Preparing Leaders to Navigate Uncertainty and Exponential Change
By Laureen Golden, MEd, LCSW, BCC, laureengolden.com and François Knuchel, BA, FRSA, Open2Flow
How do we prepare leaders and organisations to navigate a world of exponential change? This matters, as the world as we know it has changed. Drastically. And it will continue to do so at an ever-quickening pace. Ways of operating that brought us success in the past are no longer useful. Our global society is now grappling with a special class of problems known as complex or “wicked problems.” [1] Such problems require completely different tools, methods of working and ways of thinking. But how and where do we go to become proficient in such “complexity-relevant” competencies?
This question matters. Our success, as organisations and individuals, hinges upon the answer. When we lack complexity-relevant tools, methods, and thinking, we are easily overwhelmed by today’s volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). We often struggle with a sensation that, despite our best efforts, we simply cannot keep up. We are “in over our heads” [2] and “falling further and further behind our times.” [3] In addition, when people are unprepared to navigate VUCA conditions, our organisations’ well-being suffers. “Delay in responding [to change] can be very costly, even disastrous. Companies and governments are going out of business every day because they have failed to adapt, or because they adapted too slowly.” [4] (Ackoff, 1999)
Conversely, when people are well-prepared, we have a better chance of keeping our composure. This is true no matter how intense the pressures around us. We have tools and know-how to surf the turbulence outside and within us. Fortified to face complexity, we can guide others through challenging moments. We can make wiser choices and move cohesively toward shared goals. For these reasons, time and money spent developing leaders and their people is an investment in the health and longevity of an organisation.
“The Future of Leadership Development” (an HBR article)
What is at stake for organisations and communities is adding extra weight to the mantle of leadership. The field of leadership development grows more vital. How this field evolves (or does not) has profound implications for the life of our organisations, and society at large. The 2019 Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, The Future of Leadership Development [5] is a powerful piece for those interested in this topic. Its authors, Mihnea Moldoveanu and Das Narayandas, did a stellar job at presenting a “snapshot” of promising trends they were observing in the field of leadership development at that time.
Much has changed since this article was published, yet it feels important to ask: Is the field of leadership development evolving quickly enough to keep pace with exponential change? Such an analysis would require investment of time, resources and interest from the field. We wish to contribute to this necessary endeavour by reinvigorating people’s attention on some of the promising trends highlighted by Moldoveanu and Narayandas. We also wish to name trends we are noticing and invite readers to add their observations in the comments below this post.
Key ideas from Moldoveanu and Narayandas’ “The Future of Leadership Development” article
- THERE IS AN URGENT NEED TO DEVELOP LEADERS: Moldoveanu and Narayandas assert that, “The need for leadership development has never been more urgent. Companies of all sorts realise that to survive in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, they need leadership skills and organisational capabilities different from those that helped them succeed in the past.”
- MORE PEOPLE ARE BEING ASKED TO TAKE LEADERSHIP ROLES: Moldoveanu and Narayandas emphasise, “There is also a growing recognition that leadership development should not be restricted to the few who are in or close to the C-suite…Employees across the board are increasingly expected to make consequential decisions that align with corporate strategy and culture. It’s important, therefore, that they be equipped with the relevant technical, relational, and communication skills.”
- THERE IS A MISMATCH BETWEEN TRADITIONAL EDUCATION PATHWAYS & CURRENT NEEDS: Moldoveanu and Narayandas illuminate the gap that exists between “the skills that executive development programs build and those that firms require — particularly the interpersonal skills essential to thriving in today’s flat, networked, increasingly collaborative organisations…More than 50% of senior leaders believe that their talent development efforts don’t adequately build critical skills and organisational capabilities…As demand grows for executive education that is customizable, trackable, and measurably effective, new competitors are emerging.”
- NEW METHODS FOR DELIVERING EDUCATION ARE FILLING THIS GAP: Moldoveanu and Narayandas explain that “Traditional executive education is simply too episodic, exclusive, and expensive…Corporate universities and the personal learning cloud — the growing mix of online courses, social and interactive platforms, and learning tools from both traditional institutions and upstarts — are filling the gap.” Moldoveanu and Narayandas define the “personal learning cloud” (PLC)“ as “the growing assortment of online courses, social and interactive platforms, and learning tools from both traditional institutions and upstarts.” They explain “Organisations can select components from the PLC and tailor them to the needs and behaviours of individuals and teams. The PLC is flexible and immediately accessible, and it enables employees to pick up skills in the context in which they must be used. In effect, it’s a 21st-century form of on-the-job learning.”
- NEW SKILLS ARE NEEDED IN OUR WORLD WHICH REQUIRE SPECIALISED APPROACHES TO LEARNING: Moldoveanu and Narayandas note, “Companies are seeking the communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration. But most executive education programs…seriously underplay important relational, communication, and affective skills.” Moldoveanu and Narayandas recognize that these types of skills tend to be “difficult to teach, measure, or even articulate. They have significant affective components and are largely non-algorithmic. These skills include leading, communicating, relating, and energising groups. Mastery depends on practice and feedback.”
Moldoveanu and Narayandas’ article delves deep into the landscape of educational providers, the role of digitization on learning environments, and the rise of the “Personal Learning Cloud” (PLC). They illuminate many of the promising developments happening in the field of leadership development: Courses are now being delivered by both formal and informal learning institutions. There are place-based and virtual options. And with digitization, courses are now delivered both synchronously and asynchronously.
We believe improved options around content delivery are indeed promising. But, such improvements will only be a game changer if the content being delivered is relevant to the needs of our times. This area warrants further consideration. In this article, we shall explore the type of content and methods of instruction (pedagogy/andragogy) we believe will create the highest value for the PLC’s delivery options.
Our thinking in this area has been shaped by a community of professionals who have been examining the cross-sectionality of more human-centred and “complexity-relevant” approaches to learning and working. Such approaches are referred to as “Transformative Social Systems” (aka “TSS”). To learn more, see “Introducing Transformative Social Systems” (TSS): Developing Competencies for the Deep Meeting of Hearts and Minds” [6] by Golden & Mompoint-Gaillard, 2023).
Reflections on “The Future of Leadership Development”
We appreciate all the valuable insights Moldoveanu and Narayandas offer. Having studied the implications of VUCA, especially complexity and quantum, for years, one insight in particular stands out for us. The “communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration” are key. As Moldoveanu and Narayandas note, companies seek them, but most executive education programs seriously underplay their importance.
This dilemma around “soft skills’’ must be remedied. We need to recognise that the “communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration” require radically different types of learning experiences. This is one of the reasons we find Moldoveanu and Narayanda’s concept of a Personal Learning Cloud (PLC) to be an innovation worth tracking. The PLC appears to be a disruptive technology with the potential to liberate the field of leadership development from dogma and “old world” learning constraints. The PLC offers an unprecedented level of variety and choice. Companies and people can now explore for themselves WHAT information is most essential, HOW it is most effectively acquired and BY WHOM. It enables learners to take responsibility for their own learning and “learn how to learn.”
Yet, for PLCs to live up to their full potential, a fundamental shift in mindset is necessary. Society in general, and the field of leadership development specifically, is currently limited by a common belief that learning is a technical and individual process. This notion is an artefact from the industrial age. We are entering the “Age of Disruption.” [6] In order to learn what we need to learn, at the rate we need to learn, we must remember that at its heart, learning is a relational, embodied and communal process. We take this even further and assert that most of the “communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration” can ONLY be learned with other people.
The skills needed for coherent, proactive collaboration are best cultivated in co-creative, collaborative learning experiences which occur within a community of practitioners. Therefore, the fuller potential of PLCs requires a shift in focus:
- From individual to collective
- From intellectual to embodied
- From transactional to relational
- From provider-led to self-managed and co-creative
- From technical and units-based to experiential and holistic
- From management-led / externally imposed to learner-led / internally-driven
“Old World” vs “New World” Learning
PLCs that make these shifts might more aptly be called Community Learning Circles (CLCs). As such, CLCs would have the potential to unleash powerful learning experiences that are more fluid, distributed, people-led, and self-managed (and thus better suited for a world of exponential change). We believe CLCs will distinguish themselves from their PLC predecessors by the following distinctions:
SOCIAL: Learning experiences suited for the 21st century will be social in nature. Moldoveanu and Narayandas highlight the value of learning that is social. We agree that people learn better together due to the interactions that can occur between learners. However, we want to take this notion even further. We believe that by introducing the concept of Personal Learning Cloud the authors are taking us down an individualised learning path, rather than refocusing the learning experience on the social. We believe many “new world” skills can only be learned with other people.
Take, for example, collaborative decision-making. Making decisions collaboratively is a process that has to be learned socially, i.e. in a social context. It is not something that happens by itself. Yet few of us have been in places (school or executive training programs) that support the acquisition of this skill. Therefore, most of us have never learned the necessary elements for collaborative decision-making. This lack of competency is not a reflection on individuals. It reflects a breakdown in our systems for preparing citizens and leaders to navigate our world.
This lack of competency in individuals has systemic repercussions. Organisational efforts to convert to more “flat,” “teal,” or network approaches often get stymied when people are entrenched in traditional patterns of authority and power. What, from a cursory glance, appears to be resistance to change is often an indicator that the new and needed competencies have not yet been cultivated.
Social learning can occur in discussion forums (such as small live groups or online digital platforms). Such forums can help people learn together. But the highest value offerings are ones that engage our whole being more than just our cognitive thinking. Especially ones that also enable learners to do things together. Shared action supports embodied learning (see below).
EMBODIED: The “communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration” require embodied learning. They cannot be learned from a book. They are skills that must be practised regularly, and together, in community. To grasp why, think of learning a team sport. We do not become better at a team sport by reading about it (although we can gain some ideas through books). Nor can we truly learn them by practising on one’s own. Practising team sports requires us to move together and adjust to each other. The team or community provides the vital context for such learning.
“Embodied knowledge is the skill to act appropriately at the appropriate time. It is immediate, available, and responsive.” [7] Thus, in exponential change, embodied knowledge trumps academic and intellectualised knowledge hands down! So while many digitised learning options may appear innovative due to technological advances, truly innovative learning platforms will focus on more than just the cognitive. They will enable people to collectively experiment, try things, and reflect on such experiences afterwards. Such learning experiences are inherently integrative and holistic.
HOLISTIC: Unprecedented levels of change require us to bring the best of ourselves, and all of ourselves. This calls for us to integrate the power of our heads, hearts, and hands. Future education can no longer teach debate or use it as a method of deliberation and problem-solving. Although debate is still the primary means by which parties “battle things out” to determine whose needs are prioritised, its use has grown increasingly problematic. When working with wicked problems, debate is ineffective and often counterproductive. Debate fosters fragmentation and exploitation. Wicked problems require integration. The variety of stakeholders affected by a challenge must come together, view the challenge from multiple angles, integrate the diversity of perspectives, and co-create new possibilities to “tame” the challenge. Such synthesis and integration of ideas can only be achieved through dialogue.
Everyone, not just ‘leaders’, should become practised in the art of dialogue. Unfortunately, few schools or executive training programs cultivate such skills. Future leadership development should. Similar to collaborative decision-making, dialogue skills can only be learned in community. Using dialogue in community people can experience how constructive solutions that consider the needs of all can be collaboratively created. Such opportunities help us move beyond “either-or” thinking by providing practice in how to merge different perspectives of an issue in a dialectical (“both-and”) manner. This type of learning is crucial for humanity to effectively address the enormity of challenges we currently face.
SCAFFOLDED: Effective leadership, as well as most “communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration” are hard to teach and even harder to measure. Therefore, such “soft” skills have historically been neglected both in school and leadership programs. Yet there has never been a time when they are more urgently needed.
These skills are in fact high-level, interpersonal skills. Successful execution of such skills requires the mastery of subskills. Like steps in a dance, sub-skills are best practised one at a time … and before being combined into larger sequences. Therefore, effective learning experiences will scaffold skill development. High-level skills need to be broken down into subcomponents. Sub-skills are practised independently first as short patterns. The correct form will be modelled and supported. Martial arts is a great example of scaffolded learning. “Kata’’ is a Japanese term that means ‘form’. It is a method that supports the consolidation and perfection of smaller movements that are later choreographed into larger sequences. The same learning principles need to be applied to learning relational interactive skills, such as collaborative decision-making.
DYNAMIC: In a rapidly changing world, we are constantly learning and unlearning. In real-time, we are reconstituting our understanding based on what is happening in the moment. Most education, including executive education, however, treats knowledge as static and limited in scope. This approach can create cultures in which leaders are expected to have all the answers. Unfortunately, in complexity, this notion is unrealistic and completely counter-productive. Complexity requires the opposite: An attitude of unknowing. Keeping one’s mind open to new possibilities. Integrating what on the surface may seem contradictory.
Therefore meaningful learning experiences must treat knowledge as “living,” held between people, and dynamically shifting. Meaningful learning experiences need to be based on the recognition that people and ideas are changed by each other. The ideas we hold shape us. Likewise, we influence the shape of the ideas we hold. Neuroscience illustrates this point. Studies show that culture physically shapes our brains. [9] [10] Synapses in our brain are formed by habit (behaviours that are repeated). “Plasticity” refers to our capacity to rewire our brains by practising new behaviours and developing new habits.
“Plasticity” is a cause for hope. We can “reshape” our brains to be better suited for complexity. But plasticity occurs through repeated practice, not intellectualised learning. Plasticity requires us to ‘un-habitise’ and unlearn first. To stop doing most of what we learned to do in a static, mechanistic, command-and-control world. Plasticity requires us to replace old behaviours with new ones that are better suited for our times. Such learning happens best when we participate in learning communities engaged in regular, embodied practices.
Unfortunately, there are few spaces for doing this. Education in general, and leadership development specifically, seems too far away from meaningfully addressing this need. We need community learning spaces which are autonomous and self-organised. Not just for learning, but also for co-imagining and co-creating new worlds we collectively want to live in.
“Community Learning Circles”
Moldoveanu and Narayanda’s notion of a Personal Learning Cloud (PLC) is an interesting idea. It allows learners to take responsibility for their own learning and learn how to learn. But in its current form, the PLC does not do enough to get humans where we need to grow. Developing “the communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration” requires radically different types of learning experiences. Such competencies develop best when we participate within communities that are engaging in regular, embodied practices. Rather than personal learning platforms, we need embodied, community-rich, co-learning platforms.
A ‘Learning Cloud’, or dashboard, thus needs to foster co-creative, collaborative learning experiences within a community, with other people. The concept of a Personal Learning Cloud (PLC) is therefore rather misguided, both in that it is too focussed on the digital cloud, so it lacks embodied relational learning, and it is too focussed on individual learning, the paradigm of the old world. If ‘Learning Cloud’ is even the right expression, then at the very least let us call it ‘Community Learning Cloud’ (CLC), or, as we prefer, embodied ‘Community Learning Circles’. CLCs could unleash powerful learning experiences that are more fluid, distributed, people-led, and self-managed.
One last consideration, which is not mentioned at all in Moldoveanu and Narayanda’s article. What is the role of language and the cross-cultural dimension in the future of education and leadership development? We believe it must play a much more important role than it currently does. Community learning needs to integrate ‘dialogue across cultures’, as well as consider the role of language in co-creating new paradigms for a world that works for all, as illustrated in the book “WORDS Create WORLDS, Cultivating a Conscious, Life-affirming Language” [11]. However, the whole area of cross-culture and language is enormous, too large for us to explore in detail in this article, for now, we just wanted to name it.
CONCLUSION
The future of leadership development matters. The ideas presented by Moldoveanu and Narayanda are an important contribution to the field. And, we believe, they are just the beginning. Far bigger seismic shifts are needed to meaningfully reshape “the future of leadership development”. The most essential competencies required for exponential change are “the communicative, interpretive, affective, and perceptual skills needed to lead coherent, proactive collaboration.” The emergence of such skills is not something that just happens by itself. Their development must be intentionally and methodically cultivated.
In complexity, relationships are everything. So while the PLC is promising, we believe its potential will be limited if too much emphasis is placed on individual and personal learning, and not enough on community learning. Therefore, leaders and teams will benefit more from community learning clouds (CLC), or better communities of practice and learning circles. Leadership is being redefined more in terms of stewardship, and everyone needs to be able to co-learn those skills, hence ‘leadership’ learning circles are for everyone, not just a few self-selected individuals.
To survive and thrive in a world of exponential change, we need to re-examine what we learn (content) and how we learn (pedagogy/andragogy). The potential of ‘social neuroplasticity’ is unleashed when learning is social, embodied, holistic, scaffolded and dynamic. Such features can help people discern “new world” competencies from the shiny repackaging of “old world” tools, methods of working, and ways of thinking.
What trends are you noticing in the field and in the world? What competencies do you sense are most needed? We welcome the addition of your voice and ideas to take our thinking even further.
By François Knuchel, BA, FRSA, open2flow and
Laureen Golden, MEd, LCSW, laureengolden.com
Works Referenced
[1] Conklin, Jeff. Wicked Problems & Social Complexity. 2006
[2] Kegan, Robert. In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, 1994.
[3] Schön, Donald A. Beyond the Stable State. 1971, as paraphrased by Russell Ackoff in Ackoff’s Best.
[4] Ackoff, Russell. Ackoff’s Best. 1999
[5] Narayandas, Das, and Mihnea Moldoveanu. “The Future of Leadership Development.” Harvard Business Review 97, no. 4 (March–April 2019): 40–48.
[6] Golden & Mompoint-Gaillard. “Introducing Transformative Social Systems” (TSS): Developing Competencies for the Deep Meeting of Hearts and Minds.” 2023.
[7] Otto Scharmer, Leading in the Age of Disruption. 2020.
[8] Strozzi-Heckler, Richard. The Leadership Dojo: Build Your Foundation as an Exemplary Leader. 2007, p 51
[9] Kitayama & Park. “Cultural neuroscience of the self: understanding the social grounding of the brain”
[10] Levin, Michael “Self-improvising Memory: a perspective on memories as agential, dynamically-reinterpreting cognitive glue.” 2024
[11] Claudia Gross, “WORDS create WORLDS, Cultivating a conscious, life-affirming language” Greenspeak, 2022.
Authors’ Note:
Special thanks to Pascale Mompoint-Gaillard for her advice on this article, and to Bernadette Wesley for her review of it.
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