For the final instalment of this mini-series on leadership, let’s focus on the future. This is no easy task of course, because first of all, there is no ‘The Future’, instead there are many possible futures. Secondly, we are not all likely to agree on what the current world context is, to then be able to agree on a vision for the future either. But this is one of the challenges inherent to leadership, you need to articulate a vision of the future that you feel is consistent with your reading of the context, and not the one that you think will just make you popular.
So, what is the context, the zeitgeist of our times? Let’s stand back and look at some underlying trends. Since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, we have been living in a world with just one superpower, the USA. The Soviet Union fell apart, and global Russian power collapsed. Russia, a country without a deeply embedded tradition of democracy, became an oligarchy and ultimately today, a dictatorship. By contrast, since 1990 China’s economy grew 9% a year and is now only second to the USA in terms of economic clout. Intertwined with Chinese growth is the increasing globalisation of the world’s economy. The world is now more integrated and interdependent than ever before. Though the United States’ military spending dwarfs that of other countries, its forces looked less than dominant as it struggled with asymmetrical warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the prestige of its vaunted financial system took a big dent when it needed bailing out by the people in 2008. The low interest rates that followed exacerbated the trend towards greater wealth inequality. This together with, climate change, and the 2010 Arab Spring, triggered a mass movement of people from poor countries to rich western democratic ones. Which themselves have continued to become more liberal, by increasing minority rights. These trends have then precipitated a backlash of intolerance and authoritarianism across these same western democracies. Throw in a recent global pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, renewed Middle East conflict, and the rise of artificial intelligence, and from some perspectives the world looks like it is balancing on a knife edge, which way will it fall? I’m sure academics would argue about the size and impact of all these trends and events. But it is beginning to look like we are living through a transformational age. But then again, hasn’t every generation thought they were living through epochal changing times too.
All of this can seem like more than enough for us to get our teeth into. But, as I said in my 2019 book It’s Time, on top of all of this I think we have yet to fully understand how reality works. If we do change our understanding of reality, then navigating a personal path through this global morass is going to be much, much easier. I will spare you the detail here, except to say that reality is a more spiritual undertaking than most of us have heretofore realised. You do not have a soul; you are a soul; you have a body. You are not in reality; reality is in you. I appreciate that this is a large cognitive switch, which most people will either not believe or fully understand the implications of just yet. But I believe that we have reached a point in our development where we have enough data to start seeing existence in this way.
If you want to have a positive experience, whilst we navigate through these somewhat turbulent waters, then you do not need to believe me about how reality works. Simply align your beliefs and actions with a greater sense of connection, integration, and expansion. Recognise that you already have all the power you need to create a life of joy and happiness. Connect with a sense of your own self-worth. You are worthy because you exist and because you say that you are. Let go of your fears, act on your excitement, your passions, without insisting that events must turn out the way that you imagined them. Go with the flow of your life and see where that river of becoming more of who you are is really taking you.
The story of human existence over the last few thousand years, has been one of continuous progress. This progress has made the lives of most people better, the direction of that progress has been towards more liberty, more connection, more integration, and more tolerance. Now is not the time to abandon this trend. The world I see in the future is more liberal, because we should be allowing everyone to express who they are, without doing harm to self or others. If you can choose who you want to be, which you can, then so can everyone else, whether you like it or not. This sense of integration and connection must also include nature. We should be the stewards of planet Earth not its CEOs. But that doesn’t mean we should abandon our technologies either. Instead, we need to make them work in a sympathetic, symbiotic manner with the planet.
At the end of the day the most fundamental question of leadership is this, “Who should lead or manage whom to do what?” I can articulate aspects of my vision for the future, but you may resonate with a very different one. Over the next few years, you must follow your heart, and what feels right to you, whoever you lead or whoever you choose to follow.
“We are called to be the architects of the future, not its victims.” – Buckminster Fuller
