3 Skills That Organizations Want From The Young Future Leaders Of B Schools
In the ever-evolving dynamic business environment led by technology, businesses can triumph or collapse overnight. To ensure survival, organizations are demanding that the fresh incumbents from business schools come with a certain prior set of qualities and experiences, if not expertise.
Ability to work with people and technology
People skill is one of the most sought-after qualities in a candidate. Organizations have always been emphasizing this quality as a prerequisite for anyone to be successful at a workplace. After all, it is people who get the job done. However, increasingly technology takes over many of the tasks we do or we depend on to get our work done. It is imperative that future leaders have to understand technology as much as they do people around them. Understanding of digital and future techs in the areas of IoT, automation and AI will dominate the next decades. Hence, future leaders will be required to have a deeper sense of where technology will take businesses to in the future. The business schools must make technology a core part of the mainstream business curriculum to create the true next-gen leaders.
Syllabus that inculcates hands-on experience
Slowly but steadily we will move away from the on-the-job training programs where new hires usually enjoyed a prolonged ‘honeymoon period’ – as we call it – at a new company. The grooming of leaders will be put on a fast track and they would be expected to come with some demonstrable working and leadership experience when they join the workforce. The business schools of today will be required to align themselves with this need and start incorporating practical work exposure as part of the syllabus that prepares a student to be job-ready after the completion of a course. The subjects have to be designed around the practical application of knowledge than the rote learning that we have today. The subjects will also need to reflect the changing market dynamics and prepare one for the future, not the current.
Problem solver attitude
Humans are a natural problem solver, it is deeply ingrained in all of us. Yet many of us become dormant with our thought process and become risk aversive as we age. The market and businesses today cannot survive on such sentiments and dispositions. A future leader is expected to be dynamic and a natural problem solver. One who is able to see things with a 20,000-feet perspective. One who leverages information and constantly reskills and upskills. Understands the power of existing and future technologies and is able to successfully integrate with the business. One may not naturally possess a ‘problem solver’ attitude. However, it can be encouraged and nourished. A nudge is needed to invoke the intelligence in all of us. A formalized course that stimulates one to find new solutions backed with proper information can help create the future leaders. We continue to live in an era of chaotic business landscape where change is inevitable. The skills that the organizations expect from new graduates will also evolve constantly. The onus is on B schools to fill this gap and ensure a steady stream of grea
.png)
