ZEITGUIDE “FINANCE” IMAGE BY KRISTOFER PORTER

The leaders of tomorrow are graduating today.

But what will they lead? And how? When Fed Chair Janet Yellen got her PhD from Yale, Eastman Kodak was in the Dow Jones 30. When Chairman and CEO of Fox Entertainment Group, Jim Gianopulos, graduated from Boston University, the VCR wasn’t yet a mass-market item. When Michelle Obama graduated from Harvard Law, the iron curtain still hung across Europe.

Things change. Big things. And fast. That’s why as we continue to explore the essence of leadership today, we keep hearing about the value of curiosity, self-awareness, and mental agility.

You have to be what we call a Learning Leader to succeed today, when the pace of change is accelerating. It’s not enough to keep up; you have to look ahead. (Our friends at Undercurrent use the word “responsive” to describe how organizations have to be ready to pivot at moment’s notice.)

According to Inc.’s Leigh Buchanan, the “command-and-control” style that dominated corporate America into the 1980s doesn’t cut it with today’s workforce, and the “empower-and-track” model that followed in the 1990s and 2000s doesn’t go far enough.

Today, it’s essential for leaders to be ongoing learners who listen, maintain humility, and stay intellectually engaged beyond day-to-day work stuff. They reflect on and learn from not only their own experiences but the experiences of those around them.

So in that spirit, we hope some of the next generation of leaders were listening when commencement speakers shared these ideas this graduation season:

• “Your NYU education has not only provided you with a foundation of knowledge; it has also, I hope, instilled in you a love of knowledge and an enduring curiosity. Life will continue to be a journey of discovery if you tend the fires of curiosity that burn brightly in all of us.”

– Janet Yellen, Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, at NYU

• “Practice being curious, want to know things, ask questions… the most valuable part of your journey is not the knowledge you’ve gained, but the curiosity you’ve cultivated, the questions you’ve learned to ask…. A pretty smart guy once said, ‘I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.’ That was Albert Einstein… The best filmmakers I know are always the most curious.”

– Jim Gianopulos, Chairman and CEO of Fox Entertainment Group, at the USC‘s School of Cinematic Arts

• “As the history of this school has taught us, no dream is too big, no vision is too bold; as long as we stay hungry for education and let that hunger be our North Star, there is nothing, graduates, nothing that we cannot achieve.”

– First Lady Michelle Obama at Dillard University

• “Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don’t. … Respect their knowledge and learn from them. It will bring out the best in all of you.”

– Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society, at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell

Keep Learning,

Brad Grossman

Creator, ZEITGUIDE
Founder, Grossman & Partners