What it argues
The New Leadership Literacies is Bob Johansen's forecast of the skills leaders will need for a world that is more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous than the one most leadership frameworks were designed for. Johansen, a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future with decades of experience in technology forecasting, argues that the traditional leadership toolkit — structured planning, hierarchical authority, linear communication — is inadequate for what he projects as the conditions of the next decade. The book introduces five new literacies that he believes leaders must develop to be effective in this environment.
The five literacies are: future-back thinking (working from a long-horizon view of the future toward present decisions, rather than only forward from current reality); voluntary fear engagement (deliberately practicing discomfort to build resilience before it is forced on you); shape-shifting organizational structures (leading organizations that can reconfigure themselves fluidly rather than defending fixed structures); commons creation (building shared resources and mutual benefit rather than competing purely for individual or organizational advantage); and smart machine partnering (developing a productive working relationship with artificial intelligence and automation rather than simply being threatened by it).
What it gets right
- 1.
Future-back thinking starts from a long-horizon view of where things are going and works backward to present decisions, rather than extrapolating forward from where you are now.
- 2.
Voluntary fear engagement means deliberately practicing with discomfort, uncertainty, and failure in low-stakes contexts so that you build resilience before high-stakes crises arrive.
- 3.
Organizations that can shape-shift — reconfiguring their structures and resources fluidly — will outperform those that defend fixed organizational forms as environments change.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Bob Johansen is a distinguished fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, where he has worked for more than four decades on long-horizon technology and society forecasts. He is the author of more than a dozen books on leadership and the future of organizations, including Leaders Make the Future and Get There Early. His work draws on systematic scenario-based forecasting methods developed at the Institute for the Future. Johansen consults and speaks regularly with senior executives at global organizations on preparing for VUCA conditions.
