The Future Leader

10Are We Ready for These Trends?

The previous six chapters presented the top trends that CEOs around the world identified as impacting the future of leadership. But are we actually doing anything about these trends today, and if so, how well? The survey of almost 14,000 LinkedIn members asked people if they, their managers, and their senior executives were aware of these trends and were taking actions to prepare the company to address them. Respondents were allowed to select from four responses:

• No
• Somewhat
• Yes, definitely
• Not applicable—I don't have any managers

The responses were then broken down by seniority, including individual contributors, managers, and senior executives. The results were startling, as seen in Figure 10.1. (A few responded with “not applicable,” which is not included here.)

This alone shows that collectively, employees are not confident in their managers' or senior executives' ability to prepare their organization for the trends shaping the future of leadership. It's also interesting to see that employees are more confident in their own actions versus those in leadership positions. How can people work for organizations when they don't have confidence in the abilities of their leaders?

FIGURE 10.1 TAKING ACTION ON LEADERSHIP TRENDS.

The data becomes much more interesting when comparing the responses of individual contributors versus those in leadership ...