Cecily Sommers shares insights about futures thinking and leadership based on her new online course.
By Stephen Dupont
When we visualize our role and responsibilities as a futurist, we may think of someone who is constantly watching the news for weak signals, facilitating workshops to encourage people to talk about the future, or writing up a trends report.
While certainly there is so much more to being a futurist than what I just described, how many of us think of ourselves as being leaders? Of taking our seat – well earned – at the same table as other senior leaders within an organization, and guiding the thinking that leads to smarter decision-making and more robust, long-term strategies? Could you see yourself as the Chief Futures Officer (CFO) in your organization? Do you dare think of a career path that leads you from the world of foresight to where you’re leading the entire organization – as a CEO, president or executive director?
It's here, at this intersection between foresight and leadership that legendary futurist Cecily Sommers is writing her next chapter.
Sommers, author of the 2012 classic, Think Like a Futurist, which introduced futures thinking to a mainstream business audience, is back with a new six-part online course available through Maven.com called Lead Like a Futurist. The new course, which also has been delivered in-person, has been designed for executive teams, high-potential leaders, and other high-impact positions in today’s organizations (corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and agencies). Through the course, participants learn about and engage in the six fluencies of leadership grounded in foresight — Reinvention, Purpose, Foresight, Innovation, Belonging, and Wisdom. At the very core of this course, participants learn to align inner and outer transformation in themselves, their teams, and the world to become more effective, empathetic, and authentic leaders.
When we visualize our role and responsibilities as a futurist, we may think of someone who is constantly watching the news for weak signals, facilitating workshops to encourage people to talk about the future, or writing up a trends report.
While certainly there is so much more to being a futurist than what I just described, how many of us think of ourselves as being leaders? Of taking our seat – well earned – at the same table as other senior leaders within an organization, and guiding the thinking that leads to smarter decision-making and more robust, long-term strategies? Could you see yourself as the Chief Futures Officer (CFO) in your organization? Do you dare think of a career path that leads you from the world of foresight to where you’re leading the entire organization – as a CEO, president or executive director?
It's here, at this intersection between foresight and leadership that legendary futurist Cecily Sommers is writing her next chapter.
Sommers, author of the 2012 classic, Think Like a Futurist, which introduced futures thinking to a mainstream business audience, is back with a new six-part online course available through Maven.com called Lead Like a Futurist. The new course, which also has been delivered in-person, has been designed for executive teams, high-potential leaders, and other high-impact positions in today’s organizations (corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and agencies). Through the course, participants learn about and engage in the six fluencies of leadership grounded in foresight — Reinvention, Purpose, Foresight, Innovation, Belonging, and Wisdom. At the very core of this course, participants learn to align inner and outer transformation in themselves, their teams, and the world to become more effective, empathetic, and authentic leaders.
Unlike other leadership development online courses, what makes Lead Like a Futurist different is that it’s grounded in futures thinking and build on Sommers’ 25-year pursuit of helping leaders see and understand change.
“Everything that I’m doing in my work,” said Sommers, “taps into the universal laws of change. If we can understand what they are and how they work and how they operate in and through us and in our environment, we have so much more agency. We have more equanimity. More wisdom.”
In developing Lead Like a Futurist, Sommers clearly saw the link between the future of leadership and the principles of foresight itself.
“What I’m doing is applying the principles of foresight to inner development,” said Sommers, who points to the first two fluencies, Reinvention and Purpose, as foundational to learning how to develop leadership from within and understand change from the inside out.
Sommers is adamant about focusing on purpose as part of the process of learning to Lead Like a Futurist. She warns against equating purpose with values for vision or strategic planning for strategy.
Unlike other leadership development online courses, what makes Lead Like a Futurist different is that it’s grounded in futures thinking and build on Sommers’ 25-year pursuit of helping leaders see and understand change.
“Everything that I’m doing in my work,” said Sommers, “taps into the universal laws of change. If we can understand what they are and how they work and how they operate in and through us and in our environment, we have so much more agency. We have more equanimity. More wisdom.”
In developing Lead Like a Futurist, Sommers clearly saw the link between the future of leadership and the principles of foresight itself.
“What I’m doing is applying the principles of foresight to inner development,” said Sommers, who points to the first two fluencies, Reinvention and Purpose, as foundational to learning how to develop leadership from within and understand change from the inside out.
Sommers is adamant about focusing on purpose as part of the process of learning to Lead Like a Futurist. She warns against equating purpose with values for vision or strategic planning for strategy.
Stephen Dupont, APR, Fellow PRSA, is a professional futurist and communicator based in Minneapolis-St. Paul who helps organizations communicate their vision for the future. He also serves as editor of Compass magazine.
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