The Unstoppable Leadership Fundamentals are those key and essential leadership elements that drive and shape our leadership. Each component describes a part of the leadership experience.

No room for Bystanders

            Today, there is no room for leaders who want to be passengers or bystanders in leadership. Your actions will determine if people will follow your lead or find a new leader. The reality is the world changed and the expectation for leaders have changed.

The world is a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment (VUCA). Which mean for a leader you must be able to operate in a dynamic, complex, uncertain, and unclear environment. To make it clear as the Troop Commander did for me VUCA means:

Volatile: The speed, size, and scale of change in the world today has a great impact on events around the globe almost instantaneously. Change is a constant in a VUCA environment and to remain successful and unstoppable you must be able positively respond to continuous change.

You must learn to have the capability to lead through continuous change and learn to be adaptive and flexible throughout the change process. An example is that people are no longer limited to Ocean boundaries or imaginary lines drawn on a map to connect with other people. They reach out daily via the internet and social media to build a virtual nation.

Uncertainty: World events are unpredictable and this unpredictability makes it impossible to prepare for the unknown and uncertainty. In a VUCA environment, improvising is being able to create opportunities and solutions in an unexpected challenge or situation. You must be flexible and adaptive to the situation and prepare to handle challenges.

Complexity: The chaotic nature of the world combined with the volatility and uncertainty of global events creates an environment of confusion and difficulty for today’s leaders. It is chaotic and unpredictable. A leader today needs to understand market globalization, global migrations, global influences, social media, technological advances and the unyielding pace of change.

Ambiguity: Today, there is a is a lack of clarity or transparency surrounding world events. It is hard to predict what threats are in the world if you do not know the who, what, or why things are happening. In a VUCA environment, it requires your full focus on the situation, it requires that you have clarity of mind and purpose, and intentional leadership action. It requires 100% of your leadership capability to lead in the world today.

Global Impact of Leadership

            The overarching theme in the collected data in both the military and in the corporate world is a call to develop and prepare leaders to operate in a world of globalization, global diasporas, global markets, social media, technological advances and the unyielding pace of change in both the military and business operations.

This multidimensional leadership chaos and organizational complexity creates challenges for today’s leaders to lead effectively.

Pace of Change: Leaders must be flexible, adaptive, and pioneering. They must be able to improvise, adapt, create, and disruptively innovate as rapidly as the current pace of change. A leader must be able effectively lead and manage change to adapt and adjust to a dynamic and ever-changing global market.

Virtual Markets and Social Media: A leader must be able to move and operate in the virtual marketplace and the social media domain. A leader must understand how to reach out via the internet, social media, technologically and through search engines to communicate and connect with people around the world.

Global Transformation: A leader must have a clear understanding how technology, diversity, the redistribution of people on earth, failing nation-states and the interactions among diverse cultural groups affect organizations in a global market and global society. A leader must be multi-culturally astute and understand how to work with peoples of different countries, cultures, religions and worldviews.

A leader needs to be culturally smart and talented to use this cultural awareness to lead across barriers, generations and understand how to work with people of different countries and cultures.

Furthermore, a leader needs to lead across multicultural and national boundaries to increase the effectiveness of the organization. Relationship building results in both personal and professional development

Global Leadership Competencies

Risk-Taker: A leader must be able to demonstrate the capability to act in an influential, urgent and steadfast way to realize outcomes and results. They do not fear risk but comprehend and manage it to achieve desired results. A leader encourages and rewards creativity, innovation and continuous improvement.

Divergent and Convergent Thinker: A leader needs to engage in “out-of-the-box” synchronicity thinking and think at the tactical, operational and strategic level when looking at ambiguous and complex problems to develop innovative strategies and tactics.

Foresight: A leader needs to be able to thinking short and long term with a future-orientation focus. The must have a mental picture of what the organization should look like and be in the future and provide an inspiring and achievable vision.

Team and Organization Designer: A leader must be a master at networking, relationship and alliance building. They must understand that the relationship of the leader and their team is built on trust. A leader must be able to enlarge and empower all team members to work together and across functional areas.

A leader needs to be able to build relationships with all people inside and outside the organization. A leader needs to understand that a good team needs direction and growth to become a truly great team. A leader must be able to connect at the heart, mind, body and soul level in order to tap into the potential of their people. A leader learn how to serve in order to lead.

Entrepreneur and Intrapreneur Mindset: This concept builds on the overall Unstoppable Leadership model. The model is an Inside out/Outside leadership model. You need both to lead effectively. The Entrepreneur Mindset is about innovation, risk taking, effects and outcomes focus, and influential impact.

The Intrapreneur Mindset is on adding value within the organization by leading with the core values, leading authentically, and leading intentionally. Both mindsets. A leader needs to be able to positively influence the moral element of an organization and determines the outcome of situations. They remain focused on the organizational goals and leverage all available resources to achieve that goal.  A leader needs to be able to critically analyze problems and situations and foresee second, third and fourth order effects of proposed policies or actions. Thinking long term; being future-oriented; having a mental picture of what the organization should look like and be in the future.

Leadership Begins with you

            Becoming a Unstoppable Leader begins with you. It begins with a condition of your heart and starts with the desire and passion to make a difference. Leadership encompasses the integration of the heart, mind, body, and soul.

Becoming a leader is a choice. It is the choice you have to make in your personal and professional life. Becoming a leader isn’t easy and not everyone is willing to become the leader they need to because they are unwilling or unable to move out of their comfort zones or they are happy in their mediocrity.

Being an Unstoppable Leader is about having the energy, passion, integrity, trustworthiness, accessibility, and character authenticity to be the very best leader you can be. Unstoppable Leadership is a conscious decision to take ownership for becoming and being a leader.

An Unstoppable Leader is about sharing a sense of purpose, an inspired vision, a believable mission, and a plan of action to the team. Unstoppable Leaders lead by Example with a Frontline Approach.