Characteristics of Future Ceo

Characteristics of Future CEO

“Change has never happened this fast before, and will never happen this slow again”

– George Moore, Intel founder.

As quoted above, we are witnessing the profound shifts across all the industries around the world which is marked by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Every industry is going through a huge exponential change and this has led to the potentially disruptive new technologies like Internet of Things, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. The unforeseen challenges next door, may question our survival but this could also bring with it a huge opportunities in the VUCA world.

To sustain this unpredictability, the leaders should have the capability and agility to make tactful business decisions required to recalibrate to thrive and succeed. Let’s consider the 3 major characteristics required to become a future CEO who would be capable to break out the legacy thinking, adopt an innovative mindset, capitalize the opportunities and benefit from the emerging technologies now and in the future.

1. Passion And Purpose

Passion is a force that drives discipline, perseverance and diligence. Purpose is the reason for existence. We envision the future CEOs to be passionate and have a purpose of running the business. A business or an entity must be established to solve one of the problems of the world. A purpose, fully fueled with passion understands no boundaries heading towards success.

As we see, Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and therefore produce not just electric cars but infinitely scalable clean energy generation and storage products. This purpose is backed by a solid passionate CEO, Elon Musk who is also referred as the real-life Iron Man. His passion clearly reflected when he took his company public in need of finance in 2010 and is the only company that paid $465 million loan with interest from US Department of Energy leaving behind Ford, Nissan and Fisker. Steve Job’s mission statement is, “To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind”. This statement along with Job’s passion made Apple a company with very real chance to become the world’s first trillion-dollar company.

1. Ability To Leverage Analytics

It is estimated by 2020 that 2.3 million jobs will be created due to artificial intelligence while 1.8 million existing jobs will be lost. This fact is an outcome of big data and analytics. To be able to make rational and wise decisions for the company and its people, one should have the adequate skills to leverage from the analytics in today’s digitized world. Great decision making is only possible with the proper insights to the recorded data which aids to unfold the valuable information for a rapid and prosperous growth.

Let’s take an example of Farmers from Iowa to India. They are using data from seeds, satellites, sensors, and tractors to make better decisions about what to grow, when to plant, how to track food freshness from farm to fork, and how to adapt changing climates. This has definitely increased their production and quality crops.  In IoT-based smart farming, a system is built for monitoring the crop field with the help of sensors and automating the irrigation system. The farmers can monitor the field conditions from anywhere.

1. Additional thoughts on digital leadership

While the rest of the world has started upgrading themselves to fit in this digitally emerging society, leader should not stay back to the conventional methods to lead the company and its people. In order to survive this transition and to be able to keep up with the evolving trend in business, leader should adopt and adapt to digitized disciplines and discoveries.

Apple smart phone is a very good example which launched its smart phones before the Nokia could predict the technology shift. Today, augmented reality experience has created an irresistible look and feel experience in both the retail store and online platform and this is increasing everywhere. Lacoste, for example, created the LCST Lacoste AR mobile app that customers could use to virtually try on shoes. Topshop is another apparel brand that used Kinect to create virtual fitting rooms. Customers could choose different products to try on without even having to step foot in the store, select size and go through the fitting room experience.

How to Groom and Prepare To Become Future CEO

In the age of digital economy where mobile internet, cloud technology, big data, internet of things, and artificial intelligence have dominated the way of work, it also has apparently transformed the skill sets of the leaders to the entirely new level . Albert Szent Giorgi, a noble prize winner in Physiology has once said - “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what no one else has thought”. Below are the 3 major ways to fight skill set disruption and uplift yourself to become a capable CEO in the future who can be a good leader to your people, be it your employee or your customer.

1. Complex problem solving skills

In the publication “The future of jobs” the World Economic Forum uses a broader definition of 4th industrial revolution. It includes developments in the areas of robotics, 3D printing, nanotechnology, genetics and biotechnology. These developments are accelerating rapidly, which means that the skill and knowledge requirements will keep changing in the faster pace with complexity. The world of things will be equipped with trillion of sensors and share data via internet connections. The IoT can bring a lot of new features, added value and efficiency but at a cost of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. So, in order to rightly balance the innovation and efficiency, the leaders of tomorrow will have to be ambidextrous.