Lessons from the Future: What Leadership Means in the 2020s
The 2020s have emerged as a decade of profound challenges. Leaders face complex, multifaceted issues as they respond to disruption and work to transform their companies and industries for future readiness. Navigating these dilemmas requires wisdom, agility, and the courage to look for opportunities and ask: “What if the best is yet to come?” And, most importantly: “How can we create that future?”
During our Future Quest in Copenhagen during June, I had the privilege of learning from exceptional business leaders committed to transforming their companies and industries for a sustainable and more just future.
What emerged from the programme was the idea of a new model of leadership: the ‘Visionary Deliverer’. This is a leader who can hold sight of a purposeful vision in the face of competing demands, while executing with excellence, and delivering commercial growth along the way.
Here are the leadership qualities we observed in those ‘Visionary Deliverers’:
1. Conviction to unlock new growth opportunities by solving big problems
The most compelling business leaders we met are dedicated to solving humanity’s big problems by creating new markets with sustainable and ethical sources of supply at the right price point. Often, this process begins with a return to first principles: What is the need? Where are the gaps, and what opportunities do they present? What are the solutions, and how do we create demand for these?
For example, Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, CEO of Vargas Holdings and a long-term, active investor in green energy technology, described how Vargas has raised $6 billion to bring green steel to market through H2 Green Steel. Starting with a ‘blank piece of paper’, they created customer appetite for greener steel and secured the finance for an entirely new industry.
2. Humility to build unorthodox partnership models and collaborate to compete
A frequently voiced idea was, “We can’t do this alone.” In a landscape of rapid disruption, the leaders we met are forming unconventional partnership models to stay ahead, build resilience, and share the risks of new ventures.
Urban Partners, for instance, is collaborating with C40 (a network of the world’s 100 biggest cities) on the Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods programme, aimed at supporting 22 pilot projects to turn the 15-minute city concept into reality in locations from Austin, Texas, to Guadalajara, Mexico. Their Copenhagen project Jernbanebyen exemplifies this by bringing together investors, architects, and community actors to create an inclusive, vibrant neighbourhood (the ‘social infrastructure’) before they even begin building the ‘physical infrastructure’.
3. Flexibility to lead across time horizons and inspire followership on a long journey
Ensuring sustained success requires the ability to maintain focus on the big vision while delivering with excellence at every step. This strategic approach harmonises quick wins with long-term investments, ensuring an organisation remains agile and adaptable in the face of change.
At Copenhagen Atomics, the CEO, Thomas Jam Pedersen, shared his vision of harnessing the power of thorium to generate cleaner, safer, and cheaper nuclear energy. The company’s incremental development, driven by extensive and iterative testing, continues to give rise to new innovations. A decade in, they are onto the second prototype with a goal of launching to market in 2030. Their high-performing team of engineers stays motivated by a flat hierarchy that allows the best and most creative ideas to surface through robust debate and challenge.
The Visionary Deliverer: a new archetype for leadership
As we ended our Future Quest, our group reflected on a new archetype for leadership: ‘Visionary Deliverers’ who can hold true to an ambitious vision for a better future, while executing with courage through global disruptions. I’m excited to see how this idea, coined by Jamie Page, will evolve with thinking from David Astorino and others.
I left Copenhagen buoyed by a sense of ‘rigorous optimism’, grounded in data and experiences that illustrate the best may yet be ahead. It’s another reminder of the power of Questing to understand the forces shaping the future and learn how to transform our organisations to survive and thrive.
We’re already planning the next Future Quest. Please get in touch if you’re a CEO or C-suite leader looking to expand your perspective and build new leadership skills for the future.
Written by Melanie Jameson
Co-CEO Leaders’ Quest
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