Just before Christmas, Time Magazine published an article looking ahead to 2016.
“In a world of emergencies,” the article said, “leadership matters — and in 2016 it will become unavoidably obvious that the world lacks leadership.”
— “The world’s many wildfires will burn hotter in 2016, because no one believes [they] can afford the costs and risks that come with putting them out.
— “The days when heads of the G-7 industrial powers like the U.S. and Germany controlled geopolitics and the global economy are gone for good.
— “Obama now relies on sanctions, drones and cybercapabilities to advance U.S. interests—blunt tools that do little to build the consensus needed to solve the world’s most complex problems.
— “Europe can’t help—its leaders are too busy coping with migrants, maneuvering around populist political rivals… In 2016, Europe will face a much wider variety of problems—without the unifying sense of crisis needed to forge collective action.”
A gloomy outlook, and if you want more details you can read them here. But the implications for us as leaders and citizens are already clear:
- Our lives in 2016 will become more unstable, more unpredictable, and more difficult to manage (or more ‘VUCA‘ as the acronym has it).
- World leaders won’t fix this for us: they have other priorities than making our lives easy.
- But just like learning to ride a bike, drive a car or run your first meeting, the skills and attitudes that help you handle times of change can also be taught and learned.
- Once you have those tools and attitudes this time of change becomes an opportunity: because with so many changes happening at once, there will be thousands if not millions of people crying out for the leadership you can bring.
The problem is the opportunity. In 2016 both are huge.
The Churning’s Inner Leadership provides an integrated framework of tools that enable you to:
- Make sense of the situation you are in
- Choose the way forward that suits you best
- Convert that into an inspiring vision, and
- Map a way forward to reach it.
Once you learn to do these things repeatedly you become antifragile: able not only to survive the stresses of change but become stronger because of them.