Leaders Live in the Future

 

Late last year Universal re-mastered the movie Back to the Future, staring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. I was in Seattle at the time on business and was able to watch the movie again on the big screen. 30 years after it's debut, it is still a great movie.

Although truly great leaders focus on the future, fortunately they don't need a Delorean and 1.21 gigiwatts of power flowing through the flux capacitor to do it.

I recently started reading a book by James Kousez and Barry Posner, The Truth About Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-of-the-Matter Facts You Need to Know, and according to Kousez and Posner "The capacity to imagine and articulate exciting future possibilities is the defining competence of leaders. Leaders are custodians of the future."

I think this is particularly relevant to project leaders, who by necessity spend a lot of time dealing with the here and now. Granted, sometimes it's difficult to look into the future, but leaders understand that it's critical to think beyond what's directly in front of them and imagine what's over the horizon.

According to Kousez and Posner, "...your constituents want to know your hopes, your dreams, and your vision. They want to know where you plan to take them. They want to share in the glimpse of the future."

When they ask the question to thousands of people about what they want in their leaders (what they are looking for in someone they will willingly follow), the quality of being forward-looking is second only to being honest as their most admired leadership quality. In fact, 70 percent of respondents select it. What's more, in Asia, Europe and Australia, the preference for forward-looking is even higher than it is in the United States.

In my opinion, the difference between being present-oriented and future-oriented is pretty straight forward. The future-oriented leader, although working in the here-and-now, spends time every day thinking about:

1. Improving processes so that current results don't limit future results
2. Making sure that team members understand the larger purpose and vision of what they're doing so they don't get bogged down in the day-to-day details of their work
3. What they can do to make a difference

Unlike Marty and Doc, we can't go back in time and fix mistakes so that when we go "back to future" things are different. As project leaders, we need to spend time every day focused on the future. Kousez and Posner suggest that "...it's important to invest the time today in tomorrow's future."

I have to agree. What are you doing to be a future-oriented leader?