“Foresight is the ‘lead’ that the leader has”. (Greenleaf)
Some time ago there was a major attack by terrorists on a shopping mall in Nairobi. From eye witness accounts it seems that few of the thousands of people who were in the mall at the time were prepared. As the first shots rang out, most assumed it was a robbery. The country and the leadership of the country were also not prepared. Reaction was slow and even as the attack was underway warning was mainly through mouth to mouth. Besides negligence on security there was clearly a lack of contingency thinking around the possibilities of such an attack. And yet, we expect leaders to be prepared for such unusual and rare events.
Robert Greenleaf refers to this competence as ‘foresight’: “Foresight is anticipating what is likely to happen and taking precautionary steps” (Greenleaf, 1998, P. 125). But foresight is not just about being prepared for the unusual. According to Greenleaf foresight is the ability to develop insight into what might happen in the future and to then take decisions and promote a vision to shape the future based on this: It “requires living by a sort of rhythm that encourages high level of intuitive insight about the whole gamut of events from the indefinite past, through the present moment, to the indefinite future. One is at once, in every moment of time, historian, contemporary analyst, and prophet, – not three separate roles. This is what the practicing leader is, every day of his life“ (Greenleaf, 1998, P. 129)
A leader who has foresight will be able to initiate and promote action at the right point, when he/she has the freedom to do so and despite what society and the world might think and judge as right or wrong, possible or impossible, at that time.
Coming back to the recent attack on the shopping mall in Nairobi: How much foresight do the leaders in our world apply to shape our future in such a way that young men and women are not attracted to enlist themselves for such violent causes? Foresight is dearly needed, not just to respond to such events but to prevent them.
On the global stage iconic leaders such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi were ahead of their time in advocating for peaceful resistance, for racial equality and for independence. Their ideas were based on foresight.
Foresight is something that we can all pay more attention to, as we get bogged down in our daily tasks. It is ultimately about looking at the past, present and future developments as a whole, using our and other people’s intuition on where things may go. It is about detaching ourselves from the immediacy of what is in front of us and looking far ahead. That is what leadership is about: shaping the future far ahead of time.
That is what leadership is about: Shaping a future where people in the world live together and care for each other, across all boundaries.
Reference: Greenleaf, R. K., (1998), The Power of Servant Leadership, San Francisco, CA, Berrett-Koehler Publishers