What’s in store for us in the future? In writing this book, the author, Michael A. Genovese looked 25 years ahead to 2040 to understand the rapid paced changes of today will affect the decision-makers and leaders of tomorrow. He is trying to foresee the changes that might take place in the future time and how the leaders will try to cope up with the changes that he termed “hyper-change” since the change is going to be rapid and fast pacing.
This is the first book that I came across with which talks about a game plan for the future and I believe this is very essential for individuals who aspire to become leaders. It is indeed challenging to face the unknown for most people fear it. But it is inevitable, future will come as the years past did. This book gives the scholars hints and ideas how to recover from the unpredictable tremor of the coming years in leadership.
In the first chapter of the book that talks about “Hyper-Change as the New Paradigm: Scary, Challenging, Disruptive, Inevitable”. People resist change, first because it will take them away from their comfort zone to a place of unpredictability and uncertainties. It takes a person full of courage and bravery to change. As the old Yiddish saying states that “the only person who wants change is a wet baby”. As Heraclitus reminded us that you can’t step on the same river twice. Yes it’s true that the things that we did or experienced in the past will not be experienced again. We can go to the same place the next time but the time, the feeling, everything is different.
Albeit, this book has only four chapters with only 131 pages, I can say that it is compact with ideas that a reader is looking for in relation to the future of leadership. Like in a page where Genovese stated that living in a world of hyper-change will put great strain on leaders and citizens alike. And yet, we are not helpless as we face this future of rapid change. He stressed that to better deal with both the threats and opportunities produced by an age of hyper-change we must become more conscious of trends and patterns that are developing the change they will bring. While there is no panacea, there are things we can do to better equip us for the challenges of the future. These challenges he is saying are these: a) training leaders to better manage the change process; b) training the workforce in the skills necessary to meet tomorrow’s challenges; c) reimagining education to better prepare young people to deal with a world of change; d) refocusing research and development to meet tomorrow’s threats and opportunities; e) developing early warning systems to alert us to looming problems; and f) creating the innovative organization capable of managing change.
In short, we have to have change. The leader market, labor market, and learning market must learn to adapt, change, and grow. The status quo is not an option.
In the second chapter of this book, Genovese never missed to enlighten the readers on the four challenges propelling hyper-change. He believed that these are the most significant forces that every leader must know about: Technology, the Environment, Globalization, and Demographics. The driving force of change is and will continue to be – technological innovations. As it is said that everything, from computers to transportation to communication to medicine will change significantly in the coming years and many of these changes will benefit us greatly, while others will spawn problems. Acceleration of technological changes drive change. Like what is happening in the world today, we are indeed faced with such an emergency health issue to combat the emergent novel corona virus. This is the high time for all the leaders of all the countries in the world to look for the solution to this pandemic. Technology has the biggest role in these trying times.
In terms of the issue on environment, this has something to do with high population growth, economic development in countries such as China and India, overflowing of oceans, and rising consumption levels across the globe will all lead to increased environmental degradation. In spite of significant efforts by some countries to limit environmental damage, the decline continues. The solutions given or at least proposed by the leaders today is the reproductive health bill in order to control the population explosion. What might be the solution of the next generation of leaders?
Globalization on the other hand concerns with the world being faster, closer, more connected. We are today more interdependent and interconnected than ever before. And these connecting process will continue. Will this make leadership easier or difficult?
And the last one is the demographic changes that talks about the population shifts that will have a profound impact in the age of hyper-challenge. Subgroups in society rise and fall (e.g. the decline of the white male in the US), the population of countries ages while replenishing the supply of workers to support aging population declines, and medical advances will keep an aging population around for longer, and at great expense.
In preparing for the changes, the question is how the leaders will do that? It is very informative that Genovese enlightened us with what he called “leveraged leadership” as he discussed this as the leadership game plan for the age of hyper-change. According to him, the leader – the presidents of tomorrow will not be able to constructively deal with the wicked problems they will face with the old models of leadership and power. Leveraged leadership as he further explained involves using influence across complex interconnected networks, bringing together various interested parties – government, corporations, NGOs, etc. – to solve wicked problems. (p. 105)
Yet it is also surprising to note that leveraged leadership isn’t only going to be introduced tomorrow or in the future, in fact, some leaders of today or in the past particularly in US has applied it like the US Former President George W. Bush. In his speech to Congress on September 11, 1990, Bush called for the creation of “a new world order. . . in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.” He added that “a new partnership of nation has begun. . . The Persian Gulf. . . offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation.” (p. 107)
In terms of how the book is written, I can say that it is easy to understand, comprehensible. Every chapter is introduced with a quotation from renowned personalities in the world like Charles Darwin (1809-1882) saying “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
I strongly recommend this book to every post-graduate student who is aspiring to lead an organization in the future time and as well as everyone who wants to update themselves with the solutions on how they are going to cope with the challenges that comes along their way. And if they have known to so many leadership styles already it is high time for them to apply this leveraged leadership as discussed by Genovese.
Not only that, he also mentioned the metaphysics of leadership which perhaps new to us or just myself that leadership has metaphysics as well. As metaphysics was introduced by Aristotle. The word refers to the core or fundamental nature of something; which does not change. See, there is also something in leadership that does not change and what are these? Leadership is necessary in all organizations. Leaders, as Plato reminded us, are made, not born. And anyone can become a better leader; to name a few.
The only problem I have seen in this book is its price. It costs more that 6 thousand pesos, P6, 350 to be exact which I am certain that most will find hard time to avail for a copy since not everyone would like to spend a lot for a book.
What is also appealing in this book is that every chapter offers a conclusion and has references after each conclusion. So it is easy for a not so intensive reader to understand the whole of the chapter without going through and through.
This book has indeed an organized content and are sequentially arranged contents. The explanations are coupled with real-life samples like when the author showed the experience of Former US President Obama on how he demonstrated leveraged leadership in the 2014 Ukraine crisis when he painstakingly cobbled together a unified US and European response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his continued fomenting conflict in Eastern Ukraine. In joining the Europe, the US was able to put considerable pressure on Putin, isolate him, impose economic sanction.
In addition, the book is very handy and light, we can easily bring it anywhere we want to read it and having few pages makes it more attractive not only to people who are voracious readers but also to the ones who are just trying to make reading a habit because they will not take much time in reading. Though it has few pages it is compact with new and emerging ideas. I don’t doubt why it is very expensive because the ideas are indeed fresh. Grammar and spelling are just but excellent. I have seen no errors with these.
In conclusion, let me quote the statement of a Political Science Professor of University of Denver, Norman W. Provizer; “The burden of leadership is largely the burden of facing the future. In the coming decades, the weight of that burden will only increase as the speed of change continues to accelerate. And to understand the implications of that acceleration, there is no better place to start than with Michael Genovese’s thoughtful and engaging study The Future of Leadership, which offers a game plan for the future in the form of leveraged leadership.”