Fostering the Key Skills required for the Future of Work
Fostering the Key Skills required for the Future of Work
Volatility and complexity are the ongoing backdrop for the world of work today and the global situation requires collective adaptation to ever-changing conditions. Core competency requirements for employees are evolving and they require a fresh stance from leadership in order that the workforce adapts and grows to be effective in the face of rapid change. This article takes an overview of what competencies are required, and what it requires from leadership in order to create a climate of positive change.
Core competencies are changing.
The Future of Jobs Report 2023[1] from the World Economic Forum provides new insights on how socio-economic and technology trends will shape the workplace of the future. It estimates that 44 per cent of workers’ skills will be disrupted in the next five years. Cognitive skills are reported to be growing in importance most quickly, reflecting the increasing importance of complex problem-solving in the workplace.
According to the report - creative thinking is growing in importance slightly more rapidly than analytical thinking and self-efficacy skills rank above working with others.
Jaana Laine-Richter
Head of Leadership Consulting and Managing Director Alumni Finland
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“Socio-emotional attitudes that our clients often highlight to us as important are: Self-awareness, relationship skills, empathy, perseverance, collaboration, adaptability, leadership skills.”
Collective Adaptation
This global situation calls for bold action, a willingness to take risks for the greater good, and collective adaptation to ever-changing conditions. In addressing concerns that we will be unable to meet the UNs 2030 agenda for sustainable development, the not-for-profit and open-source initiative called Inner Development Goals (IDG), has for example developed a framework. The framework is intended to meet the lack of people’s inner capacity to deal with an increasingly complex environment and challenges and help the development of our inner abilities. This framework aims to help change the way we think and act, empowering individuals with science-based skills and qualities that help them to live purposeful, sustainable and productive lives. The framework focuses on 5 dimensions – Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating and Acting – and 23 core skills and qualities.
Overview of the Inner Development Goals framework
So what makes these skills so relevant and necessary in the current challenging climate?
Being and relating to self, involves cultivating our inner life and developing and deepening our relationship to our thoughts, feelings and body help us be present, intentional and non-reactive when we face complexity.
Thinking (our cognitive skills) allow us to take on board different perspectives, evaluating information and making sense of the world as an interconnected; it is essential for wise decision-making.
Relating is an ability to appreciate, care for and feel connected to others, such as colleagues, future generations or the biosphere. It helps us create more just and sustainable systems and societies for everyone.
Collaborating allows us to make progress on shared concerns. It requires us to develop our abilities to include, hold space and communicate with stakeholders with different values, skills and competencies.
Acting - Qualities such as courage and optimism help us acquire true agency, break old patterns, generate original ideas and act with persistence in uncertain times.
A Corresponding Shift in Leadership Requirements
Moving the development of the workforce away from rigid thinking and simple productivity and problem solving to more loosely defined and emotional competencies has accelerated the need for a new style of leadership in organisations in order to create an environment suited to collective change.
Fredrik Malmsten
Organisational Psychologist and Senior Consultant, Alumni
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“To thrive in this new era, leaders must focus on leading with purpose and values by developing self-awareness. Empowering their teams through coaching to develop future ready skills.”
It requires a shift from traditional hierarchical structures to more agile, networked models that enable rapid decision-making and innovation.
Leaders must think longer term and drive large-scale transformation at both the individual and collective level. Deep cultural transformation requires changing people’s hearts and minds, aligning different viewpoints and forming strong alliances on common ground. This style of leadership drives innovation through challenging traditional approaches and requires courage; not least in Informed and intentional risk taking, knowing that the greater risk is taking no action at all.
Courage lies at the core of this style of transformational coaching leadership that will create the thinking and relating workforce of the future. Aristotle called it the "first virtue" because it makes all of the other virtues possible: it is the foundation that allows to practice all other leadership virtues consistently.
Alumni
Successful leaders are aware of their strengths and know how to develop and make use of them. At the same time, they make sure they have the self-knowledge to keep their weaknesses in check. This is why Alumni’s leadership development courses focus on what a leader does best and how they can do it even better and this includes becoming an expert in a coaching approach.
Alumni makes extensive use of 360-degree interviews to enhance the self-awareness of business leaders. Personal interviews with our experienced consultants, as well as the organisation’s managers, colleagues, reports, and other stakeholders are designed to put a leader’s performance and behaviour into words. It delivers valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of leadership and is a powerful tool to improve leaders’ professional image and impact within their organisation.
References
[1] https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/digest/
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