Future Business Leader

Besides the traditional hard skills of accounting, marketing, and finance, the business executive of the future will be a leader and a visionary rather than merely a manager, he will have a global outlook and be knowledgeable of information systems and technology, he will capitalize on diversity and be a master of teamwork, he will be creative and show initiative, he will be able to discern patterns and opportunities in apparent chaos and have the ability to synthesize information rather than just analyze it, and, above all, he will be strong on interpersonal skills and be able to communicate effectively. In short, being smart and well trained in traditional business areas will no longer be enough for the business leader of the twenty-first century.

Specifically, the ideal business leader of the future must be cross functional, or have the ability to combine disparate skills to solve problems. He must be a visionary and a leader; that is, he must combine hard work and a deep understanding of the business in which he is in with the ability to inspire others to also work hard to make the vision a reality. He must work effectively on teams, be accepted by others as the person with the best sense of the challenge confronting the group, and be able to break problems into manageable, status-free tasks that others are willing to focus on. He must have a deep understanding of global issues and the ethical aspects of her business decisions. He must be familiar with and be able to use information technology and be comfortable with technology in general. He does not have to be a scientist, but he must understand in detail how the technology incorporated in the product or service that the firm sells works and avoid calling the experts every time he has to make a decision. He must have some experience with excellence – in whatever field – so as to recognize it and encourage it in others when he sees it.

Sounds impossible? Maybe it is, but those who come closer to this ideal will rise to the pinnacles of business leadership in the future. Having an M.B.A. from a good school is important, but in today’s world no one is automatically impressed. The business leader of the future must sell himself and above all must perform. Today’s corporations have enormous expectations from its newly minted M.B.A.s, often expecting them to have talents and abilities that few chief executives possess. Most of the 700 or so business schools, from Harvard to the most modest, understand this and are striving to reengineer the training of M.B.A.s to reflect the qualifications that the future business leader must possess for the new, competitive, dynamic world of the twenty-first century. The difficulty is that many of the new required skills are hard to measure and teach in the classroom, and that is why many business schools are taking in students who already have some business and real-world experience. 

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The Management Revolution

Business and society are today in the midst of a revolution comparable to the Industrial Revolution in both scale and consequence. Today’s revolution has four components: the globalization of markets, the spread of the information technology and computer networks, the dismantling of traditional managerial hierarchies, and the creation of a new information economy. These four components are all occurring fast and at the same time, and are affected by and affect one another.

Globalization (the first component of today’s revolution) once meant simply exporting some goods and services to other nations and maybe setting up a few production facilities abroad. Today, globalization means that more and more managerial decisions must consider the world as whole, rather than the region or the nation, as the relevant marketplace. Because of the tremendous improvement in communications and transportation, tastes are converging internationally, many more products than in the past are now imported and most others parts of components made abroad, and domestic producers face ever growing competition from abroad.

The second component of today’s revolution is the spread of the information technology and computer networks. Practically every bank teller, post office worker, retail clerk, telephone operator, bill collector, and so on works with a computer today. This greatly speeds up the delivery of goods and services, cuts waste, reduces inventory, and generally increases productivity. The computer has also dismantled traditional managerial hierarchies and decimated the ranks of middle management (the third component of today’s revolution). In the past, middle managers were the transmission lines for information between top management and workers. Today, information can in most instances be transmitted from top management directly to workers and vice-versa by a simple tap of a computer key and without any need of middle management.

The fourth component of today’s revolution is the rapid spread of the information economy where the creation of value is increasingly based on knowledge and communications rather than as in the past on natural resources and physical labor. For example, many auto repairs will soon be made not by a mechanic with a wrench but by a technician who fixes an engine knock by reprogramming a computer chip, and goods and services will increasingly be marketed and distributed electronically. Today’s four-pronged revolution affects drastically not only how traditional products and services are produced and distributed but also the entire organization of production, consumption, and management in ways that are not yet fully evident or understood. 

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