Future-Centric Leadership Development: Strategic Foresight & Systems Thinking to Improve Individual & Organizational Outcomes

Future-Centric Leadership Development: Strategic Foresight & Systems Thinking to Improve Individual & Organizational Outcomes

Aria Jones | 2022

Abstract

Planning for the future has been largely and erroneously centered around information collected from the past and present. Transformational change requires new ways of thinking — future-centric mindsets. This program, Future-Centric Leadership Development: Strategic Foresight & Systems Thinking to Improve Individual & Organizational Outcomes, is a series of digital content modules geared toward reforming mindsets and deconstructing limiting beliefs to enable and empower the creation of desired futures. The premise is that the future doesn’t have to happen to us; we can design and structure it so that it happens for us.

The program was developed with the heartfelt dual purpose of introducing Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking and presenting the two as groundbreaking enhancements to development systems, programs, and processes — related to personal and professional development and existing and emerging Leadership Development models. While the mindsets and practices of Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking are invaluable in every aspect of business (and life), few individuals and organizations currently utilize them, despite the game-changing results they bring.

Nevertheless, this program focuses on the developmental experiences and foreseeable trajectories of individuals and the organizations they serve. The program’s foremost objective is to illuminate and bridge the gap between individuals’ existing complexity of mind (or level of consciousness) and the current complexities of their internal and external environments, which must be aligned if one hopes to survive and thrive in the global VUCA environment. This objective is fulfilled by equipping participants with foundational information in several key areas.

• Leadership
  • Leadership History & Definitions
  • Leadership Approaches & Frameworks (Theories)
  • Leadership Assessments
• Strategic Foresight
  • Tools & Practices (e.g., Future Thinking)
  • Futures Exploration & Design Futures
  • Strategic Foresight in Leadership Development
• Systems
  • Systems Dynamics & Systems Thinking
  • Systems Design & Design Thinking
  • Systems Change & Systems Leadership
  • Leadership Operating Systems
• Two Leadership Development models
  • The Full Range Leadership Development (FRLD)
  • The Universal Model of Leadership (UML)

The purpose is to plant seeds of transformational change, tilling the soil by bringing a broad awareness of Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking and how to enact them. Secondarily, the program emphasizes that Leadership Development systems and processes can and must be designed or redesigned such that individuals’ consciousness or existing structure of mind — internal operating system — is stimulated to evolve progressively and adapt fluidly, ahead of, or at least in tandem with, the ever-in-flux environmental complexities.

By integrating Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking with personal and Leadership Development, we are empowered to zoom out to the systems level, to see “the big picture,” identify improvement opportunities, find leverage points to tweak, and perceive how the system will likely respond to change. In other words, we can see the causes and effects — the reinforcing and balancing loops of reciprocal causality — to identify issues, determine which changes will bring the most value, and distinguish the potentially costliest non-actions or ineffective actions. Anyone seeking to grow themselves or others may create desired futures using this holistic, future-centric approach having these newfound insights regarding how to foresee and generate positive transformational change and its astonishing results.

The program advocates that Strategic Foresight mindsets, tools, and practices with Systems Thinking can be overlaid upon existing Leadership Development models or woven into the design and structure of emerging models to enable the envisioning of alternative futures and the creation of desired futures. The program hypothesizes that integrating Strategic Foresight and Systems Thinking can take personal and Leadership Development to new levels, with measurable improvements, using the FRLD model, the UML, and the program author’s self-assessment results as a case study. The intention is to conduct further research to challenge the program’s position — by experimentation with additional cases, conducting seminars and workshops, and administering pre- and post-program 360-degree leadership assessments — and identify and fill any gaps discovered with the FRLD and the UML models during the process.