Leaders Make the Future – Self-Assessment

Whether you have read the ten core chapters of the book or plan to do that after taking the assessment, this is an opportunity to assess your own readiness for the future. Don’t consider this assessment absolute, since nobody can predict the future. Rather, use it to spark your own thinking about leadership and how you might like to develop yourself as a leader in the future. You have to decide what kind of leader you will want to be, but challenges from the future can bring out more of your own innate leadership gifts.

First, answer the questions below as candidly as you can. I have grouped the questions around the ten future leadership skills, each of which was described in an earlier chapter. For those with the book in hand, review the chapters if you need to as you answer these questions for yourself. They are intended to help you personalize the ten future leadership skills and point to how they might apply to your own leadership development.

Once you have finished rating yourself for the ten leadership skills for the future, you can see your results in a colorful graphic representation. You can also view the collective results of all those who have taken the test before you. Leaders make the future, but they won’t make it all at once and they can’t make it alone. This will be a make-it-ourselves future.

Maker Instinct

Exploit your inner drive to build and grow things, as well as connect with others in the making.

Clarity

See through messes and contradictions to a future that others cannot yet see. Leaders are very clear about what they are making, but very flexible about how it gets made.

Dilemma Flipping

Turn dilemmas—which, unlike problems, cannot be solved—into advantages and opportunities.

Immersive Learning Ability

Immerse yourself in unfamiliar environments to learn from them in a first-person way.

Bio-Empathy

See things from nature’s point of view; to understand, respect, and learn from nature’s patterns.

Constructive Depolarizing

Calm tense situations where differences dominate and communication has broken down—and bring people from divergent cultures toward constructive engagement.

Quiet Transparency

Be open and authentic about what matters to you—without advertising yourself.

Rapid Prototyping

Create quick early versions of innovations with the expectation that later success will require early failures.

Smart Mob Organizing

Create, engage with, and nurture purposeful business or social change networks through intelligent use of electronic and other media.

Commons Creating

Seed, nurture, and grow shared assets that can benefit other players—and sometimes allow competition at a higher level.

Leadership Questions to Ask Yourself