Wouldn’t it be great if a Harvard grad student studied the future of leadership development, and then shared the findings with you?

We had that privilege last Friday, when New Zealander Nick Petrie joined us in Boston. Like most Kiwis I’ve met, Nick has a sparkle in his eye and is mad about rugby. In fact, Nick toured the world as a professional rugby player. He then started up a corporate training business, which he put on hold to research these three questions:

What are the main challenges to leaders?
After interviews with CLO’s, consultants, academics, and managers, Nick shared his initial findings with us. The VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environment demands leaders who can:
• Implement creative solutions to existing/emerging problems
• Produce value through a network and across boundaries
• Make fast decisions in uncertainty, and set up conditions/boundaries whereby their teams can do the same
• Adapt to change

What approaches to leadership development should be phased out?
“Competencies.” This is what many interviewees believe should be phased out. This raised our eyebrows! Nick’s interviewees believed that competencies can be (in their words) “overwhelmingly numerous, incredibly generic, or done to death.” Likewise, training which does not embed into the workplace is being phased out in favor of ‘learning in action with reflection.’ One CLO also supported phasing out R.O.I. studies, saying “focus on level 3 behavior change and the benefits to the business should be obvious.”

What does the future of leadership look like?
Nick’s research points to developing leaders who are “more community organizers or activists than the traditional heroic leader.”

This reminds me of an article we wrote called, What Type of Conductor are You? This article identified the shift from leader as metaphorical conductor of an orchestra (the lone figure controlling things from the front) to leader as a conductor of electricity. These people connect easily with others inside and outside the organization, and attract them to their own cause. They act as conduits for ideas and passions, harnessing the energy and innovative abilities of internal and external players to drive alignment and change.

This was originally posted to Forum's blog.  We write weekly about leadership, sales force effectiveness, learning, and customer experience.