1.
FUTURE OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Prof.Dr.Aung TunThet

2.
• In agricultural era
• Schools mirrored garden
• In industrial era
• Classes mirrored factory
with assembly line of
learners
• In digital-information era
• How will learning look?

3.
ENVIRONMENT CHANGED

4.
VUCA • Volatile: Change happens rapidly and
on large scale
• Uncertain: Future cannot predicted
with any precision
• Complex: Challenges complicated and
few single causes or solutions
• Ambiguous: No clarity on what events
mean and what effect they have

5.
Complex
Environments
• Large number of interacting
elements
• Information highly ambiguous,
incomplete, or indecipherable
• Solutions emerge from within
system and cannot be imposed
from outside
• Hindsight does not lead to
foresight

6.
Challenges for
future leaders
• Information overload
• Interconnectedness of systems
and business communities
• Dissolving of traditional
organizational boundaries
• New technologies disrupt old
work practices

7.
Challenges for
future leaders
• Different values and
expectations of new generations
• Increased globalization

8.
Skills Sets
Required
Changed
More Complex
Thinkers Needed
• Adaptability
• Self-awareness
• Boundary spanning
• Collaboration
• Network thinking

9.
Skills Sets
Required
Changed –
More Complex
Thinkers Needed
• Creativity
• Think strategically
• Manage change effectively
• Systems thinkers
• Comfortable with ambiguity

10.
Skills Sets
Required
Changed –
More Complex
Thinkers Needed
• From isolated behavioral
competencies
• Toward complex “thinking”
abilities

11.
Methods to
Develop Leaders
Not Changed
(Much)
• Organizations reliant on HR
departments to build leadership
pipeline of managers capable of
leading “creatively” through
turbulent times
• Leadership programs insufficient
to develop capacities

12.
Current
Development
Methods
• Training
• Job assignments
• Action learning
• Executive coaching
• Mentoring
• 360-degree feedback
• Insufficient

13.
FUTURE TRENDS
FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

14.
No Longer
Leadership
Challenge
But
Development
Challenge
• Difference between knowing
what “good” leadership looks like
• Able to do it

15.
Trend 1: Increased
Focus on Vertical
Development
(Developmental
Stages)
• Two types of development
1. Vertical
2. Horizontal
• Grow leaders simultaneously in
both horizontal AND vertical
directions

16.
Trend 1:
More focus on
Vertical
Development
• Great deal of time spent on
“horizontal” development
(competencies)
• Very little time on “vertical”
development (developmental
stages)

17.
Trend 1:
More focus on
Vertical
Development
• Methods for horizontal and
vertical development different
• Horizontal development
“transmitted” (from expert)
• Vertical development earned (for
oneself)

18.
Vertical
Development
• Four conditions:
1. People consistently frustrated by
situations, dilemmas, or challenges
2. Feel limits of current way of
thinking
3. Area of life they care about deeply
4. Sufficient support to persist in face
of anxiety and conflict

19.
Vertical
Development
• Three-stage process:
1. Awaken:
• Different way of making sense of world
• Doing things in new way possible
2. Unlearn and discern
• Old assumptions analyzed and challenged
• New assumptions tested out and experimented
3. Advance
• New ideas get stronger and dominate previous
ones

20.
Trend 2:
Transfer of
Greater
Developmental
Ownership to
Individual
• Manager choose what to focus on
not coach
• Process customized
• Coach thinking partner not
authority/expert
• Process not event

21.
Trend 2:
Transfer of
Greater
Developmental
Ownership to
individual
• People develop fastest when
responsible for own progress
• Current model encourage people
to believe someone else
responsible for development – HR,
manager, or trainers
• Help people out of passenger seat
and into driver’s seat of
own development

22.
Taking
ownership of
ongoing
development
• Recognition from senior leaders
• Buy-in from senior leaders
• Staff educated on how
development occurs and benefits
for them
• Staff understand development
works better when they own it

23.
Taking
ownership of
ongoing
development
• Realignment of reward systems to
emphasize both development and
performance
• Utilization of new technologies
allow people to take control of
own feedback
• Gather ongoing suggestions for
improvement
• Create culture safe to take risks

24.
Leadership
Development for
the Masses
• Democratize leadership
development
• Masses — base and middle of
socioeconomic pyramid not only
peak

25.
Trend 3:
Decline of Heroic
Leader –
Rise of Collective
Leadership
• “Adaptive challenges”
• Collaboration between
stakeholders
• Collaboratively share
information, create plans,
influence, and make decisions

26.
Trend 3:
Decline of Heroic
Leader –
Rise of Collective
Leadership
• Leadership development too
individually focused and elitist
• Leadership collective process spread
throughout networks of people
• Question change from “Who are the
leaders?”
• To “What conditions do we need for
leadership to flourish?”
• Spread leadership capacity

27.
Trend 3:
Decline of Heroic
Leader –
Rise of Collective
Leadership
• Focus on collaboration and
influence skills
• Networks of leadership

28.
Redefining
Leadership
• Process
• Mobilizing people to face difficult
challenges
• Producing direction, alignment,
and commitment
• Not tied to authority

29.
Redefining
Leadership
• Distributed throughout networks
• Shared process

30.
Redefining
Leadership
• “Conditions”
• Open flows of information
• Flexible hierarchies
• Distributed resources
• Distributed decision-making
• Loosening of centralized controls

31.
Leadership
Development
• Improve capacity at:
• Individual
• Team
• Capacity
• Organizational
• Network
• Systems

32.
Trend 4:
Innovation in
Leadership
Development
• Build “leadership cultures” rather
than individual leader
programmes

33.
Trend 4:
Innovation in
Leadership
Development
• Build more collective rather than
individual leadership
• Focus on vertical development
not just horizontal
• Transfer greater ownership of
development back to people

34.
Trend 4:
Innovation in
Leadership
Development
• Engaging other stakeholders to
come up with transformative
innovations
• Virtual networks
• Manage network of social
connections

35.
Trend 4:
Innovation in
Leadership
Development
• Rapid innovation needed
• Experiment with new approaches
• Combine diverse ideas in new ways and
share with others
• Technology and web provide
infrastructure and drive change

36.
Four
Transitions for
Leadership
Development
Current Focus Future Focus
“What” of
leadership
“What” and “how”
of development
Horizontal
development
Horizontal and
vertical
development
HR/training
companies, own
development
Each person owns
development
Leadership resides
in individual
managers
Collective
leadership spread
throughout network

37.
FINAL THOUGHTS

38.
Leadership
Development
• “Drunken man stumble”
• “Heat-seeking missile”
• Educated “guess”

39.
Leadership
Development
• Methods used in the past not
enough
• Will to take step forward

40.
THANK YOU!