We live in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world. But what does that mean for you as a leader? Let’s explore how traditional horizontal approaches to leadership fall short and double down on the vertical skills that leaders need to develop in order to make sense of and thrive in a VUCA world.
Inspired by the book Upgrade: Building your capacity for complexity, we’ll link VUCA with four leadership capacities that underpin vertical skills:
- Sensemaking – Observing, understanding and processing the complexity of a situation e.g. getting your head around all the different interconnected topics, data, issues or causal relationships.
- Perspective-shifting – ‘Zooming out’ to benefit from a more realistic and multifaceted understanding of a situation or relationship e.g. understanding the perspectives and agendas of the various stakeholders.
- Self-relating – Observing, understanding, regulating and transforming yourself e.g. making sense of your own reactions, thoughts and feelings.
- Opposable Thinking – Responding to the dilemmas and conflicting ideas that can create tensions within us and / or between us and other people e.g. working with opposing views.