Great Leaders See the Future First: Taking Your Organization to the Top - in Five Revolutionary Steps (Hardcover)

Ms. Corbin's focus is on "great leaders -- those special individuals who have ethical character, care about their followers, and have the courage to lead them into a positive future." She also says that the purpose of the book is "becoming a great leader under a new set of global rules."

Ms. Corbin heads a think tank called the Center for the 21st Century, and she draws on a lot of forecasts to describe important issues for the new century in terms of trends: more freedom, faster transportation, progressive world peace, advancing technology, increasing capitalism, growing world business trade, and more understanding of diversity. These trends will coalesce into four Dyna (her word) forces on the organization of the future: globalization; marketization (market forces determining resource allocations rather than governments); informatization (knowledge from data); and democratization.

The author reports having been very accurate with her forecasts over the last 15 years, so we should probably take her seriously. I have no ability to forecast the future in a similar way, and believe it cannot be forecast so accurately; but I leave it up to you to decide about her forecasts.

Basically, she is calling for a convergence of forces in a way that will make organizations uncomfortable places for many to work. She sees leadership as being the answer. "Leaders determine whether an organization succeeds or fails." This will require a new model of leader who is more of a strategist, innovator, seer, speeder-upper, and user of new technologies in a more free form environment with mostly project workers involved.

I thought that the book was more of a visionary statement of the ideal, rather than a guide that leaders will specifically follow. For example, it seems to me that a leader could succeed either by creating an environment where these things occur or by actually being the doer who makes them happen. I suspect that the former role will be more prevalent and easier to do. There was not a lot of guidance on the details of what to do. The direction was at about the 40,000 foot level above sea level. That is a good place to see the big picture, but it is hard to connect the dots if you are a leader.

My own work on irresitible forces suggests that the world she portrays is a little too simplified to be helpful for any given organization, yet these are certainly forces that everyone should consider and use to their advantage.

On leadership, my own research shows that the most successful current leaders focus on 2 or 3 roles that are more important to their organization's success than any others, and do those superbly. Perhaps in time, people will be able to do more, but I would be surprised to see widespread expansion of capabilities of leaders occurring very rapidly. I agree with the author that there is more hope in creating free-flowing organizational structures and encouraging everyone in the organization to take on more of their own leadership.

Use your irresistible forces to create chaos for your competitors' organizations by shifting the rules!