Change: Turning movement into outcomes

This is where the preceding Cs lead us, because AI transformation ultimately comes down to the organization’s ability to change how work gets done. Leaders must be able to take people on that journey, while every individual has to strengthen their capacity to adapt, learn new skills, redefine what they contribute, and continually reinvent themselves.

The importance of IQ (intelligence quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient) remain essential. But legendary CIO Rob Carter makes the case that what will increasingly differentiate leaders and organizations going forward is AQ (adaptive quotient), the ability to adapt as the world around us changes.

Skills, jobs, operating models, and entire industries are being reinvented at extraordinary speed. As a result, adaptability is a prerequisite for relevance as a leader. AI’s value is unlocked when people adopt it, work changes, and decisions improve. Our ability to adapt determines how quickly and successfully we can make that happen.

Change creates new information, capabilities, and complexity, which means we have to find coherence all over again.

There’s one more C that belongs in this conversation, and it describes the environment the other seven operate in: compression. Technology cycles, strategy cycles, transformation cycles, and decision cycles are all compressing. The 7 Cs are how great leaders respond to this environment.

The compounding leadership flywheel

I see these new 7 Cs as a flywheel: Coherence creates clarity. Clarity enables communication. Communication creates the shared context for currency. Currency builds confidence. Confidence fuels courage. Courage enables change. Change creates new learning that requires a new level of coherence, and the flywheel turns again.

With every turn, those capabilities strengthen. The more we learn, the more confidently we can move. The more confidently we move, the more willing we become to act courageously. The more courageously we act, the more change we create. Every cycle produces learning that allows us to move through the next one faster and stronger. That’s compounding leadership.

My original 7 Cs described enduring attributes of great leaders, and I still believe deeply in every one of them. The new 7 Cs are an evolution of these fundamentals. They describe the mindsets and muscles great leaders need to continually strengthen when disruption isn’t an event but the reality we’re leading in.

We know the world around us will continue to change. The question is: Are our leadership muscles compounding fast enough to change with it?