Leadership Skills Needed for the Future of Business with Stephan Meier

When it comes to the future, a lot of it we actually don't know. No one has a crystal ball that shows them exactly what will happen. But, effective leaders know how to understand the trends that are happening, how to implement strategic strategies in their business for those trends, and have the communication skills and leadership style to explain them. An effective leader also knows how to apply successful leadership and business management skills to the complicated, uncertain, and difficult problems that are coming their way in the future. Through our leadership training programs, participants will gain the management fundamentals as well as the effective leadership skills needed to understand how they can deal with the future now. After our leadership training programs, they’ll be able to say, “I now know what I want to tackle first and how I want to think about all those issues that come my way.” Leadership development helps transform senior leaders into more successful leaders.

While the future can be uncertain and complicated, it’s also exciting and cutting edge. Just as an example, the other day, I was in a talk with a guy at Columbia in robotics. He builds robots as well. He has a robot at home who paints. His robot paints creative, artistic paintings, not walls. I knew that AI and robotics have come such a long way, but to hear this shook me up a little bit. Like, "Oh my God, this is serious stuff." I mean, he also showed there are limitations. Robots can't really walk well and that's a real problem. But it was more like a wake-up call. It's like, "Okay, the future is now." We actually need to do something because the future is actually now and not a couple of years ahead. What worked in the past might not work tomorrow. More effective leadership skills will be needed. Leadership development and training programs are key to taking on the uncertainty and opportunity that the future holds. And so I want our leadership training in Executive Development Program: Leading Into the Future to really open our participants' eyes to what's happening out there. Instead of being in the mindset, "Well, it worked for many, many years," we want participants who go through the program to think, "We need to do something new, exciting, and interesting tomorrow.” That’s what successful leadership does. We help provide the core skills, key management skills, and important leadership skills that help you stay two steps ahead and lead into the future even without a crystal ball.

What’s really special about our leadership training programs is this very strong future focus. We’ll have input from people within the university as well as great leaders and senior leaders and experts from New York City from a variety of industries. We’ll ask the big questions like, “How do you deal with the data? What's your data strategy? How do you deal with automation?" Other topics will include things like social movements and stakeholders in the world, which have become more and more important. After learning about the topic, we’ll take up that trend and think about what implication does that have for business in general and for you in particular as executive management. In addition to Columbia’s faculty and successful leadership experts, there will also be peer learning. Each participant brings in their own expertise of what’s happening in their industry. That input from your peers could be a glimpse into what could potentially hit your industry moving forward, not in two years, but in the next month. Our leadership training programs will help give you a good foundation so that you can have the bold thinking, good leadership skills, communication skills, and leadership abilities needed to effectively lead your business into the future.

Stephan Meier is the co-faculty director of the Executive Development Program: Leading Into the Future. Learn more on how this program fosters innovation and strategic growth, empowering leaders to navigate the evolving business landscape: