Soft Skills on the Rise: Defining Leaders of the Future

Keywords: Future skills; Leadership education; Future of work

Abstract: Advances in digitalization and globalization are drivers that bring new demands on leaders. It is expected that by 2022, the skills required to perform most jobs will have shifted significantly. Jobs that are predicted to grow the most appear to be those that need intensive use of soft and digital skills. Although the pandemic has increased the importance of this debate, only minor research has been conducted on how these changes are associated with requirements for the skill set needed by future leaders. The purpose of this paper is to identify future skills and how leadership education needs to evolve.