Role models and good examples important for future leaders
Karin Schreil has held senior positions since she was 25 years old. Today, she is the newly appointed CEO of Sweden at the Nordic tech and consulting company EVRY and believes that future leaders must be curious, dare to challenge and have the ability to navigate in a changing world.
- I believe that the key to all successful leadership is to be confident in yourself. It doesn't matter in which organization or environment you work. You need to know yourself in order to lead others. And you build this by trying out different types of tasks that allow you to develop. Having a good manager who inspires, challenges and supports you when needed means a lot for your performance and personal development.
What will characterize the leaders of the future? Are they different from the ones we have today?
- Future leaders need to be curious, open-minded and dare to think in new ways. They must also dare to challenge other decision-makers. The leadership of the future is very much about being able to simplify, navigate and make people understand what we are doing, why we are doing it and where we are going.
Clarity, trust and transparency are key ingredients. Judgment and the ability to make risk assessments will be crucial to making decisions that lead to the desired results.
Read more about leadership in Almega's and Ledarna's report "The future of leadership"
We have high expectations of the leaders of the future. Where do we actually find them?
- Among those who have a good foundation in terms of education, and who have tried different jobs and had the opportunity to grow with them. The IT industry is suffering from a skills shortage, so we must try to attract the leaders and employees of the future while they are still at school. I think we should work more with internships and practical work, for example. We also need to find ways of phasing in people with different backgrounds than we have traditionally done, for example through further education and mentoring programs.
How do we get young people to want to become leaders in the first place?
- Being a leader is not always about having staff responsibilities. It can be a more functional role like leading a team or a project. I think we need to look at leadership in a broader sense; that it is about being involved, making a difference and supporting people in solving a task. In this broader sense, I am convinced that young people want to be involved and contribute, and we see many examples of this already today.
You work in a fairly male-dominated industry. Why do you think there are fewer women than men in leadership positions in your industry?
- It all starts with building a base from which to recruit, and we in the industry work a lot on this through initiatives such as Hello World and Womentor. Then it's also about what we do when we recruit. We are all more or less biased at the time of recruitment, so it is important to secure the qualities we are looking for. At EVRY, we often use game-based and unbiased recruitment, gamification. In the last recruitment process, 60 percent of those hired were women, which is hugely positive.
- But it is also about creating conditions and removing obstacles. Showing good examples and role models. The key to creating a more even gender balance is leaders who work actively for diversity and inclusion. However, awareness and initiatives must not depend on an individual, but must permeate corporate culture and values and, above all, be clearly linked to business goals and results.
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