insights from The Art of War by Sun Tzu (sixth century B.C.) and Il Principe by Machiavelli (first edition 1532) are still useful and will remain so. Many qualities that are important today for good leadership were also relevant fifty or five hundred years ago and will still be so a hundred years from now. There are fundamental characteristics that are important everywhere, be it business, politics, healthcare, or culture. Examples include: the ability to give direction, formulate a higher purpose, tell a compelling story, face differences in interests, use and process complex information, see through problems, make decisions even without all of the information, set priorities, build a strong team, hire and fire people, tolerate dissent, give feedback, and reflect. Furthermore, leaders need to be flexible. They should have a broad repertoire of communication styles to draw from and use them effectively according to the situation. Leaders should be steady, but not always do the same thing. They must keep learning and not get stuck in their comfort zone and routines. They can reconcile paradoxes, for example, performing excellently in the short term and being consistent in the long-term vision. They are able to simultaneously stand on the dance floor and watch and influence what happens from the balcony. Furthermore, they have a high IQ, a well-developed EQ, are charismatic, healthily narcissistic, curious and can make good choices. The question, then, is not whether leadership will change — it will — but whether leaders are prepared to evolve with it.