By Craig Perrin
This is the first in a series of posts on AchieveGlobal's international study of leadership today, "Developing the 21st-Century Leader." (Download the report HERE.)
To succeed in the volatile 21st century, leaders must rethink their historical views and cultivate a new configuration of beliefs, attitudes, and abilities.
That is the crux of AchieveGlobal's multi-phase study of how leaders can reverse the current economic trajectory. Our comprehensive literature review, focus groups, and survey of 971 leaders worldwide identified 42 best practices grouped in six "zones," or vital areas of action for modern leaders:
Notably, the study found a chasm between the perceived importance and observed use of the best practices, implying wide dissatisfaction with leadership today. Respondents identified their central challenges and in effect pronounced their leaders unable to meet them.
As leaders, we all share in our global ennui, and this study found our fatal flaw to be nothing new: hubris, or blindness of pride, or the mistaken view that business is just business, that we know all we need to know, that we can solve any problem arising in obsessive pursuit of short-term gains. The antidote to hubris, said the study, is the six zones of mindful action - one revered (Business) and others sometimes ignored, including Reflection, which makes us more effective in any zone. As a financial executive recently told us, "We have to learn how not to repeat the past." The six zones and 42 best practices articulate that lesson.
Posts to this blog over the next few weeks will briefly outline our findings in each leadership zone.
