the luckiest generation of leaders of all times

You are the leaders who are going to shape the future. Or be defeated by it. You can shape the future and see the results of your work in a short timespan. You don’t have to wait years and years to see the change you started, finally take place. You live in a world moving fast and you have the chance to see the change you want to bring happen as fast. How lucky you are.

But with this privilege comes a responsibility. You have to learn to be attuned to the changing world. Yes, the greatest leaders of today can define a future that goes beyond any imagination, any reasonable forecast of just few years ago. Yet they do by letting go of all the assumptions and beliefs they hold about the current world. They observe and learn. Observe what is going on around them, and learn from it. They let go of their preconceived ideas and they listen.

The most effective leaders go even further. They experiment with the present and with the future. They are not afraid of making mistakes, they crave for real life feedback to their most outlandish ideas. And they have the humble attitude to learn from the feedback, be it positive or – most often– negative. A failed experiment is not a failure, it is a success if we can learn from it. Successful leaders are on the continuous lookout for learning.

You can define the future. Yet most likely it will not be the future that you envisioned in the first place. You will have had the inner strength to let go of your beliefs when they were proven wrong by reality. And learned from reality instead, to create a future beyond imagination.

Image credit: Leaders CC-by-nc-nd-fmg2008