Kevin Brown
Perhaps you have heard this puzzle or something like it: If you could fold a piece of paper 50 times, how thick would it be?
Many will intuitively guess the thickness to be a few feet, but the answer is a staggering 70 million miles — enough to go to the moon and back nearly 150 times.
The difference relates to the nature of change. Linear change is additive, changing at a constant unit (think of a straight 45-degree curve). Exponential change is multiplicative, changing at a constant rate (think of a “hockey-stick” shaped curve).
This has implications for how we think about tomorrow’s marketplace and how we train the leaders who will steer its course. Our information age, facilitated through technology, grows at an exponential rate. You might say that the nature of change is, itself, changing.
In 1999, it was predicted that 65% of grade-school students would end up with jobs that had not yet been created. By comparison, in 2017, the Institute for the Future predicted that 85% of the jobs in 2030 do not yet exist.
So, how do we prepare today’s leaders and entrepreneurs for tomorrow’s untested marketplace? An exponentially changing future requires strong leaders with skills, sensibilities and character traits to endure dynamic environments and navigate this unpredictable future.
Like previous generations, tomorrow’s leaders will need core education in their respective fields. Finance. Law. Medicine. Media. Etc. Entrepreneurs will still need the “big ideas.” Yet in addition to fundamental content knowledge, a future-proof leader must cultivate a set of higher-order competencies that make them flexible and relevant to changing market conditions.
What might this include?
First and foremost, critical thinking. In analyzing 80 million job postings, labor market analytics firm Emsi Burning Glass recently found that employers seek skills such as critical thinking four times more frequently than the top-five technical skills. Value is increasingly created and transferred through creative and service modalities. This has advanced a new economic context that elevates critical thinking and problem solving.
Further, tomorrow’s leaders must do more than acquire information; they must apply it with prudence and wisdom. “The modern world no longer rewards you just for what you know,” writes German mathematician, statistician and researcher Andreas Schleicher. “The modern world rewards people for what they can do with what they know.” Therefore, prudence is described as applying the right reason in the right way at the right time.
In addition to gaining higher-order skills like critical thinking and the prudential application of information, a recent McKinsey & Co. report on the future of automated labor suggests that leaders who have strong social and emotional skills will be in high demand. Empathy, communication, negotiation, leadership and entrepreneurship are just some of the characteristics necessary to thrive in a technology driven environment.
These competencies will help tomorrow’s leaders be prepared for adaptability across various job fields. As author and journalist Fareed Zakaria has noted, “[Leaders] must be entrepreneurial and recognize [they] will need to change jobs and even careers over a lifetime.”
In summary, tomorrow’s marketplace is changing at an exponential pace. Content knowledge isn’t going away. An adapting future calls for an adaptive leader. But tomorrow’s successful leaders should also possess higher-order competencies like critical thinking, prudence and social and emotional skills allowing them to be flexible across a variety of job fields. Though it is hard to predict what 2030, 2040 or 2050 will be like, we can confidently say leaders with these characteristics will find ways to innovate, add value and maintain market relevance.
Dr. Kevin Brown is the president of Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. He holds a Ph.D. in theology and religious studies (University of Glasgow, Scotland, 2012), an M.Litt. in Bible and the Contemporary World (University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 2009) and an MBA (University of Indianapolis, 2002). His research interests include economics, philosophy and theology.