# data[].attributes.body
Digital Future of Banking Requires New Leadership Model

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Subscribe to The Financial Brand via email for FREE!
The banking industry is trying to respond to an increasingly turbulent business environment, where legacy leadership and existing cultures are being challenged. In many instances, the legacy culture becomes a barrier to required change needed to become digital banking organizations. Not only do leaders need to articulate a vision for a future of increasing customer expectations, greater competition, new delivery channels and advancing technology, but also provide the resources to become digital technology organizations.

Some people argue that completely new leadership skills will be required to survive in the digital age. Others believe that leaders should go back to the essentials established decades ago, not letting change distract or disrupt an organization on a managerial level.

To these points, a research project conducted as part of a 5-year collaboration between MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, found that a blend of both perspectives may be required. In other words, while core leadership skills will stay the same, digital disruption will require new skills to be added to the 'leadership handbook'.

Now more than ever, bank and credit union leaders need to adjust to the increased pace of change in the industry. They also need to deal with the effects of hundreds of small fintech and big tech firms competing for customers who do their banking purely on their mobile phone, as well as with the disruptive conflicts between legacy bankers and the new wave of change agents within their organizations. In other words, today's leaders need to embrace change, take risks and disrupt themselves.
Read More:

Neobanks are winning customers at an alarming rate. Find out why, and how traditional banks can compete. Click Here

Google is now rewarding websites that follow its E-A-T guidelines. View our white paper to help you navigate the new standards and improve your E-A-T rating. Click Here

What Makes Digital Leadership Different?

The leadership skills of the past are the foundation needed in a digital organization, but they aren't enough by themselves. When more 3,300 leaders were asked by MIT SMR what the single most important skill was to succeed in a digital workplace, the presence of a 'transformative vision' was ranked slightly higher than a clear, 'forward-looking' vision (22% and 20% respectively).

By transformative vision, respondents to the MIT SMR research meant leaders should have the ability to anticipate markets and trends, make savvy business decisions, and solve tough problems in turbulent times. In other words, embrace change and take risks based on multiple possible futures.

The third most mentioned skill that was deemed important for leadership success in a time of digital change was the ability to 'understand technology'. This has been found to be a major skills gap with traditional banking leaders as well as with their board of directors. At most financial organizations, digital literacy above middle management is almost non-existent.

In fact, the principal researchers from MIT CISR. Peter Weill, Stephanie Woerner, Thomas Apel and Jennifer Banner found that at companies in all industries, earning more than $1 billion in revenue annually, only about a quarter of them had three or more board members who were considered 'digitally savvy'. For the purposes of this research, 'digitally savvy' was defined as, "understanding, through experience, how digital technologies such as social, mobile, analytics, the cloud, and the 'Internet of Things,' will impact company success in the next decade."

To increase digital maturity of top management and boards of directors, MIT Sloan suggested the following:

Provide self-directed learning, require attendance at technology conferences, and/or find digital natives for leaders to learn from.

Commit to 'digital tourism', including visiting and engaging in conversations with boards and leaders of other successful, tech-driven companies.

Have multiple digital strategy retreats that focus exclusively on digital threats and opportunities.

Recruit new leaders who have strong digital experience.

Digital literacy is part of the foundation of the first two leadership skills cited, because leaders who are not digitally adept will struggle to understand the impact, risks and opportunities of digital transformation. This is why we see that the most digitally advanced and innovative financial institutions worldwide are those with leaders from outside the banking industry. Bottom line, it's hard for historically successful leaders (and organizations) to disrupt themselves.

Finally, tied with the need to understand the impact of digital technology is the need to be open-minded and accepting of change. Obviously, this trait supports all of those traits higher on the list, enabling leaders to respond to a very disruptive environment. The trait also assumes that ongoing learning is occurring to avoid skill set obsolescence.

Traditional Leadership Skills Still Required

Even though a number of new skills are required to succeed at a time of digital transformation, the decades-old fundamentals are still required. In other words, leaders should not let the technological change occurring around them distract. Understanding the basics of communication, prioritization, investment and project management are even more important during times of change. These skills cannot be delegated. They are the foundation for a culture that embraces the potential of digital transformation as opposed to simply providing lip service.

New technology without top-level ownership, involvement, empowerment and communication is a recipe for disaster. Employees and managers at all levels need to have the tools to succeed, including training and the support for 'disrupting others' appropriately. This may require the hiring of new digital leaders who can set an example for others. There must also be the opportunity for those embracing digital transformation to advance in the organization.

REGISTER FOR THIS FREE WEBINAR

Combining the Best of Old and New Leadership Skills

The joint research project with MIT Sloan Management Reviewand Deloitte believes what is needed is a healthy blend of both old and new skills. That is: "Leaders who have the core skills cultivated from the insights of the past, but with the agile mindset and digital savvy to allow them to pivot when necessary. In short, leaders who can 'be the change we seek'."

According to Deloitte, today's leaders need flexibility, agility, and a willingness to extend their organization's capabilities into new and, sometimes unexpected, areas to keep ahead of relentless competition. The goal is to make themselves and their organizational incumbent players 'undisruptable'.

"CEOs need to continually transform their organizations by 'embracing ambidexterity' through their leadership - and by infusing others with the same mindset," state Benjamin Finzi (a managing director and co-lead of Deloitte's CEO Program), and Scott Baret (a partner and Vice Chairman of Deloitte, leading the US Banking & Capital Markets practice). Leadership ambidexterity requires simultaneously optimizing through aggressive actions that yield efficiencies while exploring new and risky pathways that may ultimately modify the current business model.

Enhancing optimization and exploration simultaneously, particularly in large, legacy financial institutions, can be extraordinarily challenging - yet doable state Finzi and Baret. The larger, more complex, and older an organization, the more it may lean on optimization over risk-taking as a means to growth and profitability. To gain comfort in taking risks and learning from the inevitable failures that come with them, leaders need to cultivate 'emotional fortitude', which provides a clear-headed expectation of possible failure but does not result in despondency or recklessness.

Emotional fortitude combines a realistic assessment of potential risks and roadblocks with the courage to pursue lofty visions. It involves the tenacious confidence to continue exploring risky bets in the face of repeated failures and the willingness to let go of a treasured project as soon as the signs that justify abandonment arise.

Embracing a Beginner's Mindset ... and More

Deloitte's Finzi and Baret point out that to fuel a powerful engine of exploration, leaders of digital organizations need to adopt a 'beginner's mindset' - a concept rooted in Zen Buddhism, that leverages the possibilities inherent in not knowing all the answers. Strengthening one's ability to find moments to keep an exceptionally open mind, put aside all of the answers and knowledge one has gleaned over the years, and listen deeply to differing views and experiences, can lead to breakthrough ideas that may further bend the business model.

As a complement to the creativity of the 'beginner's mindset', CEOs also need to embrace the attribute of 'disruptive jujitsu'. This characteristic requires recognizing threatening, disruptive patterns from competitors and others in the environment, breaking the patterns into their components, and ultimately finding ways to appropriate selected disruptive elements for their competitive advantage.

Finally, and most importantly, the study from Finzi and Baret emphasizes that digital leaders must make it their passion to discover their customers' most subtle, unconscious, and often unrecognized needs and desires. Essentially, what will solve the problems that customers have not yet even acknowledged to themselves? This requires finding new and innovative ways to understand the customer's experience with current services - and then addressing their most deeply-embedded wishes and needs in innovative ways, regardless of whether the consumer is conscious of them or not.

The new leadership model will require that Boards of Directors, CEOs, and all top management constantly reinvent their skills and roles, demanding new perspectives from themselves and their organizations. In striving to create a new leadership model, some failure is inevitable along the way; but without it, banks and credit unions may not survive as we know them today.

Additional Insights into Digital Leadership

The Digital Leadership Initiative, published by MIT Sloan Management Review, explores the growing use of digital technologies in the business landscape. Through a series of annual reports, blogs, articles, and case studies, the exploration examines how companies are cultivating opportunities and addressing risks in a fast-moving, digital market environment.

As more companies strive to develop new digital capabilities, many are making significant changes to their organizational culture, strategy-making process, and talent management efforts. These shifts raise important questions about what it means to lead a digital business. These questions, and more, are the focus of MIT SMR's Big Ideas Initiative.

Research and analysis for this program is in collaboration with Deloitte Digital, which also provides financial support.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Digital Future of Banking Requires New Leadership Model

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Subscribe to The Financial Brand via email for FREE! The banking industry is trying to respond to an increasingly turbulent business environment, where legacy leadership and existing cultures are being challenged. In many instances, the legacy culture becomes a barrier to required change needed to become digital banking organizations.

# data[].attributes.body
The Importance of Soft Skills in Financial Services

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Soft skills are becoming increasingly critical for employees in any profession and industry, but they are becoming particularly important in the fast-changing financial services (FS) sector.

Financial services firms are experiencing a whirlwind of rapidly changing market forces. Firms are being bombarded by new technologies like blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence. They're also having to contend with disruptive new business models from non-traditional competitors including Google, Amazon and even Apple, as well as a number of innovative self-serve fintech startups that are flooding the market (think companies like Wealthsimple). On top of traditional FS firms having to develop new hybridized skill sets to accommodate all the technologically-driven change and unconventional competitors, superior customer service is quickly becoming an increasingly important competitive differentiator in the financial services field.

Internally, financial services organizations are also dealing with generational turnover and new employee mindsets when it comes to workplace learning and development. There are widening knowledge and leadership gaps being left behind by retiring boomers, and FS firms are increasingly having to find more effective ways of developing their leadership pipelines so they can train the leaders of tomorrow today and navigate unprecedented market upheaval while continuing to deliver desirable business outcomes. These future leaders have different learning expectations compared to their predecessors, exhibiting a desire for more modern learning experiences and next-generation learning tools.

In the face of this unprecedented change in the FS marketplace, using modern workplace learning experiences to effectively cultivate key employee soft skills can help traditional FS organizations better overcome these internal barriers and external forces to fuel growth and innovation, and win in today's consumer market.
Learn why your organization needs to make the move to modern learning
What exactly are these so-called "soft skills?"

Soft skills are essentially personal characteristics and interpersonal or people skills. They comprise desirable personality traits and individual qualities that help people interact and relate to others in the workplace. These soft skills can include:

the ability to communicate effectively

relationship development and management

emotional intelligence

empathy

creative thinking and problem solving

teamwork/collaboration

decision making

storytelling

critical thinking

time management

and motivation.

Soft skills help leaders motivate, engage and inspire teams

Cultivating soft skills is especially key when it comes to leadership development. Financial services organizations can overcome many of the barriers and obstacles limiting their growth and innovation by cultivating leaders with a strong aptitude for key soft skills that can help them mobilize and engage workers in digital transformation initiatives and rapid innovation. These are necessary "big shifts" financial services need to navigate if they expect to compete and win in the consumer market of today AND tomorrow, and stable leadership is needed to provide a steady hand on the steering wheel as they do.

Leaders who can inspire, listen and engage in compelling storytelling also have the ability to transform culture. They can play a role in building an organization for the future that is more relaxed and flexible (a must-have for millennials), receptive to change, and open to continuous learning.

Soft skills can improve customer interactions

Leaders with exceptional soft skills can motivate and inspire their employees. This can directly translate to improved customer service and securing customer loyalty in an age of multiplying financial services options-a happy employee is an engaged employee and an engaged employee will typically offer better customer service than one who's not.

Not only that, but soft skills development is key for those frontline employees who deal with customer interactions on a daily basis. They are an organization's primary brand ambassadors and are largely responsible for managing and setting customers' expectations around service and support. The development of soft skills such as empathy, emotional intelligence, motivation and effective communication can help employees elevate customer interactions and the customer experience overall. Check out this video on four key skills new managers need to succeed.

How can a modern learning strategy help?

The key is to build a modern learning ecosystem that goes beyond training around hard skills (i.e. technical prowess and core business knowledge) to incorporate soft skills, and that delivers training in a way that's engaging and "just in time." Modern workplace learning methods like video-based learning, social assessment, and brain science strategies like situational learning, can effectively encourage the development and practice of soft skills. This approach creates a more balanced and holistic learning model, that also prepares the organization to dynamically adapt to new learning demands and changing market conditions.
Find out how D2L can help you build better soft skills within your organization

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Importance of Soft Skills in Financial Services

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Soft skills are becoming increasingly critical for employees in any profession and industry, but they are becoming particularly important in the fast-changing financial services (FS) sector. Financial services firms are experiencing a whirlwind of rapidly changing market forces. Firms are being bombarded by new technologies like blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

# data[].attributes.body
10 Lessons from a Start-up Entrepreneur

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I was recently asked to give a guest lecture at Vlerick Business School in Belgium. Vlerick is where my entrepreneurship story started. Without it, there would not have been a company called EcoNation, nor EnergyVision.

Now, eight years after I graduated, I was asked to share my thoughts and experiences with the students - to explain the obstacles and challenges, the opportunities and the risks of starting your own business.

Back when I began, I was told that the key to success was to work hard. I work harder than most people I know, but I realize it's not the key to success.

It took me eight years to understand and eight hours to write down the top 10 lessons I have learned along the way. It might take you eight minutes or so to read. I hope this is a good investment of your time.

Make a difference - not money
As an entrepreneur, you don't start a business to make money. At least, I didn't. Of course, you have to make money; if not, you don't exist. But it's not what drives you most. You want to make a difference. You want to matter, to have impact. Change something for the better for your customer. Offer solutions. Surprise the market. That's what really creates value. Make a difference - and the money will follow.

Affordable loss
When you want to start a business, you begin by writing a business plan. There is a line between what you can gain (your turnover, profit) and what you can lose (your investment). The only thing you can be certain of is what you can lose. No one knows for sure whether they will make one euro, 100,000 euros or a million, and in what timespan.

What you do know is what you can lose when things go wrong: your reputation, your self-image, your full investment.

Now, what are you willing to lose? That is hard to answer and can be different for everybody. For me, I was willing to risk my personal savings and one year of my time: no salary paid in the first year. Had things gone wrong, I would have learned a lot during a year and that's what it was worth to me.

What I was not prepared to risk was bankruptcy: having personal bank debts for another 15 years or so, or taking a loan from my parents and then having to explain to them that the money was gone.

When we founded EcoNation, we found a bank that was willing to give us a loan. We did not give a personal warranty, yet we promised to work one year for free - that was our investment. The Belgian/Flemish government was willing to give a warranty to the bank to cover 75% of their risk - it is a mechanism which runs through PMV (a government-based investment company) and is really a great tool for start-ups.

Eventually, we made money and were profitable. Yet it's just something you don't know for sure upfront. The question is not how much money you will make; the real question is what are you willing to lose?

The pizza experience
In a start-up, everything is new, much is disruptive. Often you are inexperienced and surprises are everywhere. It is crucial to get your team right. You will have so many tough decisions to make and you don't want to lose friends along the way.

Imagine it like this. You are working late (you will do this a lot in the first few years) and you want to order pizza. If you want to order pizza for all the founders of your business, and you need to order more than one pizza, then your start-up has too many founding members.

Two or three founders works great. Four or more often means misery, especially when it comes to making crucial decisions.

Listen first - speak later
This is something I really had to learn. You want to go fast, because you want to grow big, but you can't grow before you learn. And you learn through listening. Listen to your team, your experts, your board - but most of all, your customers. They are the ones who really drive and define your business. Listen to them. Understand them. Learn from them. There is more than enough time to speak later.

Cash is still king
Books always tell you that "cash is king". Yeah, whatever, I thought, cash can never be more important than profit. Well, it is. It always is.

In order to really understand it, just take this example: you set up a company to develop your idea for a new product. You and the other founders contribute all your savings (let's say 60,000 euros) and a bank lends you another 60,000 euros. You also receive some turnover, another 60,000 euros. That's your cash coming in.

But you have some fixed costs. And in order to turn your idea into a prototype and then into a real product, you need to invest a substantial amount in research and development. The result is a cash shortage. And now your product is ready but your pockets are empty. You can't pay next month's bills any more. There is a letter about tax on your doormat.

This is the moment when you really understand the difference between profit and cash. Cash is king, and queen, and everything else. Never forget it.

You can sell a share only once
And you always sell too cheap, too soon. As a start-up, you are in need of money. So you look for help from your friends, family members or business angels. The thing with business angels is: you have to make sure they are angels and not devils in disguise. And you don't know it up front.

If you sell your shares too soon, you lose control of your company. It's that simple. Even if you think you don't have a choice, you always do.

If your idea is great, you will find the money without losing the shares. And if your business works well, you will have to go through so many rounds of equity raising (and dilution), that you don't want to distribute your shares already on day one. Because once they are sold, forget ever getting them back. It just doesn't work like that.

Far too many entrepreneurs start a successful company and end up empty-handed. You need to avoid business angels and talk to government agencies instead. It will make your life much easier.

People, people, people!
All good things come from people. They change the world, and companies. I had the privilege of being able to work (first at EcoNation and now at EnergyVision) with some of the greatest people I know.

As an entrepreneur, a team does not work for you. You work with them, you are part of the team and you love it. It's one of the differences between being a start-up entrepreneur and being a manager in a big conglomerate.

If you can handle it, the start-up culture is a great thing to experience. You really become one, united, a team with common goals and common values. You spend so much time together, have so much fun, put yourself on the line, and get so much energy from one another.

Think big - spend small
Think big, for sure. We were very, very, very small when we signed Amsterdam Airport Schiphol as our first customer and Scania as our fifth.

We wanted to conquer the world, to make a difference and we weren't afraid to think big. At the same time, we were conservative in terms of spending. I waited a long time before hiring extra employees - probably too long. You can only spend what you have and, in our case, that was not much. Yet that should never, ever prevent you from aiming big. Be naïve enough to take that leap of faith, and smart enough to learn fast along the way.

Get some sleep
Start-up entrepreneurship is like going from one misery to the next and trying to manage in between. You have to solve a lot of problems. You have to overcome all kinds of obstacles. It always goes slower than you want and it always costs more than you expected.

Many of my classmates chose jobs in consultancy, investment banks and conglomerates. They were sure of their salary and enjoyed a clear view on their career path for the years to come. They work 60 to 80 hours per week and have between three and six weeks holiday per year. In a start-up, you work 24/7 and you don't know how to spell "holiday". If you don't work, your company suffers. There is no such thing as a work-life balance.

And yet it is the best job in the world, because you are living your dream. You get to create your own company, work with great people, for great customers, on great projects. You are your own boss. Your personal values are what define the company.

Indeed, you can look at your situation from different perspectives and all of them are equally true. Whether you see it as a nightmare or a dream, just make sure you don't forget to sleep. It is a long road and a tough one, and you need to stay focused yet relaxed.

Sales fix everything
Never forget: when things go wrong, when your board is driving you mad, when your back office is lagging behind, when media is reporting bad stories, when you can't sleep, can't breathe, can't stop thinking any more... sales fix everything. They really do. Your investors shut up, your cash position improves, your team can smile again, you'll find the tools and the resources to fix other problems. Having sales means you exist. So stop reading: go out there and sell. Spread the word and spread your passion.
More blogs about start-ups
This article is published in collaboration with EnergyVision. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum. To keep up with Forum:Agenda Author: Maarten Michielssens is founder and CEO of EnergyVision and a World Economic Forum Image: A businessman walks past pillars in Tokyo December 14, 2009. Technology Pioneer. subscribe to our weekly newsletter. How start-ups are rewriting your news
The best way to learn entrepreneurship
Why big business should embrace small start-ups
How to Kickstart your business idea

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

# data[].attributes.body
Great Leadership Starts with Self-leadership

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Great leadership starts with self-leadership | Lars Sudmann | TEDxUCLouvain

# data[].attributes.body
3 Things to Know About Tomorrow's Business Leaders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today's young business leaders are poised to outperform their more established counterparts - and that's not just the usual energy and naivety of youth talking.

Today's young leaders are emerging at a time when forces have converged to broaden people's expectations of business. This generation contains some of the savviest and most connected consumers in history. Many of them have seen their parents work in, and potentially be let go from, uninspiring business environments. They've grown up in an era when corporate scandal was frequent and corporate responsibility became a department.

On the other hand, they've also seen the extraordinary rise of social enterprises and start-ups that answer the question: "What problem are we trying to solve?" long before they ask: "What's the next big money maker?"

And now they're setting the bar higher.

Don't get me wrong. Up-and-coming leaders need and love profitability just as much as their predecessors, but they're savvy enough to see profit as the end, not the means. The big differentiator will be that successful leaders of the future will tap into the extraordinary value and competitive advantage that comes when their companies' missions - their core reasons for being - draw others in. They will hard-wire their operations to work effectively with others across society to deliver those missions and leverage resources in entirely new ways - and outperform the market as a result.

Here's what the new generation of CEOs will do differently.

Young leaders know why they're in business in the first place

For the next generation of game-changers, the payday (and what a payday it will be) grows out of setting ambitious missions that people actually care about. It seems so obvious, doesn't it? After all, a mission statement is your most important declaration to the world about why your business even exists. But take a look at most company missions and you'll find things like relevance and purpose woefully lacking.

Here are three red flags to look out for:

Uninspired mission statements are chronically narcissistic. This business of "we're going to be the #1" or "the industry leader" raises exactly one question: besides shareholders, who cares? Many up-and-coming leaders are starting to better understand that if consumers, employees, communities and even governments don't care about their company's mission, they'll be in dire straits fairly quickly.

Uninspired mission statements focus on the business model. A business model is not a mission and it never will be. Worse yet, elevating the business model to the level of mission makes a company far less capable of pivoting when market changes demand that their model evolves. Our future CEOs have grown up in an environment where the most agile businesses have been best at weathering storms.

Uninspired mission statements talk about how a company will behave. I'm reminded of a retail chain that seeks to "please customers and treat employees well". Since when did the bare minimum of behaviour constitute a mission?

Successful leaders of the future will understand the bigger picture. They will recognize the interplay between society's most pressing issues and the ability of their industries and companies to simultaneously solve those issues and thrive. They will recognize that major problems, left unchecked, will eventually block their business objectives.

Think about it. Nike won't survive if the world continues to become less physically active. Neither will ESPN. Banks lose relevance if the majority of a population can barely afford everyday expenses. An energy company doesn't stand a chance if it runs out of product. The theory holds true for pretty much any company of any size in any industry.

Put simply, future leaders will embrace missions that are visionary and describe what their companies will deliver to the world. And those missions will matter to a much larger group than just shareholders.

Young leaders see untapped value that's there for the taking

By now our new mainstream corporate heroes are solving massive problems during the course of daily business. This has huge implications.

First, they'll need to learn how to play really well with others. Corporations are famous for creating and then operating inside safe and controlled corporate bubbles. The new vanguard is about to burst that bubble. Truly ambitious missions require other people's participation - governments, non-profits, academics, to name just a few. Future leaders will need to define new ways to work with these groups more authentically and systemically than typical efforts seen today. If they get this right, our young leaders will start to experience a level of broad-based support from unlikely actors who actually want their companies to win. It will create a tailwind experienced by very few in the corporate sector so far, and illuminate the ridiculous amount of untapped value being left on the table today.

When a more broadly supported corporate mission is delivered authentically and consistently, companies can realize surprising cost savings and fewer barriers to business. The PR crises, risk-mitigation headaches, employee-retention or productivity issues that drain valuable dollars - they can all dissipate dramatically, freeing up resources for innovation and more strategic reinvestment. Imagine an employee base so proud of what they are working towards that they consistently over-deliver with great products, services and efficiency savings. If your own employees or others want you to win because you stand for something worth fighting for, they'll do whatever they can to help you.

Finally, missions that create shared purpose expand available market opportunity. Driving towards a mission that means something (and delivering on it) inherently expands the size of the pie versus an exhaustive and expensive effort to expand the size of an arbitrary slice. Because these companies are fundamentally solving a bigger problem, there's a bigger portion of the population to innovate for and a broader base of business opportunities to expand into legitimately over time.

There are some established companies we can look to for inspiration. Take Google, for example. Its mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Democratizing access to information everywhere? That's world-changing. And it shows up in a ton of different ways, from emergency alerts that are the product of government partnerships to a re-imagined ISP experience (currently being tested in a few US cities) that provides connection speeds that are faster, cheaper and more reliable than anything people have experienced before. In an industry fraught with political challenges and sensitivities, Google is finding new ways to work across sectors. The result is expanded market opportunity and a roster of essential and valuable new supporters.

Indeed, those who lead the way will have big challenges pioneering how to get things done across the traditionally well-defined tri-sector territories. But they'll also be poised to extract significant business value (and profitability) that has been left on the table for a very long time.

Young leaders will stay off the Titanic

The vast majority of businesses currently operate within a system that puts shareholders first and incentivizes quarterly returns over sustainable growth. You could argue that deeply embedded corporate norms and a very powerful establishment will continue to stand in the way of progress, but I don't buy it. We're now talking about a century-old corporate financing legacy system whose time has come and gone. Young leaders don't have to put up with that, and many of the world's bravest CEOs today are already showing the way.

As an example, take a look at Tesla's eight-year, infinite-mile warranty. This was a bold move in a world where three-year, 36,000-mile warranties have long been the norm. Then Tesla did the unthinkable and extended its warranty to existing owners as well. CEO Elon Musk addressed investors and acknowledged the likely negative impact on short-term earnings. And then he went ahead and extended the warranties anyway. That's a clear signal that Tesla puts the interests of its customers and faith in its product ahead of any arbitrary, short-term KPI. It bucks the system in a big way, and it will also pay off far more in the long run.

Today, however, we're seeing new leaders buck the system entirely. They're finding alternate forms of capital, demanding new structures and resisting arbitrary corporate norms that have existed for decades.

I can't wait to see the group of revolutionaries who have the courage to go after missions that are bigger than themselves in the mainstream corporate world. And really, while the next generation may be pre-wired for this, real shifts will occur as the most established leaders of today make this seismic shift. These leaders will chart new territory for sure: resisting the creation of internal corporate bubbles and rewiring organizations for authentic multisector relationships - possible because they will lead business missions that unite, rather than separate.

From what I've seen so far, plenty of young people (and even a few current CEOs) have the guts to take this on. And if that's the sense of entitlement this generation is supposed to have, then I say bring it on.
Have you read?
Author: Lisa MacCallum, Formerly Nike Inc Vice President (2001-2014), currently independent adviser, author, speaker and Young Global Leader. Image: A man walks past a wall painting labelled the "Map of Start-up" at the Google Campus start-up space in the Gangnam district of Seoul, May 8, 2015. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Why start-ups need female founders
10 lessons from a start-up entrepreneur
3 factors that drive leadership success

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
3 things to know about tomorrow's business leaders

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

# data[].attributes.body
Alibaba's 6 Core Leadership Values Via Jack Ma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alibaba's 6 Core Leadership Values Via Jack Ma

# data[].attributes.body
The Dark Knight (2008)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Set within a year after the events of Batman Begins (2005), Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and new District Attorney Harvey Dent successfully begin to round up the criminals that plague Gotham City, until a mysterious and sadistic criminal mastermind known only as "The Joker" appears in Gotham, creating a new wave of chaos. Batman's struggle against The Joker becomes deeply personal, forcing him to "confront everything he believes" and improve his technology to stop him. A love triangle develops between Bruce Wayne, Dent, and Rachel Dawes. - Leon Lombardi

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Dark Knight: Directed by Christopher Nolan. With Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine. When the menace known as the Joker wreaks havoc and chaos on the people of Gotham, Batman must accept one of the greatest psychological and physical tests of his ability to fight injustice.

# data[].attributes.body
Bill Gates

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article is about the co-founder of Microsoft. For other people with the same name, see Bill Gates (disambiguation).

# data[].attributes.body
How Great Leaders Inspire Action

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers…

# data[].attributes.body
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Outliers: The Story of Success [Gladwell, Malcolm] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Outliers: The Story of Success

# data[].attributes.body
Design Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Popularized by David M. Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO and Roger Martin of the Rotman School, design thinking has three major stages.