The leader of the future, especially in the IT domain, is someone who needs special competencies. His technical knowledge is not enough to help him to success in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, where the rate of change of the average lifespan of an organization went from the 75 years to 18 years, where the advances in technology, moreover the convergence of several devices in only one with the same utilities, is rampant. This is a world where in the same workplace several generations live and work side by side in constant change--different values, different expectations, and fresh new mindsets brought by the new generations. This is a world where automation is resulting in a heavy disruption of the organizations and society's ways of working and living, as almost everything is increasingly being automated.

In this world, having a compelling purpose is a mandatory pre-requisite for profits to follow. Traditional hierarchical structures are fading away to give place to purposeful networks and communities of people working together to achieve a shared purpose. Thus there has been an increase of the holacracy systems in organizations due to their flat organizational governance, in which authority and decision-making are distributed throughout a holacracy of self-organizing teams rather than being vested in a management hierarchy. The cumulative impact of these forces demands a new mindset and new competencies, that is, emotional intelligence competencies, for leaders to be able to stay relevant and make a positive difference to people and, hence, business.

If you are a leader at any level in a modern organization or aspiring to be one, in tandem with emotional intelligence competencies and skills, you certainly need to have or develop a VUCA mindset:

• Develop an adaptive mindset: The leader of the future, because of his vision and designing the future, will be in many situations, and the first man on the moon. Thus, he needs to be comfortable with change, unexplored paths, and unknown situations.
• Weave ecosystems for human engagement: The leader of the future knows that in order to build engaged human communities, he needs to tap into the intrinsic motivation of his people. Because intrinsic motivation taps into the basic drivers of human engagement, such as trust, hope, sense of self-worth, and feeling competent. We need leaders who can build trust through integrity and results, who can mentor and coach others, and who can clarify the meaning of the work people do and build a positive influence.
• Be an agile learner: Leaders of the future in a VUCA world need to have a beginner's mind--the curiosity of a child exploring a new world, getting immersed in new experiences as a way to unlearn the familiar approaches and learn new approaches in a more effective and organic way.
• Develop people: Having followers is good but if a leader does not empower the followers to be leaders, then he is just a shepherd of a flock of people. Leaders, in this world, have to role-model the behaviors they seek, help people in building their skillset and attitude, create learning forums, design work to tap into potential and, most importantly, lead through their influence and not through their authority.
• Have a vision: A compelling vision is the pre-requisite to any community, organization or team to thrive in the future because a compelling vision for the future is the key driver to engage and retain high performing team members.
• Anticipate and create change: In a VUCA world, change is fast and constant, and if the leader of the future wants to be in the front row he needs to have a strategic foresight to create change before an external change forces him to react. And, of course, he needs to engage his people in the change process from the beginning.
• Network and collaborate: The leader of the future needs to have a social mindset, as he knows that social media and in-person communication are sacred to create collaborative bonds, and a purposeful business.
• Design for the future: Organizations are purposeful networks of people; thus, the leader of the future needs to be aware that to design the future we need a compelling purpose that people in the organization share.
• Embrace an abundance mindset: An abundance mindset sees possibilities where a constraint mindset sees challenges. In a VUCA world, leaders need to have strategic foresight without losing the sight of the current reality. They need to have a unique ability to see through contradictions towards a future others cannot see.
• Be self-aware: It is only when leaders are aware of their preferences, ways of working, and possible blind spots that they can really bring their true authentic selves into the game and bring about a significant difference to the team, organization, and hence the industry.
• Relentlessly focus on customer: The leader of the future knows that he needs to be a customer centric leader. This means truly listening to the voice of customers, engaging deeply, and building long-term relationships by adding substantial value to the customers.
• Constantly clarify and communicate: Communication and clarity are the currencies of effective leadership when working with a multicultural and multi-disciplinary workforce, where every worker is also a leader and an influence. Thus, the leader of the future needs to have the ability to communicate effectively across cultures, re-iterate and reinforce vision, values and strategies, and help others in clarifying the meaning of their work.