Professor Klaus Schwab - Founder of World Economic Forum 

Professor Klaus Schwab coined the phrase "Fourth Industrial Revolution" in his book by the same name.  Such is the weight of his credentials and influence, when he speaks the good and the great listen. His book articulates what many of us recognise, that we are living at a unique time in human history and we are on the cusp of changes, largely but not exclusively, driven by exponential advances in technology, that is likely to change pretty much everything.  Pioneering Leadership is the driving force behind these changes and advances. I talked about these exponential changes in my book "Feel Good Change the World". The bottom line is that Pioneering Leadership has never been more important to the world, it is now centre stage promising more dramatic things that most of us can imagine. In Professor Schwab's own words:

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.

The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.

There are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution but rather the arrival of a Fourth and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. The speed of current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.”

What is interesting is that he also says:

“My concern, however, is that decision-makers are too often caught in traditional, linear (and non-disruptive) thinking or too absorbed by immediate concerns to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future”.

The Pioneering Leadership in Uncharted Framework™ offers just the non-linear and disruptive thinking and new skills needed at this time. 

Harness Unlimited Possibility, Potential and Opportunity

Pioneering leadership involves positioning yourself at the leading edge, beyond the mainstream and best practice, and embracing the immense potential inherent in being first, new, different and better.

Six Principal Benefits of Pioneering Leadership

Pioneering Leadership can be used by anyone to help them to achieve better results, outcomes and achievements in their:

1. Lives
2. Careers
3. Businesses and Organisations
4. And in the wider world e.g. in communities, countries, positively impacting the whole of humanity, all life on earth and everything else too.

It can be used to help yourself and others.

It can result in achieving:

1. Better Lives
2. Better Careers
3. Better Businesses and Organisations and
4. A Better World

In Particular, it can help you to:

1. Make the seemingly possible possible
2. Solve difficult problems in unique ways.
3. Create and exploit exciting opportunities
4. Compete against tough competition and win
5. Achieve extraordinary things
6. Drive Progress and Move the Human Race Forward

The Pioneering Leadership Journey In A Nutshell

If you take anything that you are trying to accomplish, the chances are that other people will have accomplished the same or similar things. Whilst there will be differences between the different ways that people accomplish things, there will be similarities. If you were to take all the people who have accomplished those same or similar things, the majority, the mainstream, will be in the middle, the best will be at the front using “best practice”, and those doing a really poor job will be at the back doing worst practice.

The leading edge is the front edge of best practice, the best of the best today. Pioneering takes place beyond both mainstream and best practice.

The Pioneering Leadership Journey is the journey from where you are now, to where you want to be. It is about both the quality of the outcome and the means by which the outcome is best achieved.

Unlike traditional approaches, the pioneering leadership journey takes place in uncharted waters, beyond mainstream and best practice and involves being first, new, different and better.

1. Private Individuals
2. Business Professionals
3. Organisational Leaders
4. Sports People
5. World Leaders, Country Leaders and Politicians

Pioneering leadership isn’t something that most people think about. Ask different people what they think it is, and they will most likely give you different definitions. Ask them whether they think it is something that’s important or relevant to them, most will say no to both.

If most people are not thinking about pioneering leadership and don’t think it is relevant or important for them, even fewer thinking to themselves how can I create a better future, we typically don’t think in those terms.

If, however, I was to ask you what was important to you, you’d most likely be able to tell me; you’d be able to tell me what you are trying to achieve, what problems you had that you are trying to overcome, and if pushed you’d be able to tell me what hopes and dreams you have for the future. Those hopes and dreams, problems and challenges or even opportunities might relate to your life in general, your work and career, organisations or communities you are involved with, or even broader things relating to your country or even issues in the wider world. They might also relate to others, your family, friends, people in your organisation or community, in your country, even fellow human beings elsewhere in the world, who you don’t know personally.

Pioneering Leadership in Uncharted Waters is something created by me (Jonathan Blain) that should be both highly important and relevant to you, if you care about the outcomes you wish to achieve for yourself, others, organisations, communities, countries or the wider world, including the whole of humanity, all life and things in the world. It doesn’t matter who you are, what the issues you are facing or the outcomes you desire, Pioneering Leadership in Uncharted Waters is a philosophy and strategy that you can use to get better results and outcomes, which create a better future for you than you would achieve if you approached what you are doing in the normal way.

If you take any goal, problem or opportunity that you are facing or desire, there will be others who either are right now or have in the past faced the same or similar situation. Amongst all those, there will be some who have discovered the best way of getting the best outcomes. In the business world, the way those outcomes are achieved is described as “Best Practice”. When we learn anything, we typically want to learn best practice, not average practice or worst practice. There will be some people are at the leading edge using best practice and behind them will be the mainstream and behind them will be the laggards, the people doing things in the worst way. Pioneering Leadership is about starting at the leading edge and moving into the metaphoric space in front of best practice and mainstream in what I have termed “Uncharted Waters”.

The objective of Pioneering Leadership is to create better outcomes and / or to create those outcomes in a better way; either way creating a better future. This is achieved by one of four different strategies:

1. Being First

And by doing what is:

2. New
3. Different
4. Better

When you think of pioneering leadership, you tend to think of it in relation to a traditional definition and interpretation of leadership e.g. leading other people to the achievement of goals. Pioneering Leadership transcends these definitions and includes leading yourself and well as perhaps leading others. When you first think about leading, you might think about leading people, but there is another type of leading, which is about being in front of others e.g. you might be leading a running race, be a leader in any type of competition, leading in performance e.g. the highest achieving salesman in a company, a company that is leading their industry, a doctor who is leading in cancer treatment, a teacher who teaches so well that your pupils get better results than other teachers etc. I am sure you get the gist and can apply it to yourself, your life, your work perhaps or your situations.

When you are trying to accomplish anything, it is easy to think that the only thing that matters is the expertise needed in that thing, for example, a doctor trying to find a cure for cancer, might think that it is only the science that matters. The truth is that there are generic factors that have an impact on the result. Often, we don’t think about these things, they are often unseen, unrecognised and intangible, but just because you aren’t immediately aware of them doesn’t mean that they are not there and don’t exist. Just because we can’t see radio waves around us, doesn’t mean they are not there.

A good example of these generic things can be seen in the late Stephen Covey’s highly successful book: “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, which sold over 10 million copies. He came up with seven habits that were applicable to everyone, regardless of who you are or what you are trying to accomplish. These seven habits were:

1. Be proactive.
2. Begin with the end in mind.
3. Put first things first.
4. Think win/win.
5. Seek first to understand then be understood.
6. Synergise.
7. Sharpen the saw.

Pioneering Leadership is similar, in being a generic philosophy and strategy, that applies to anyone trying to accomplish anything. Pioneering Leadership is often seen as something that is practised only by natural pioneers and game changers. Most people practising it, don’t even think they are practising it, they don’t use the name, they just do what feels natural to them. Academic research has shown that game changers represent a small percentage of the population, they are the innovators, with a fountain of creativity and imagination and the drive and obsession that gives them the resolve and determination to bring their ideas to reality and change the game.

I am not suggesting you can be one of these types of people if you aren’t one naturally, but what I am suggesting is that rather than pioneering leadership being something that just natural pioneering leaders do, it can also be a strategy and a philosophy that anyone can use to create a better future, in particular, to achieve the five following things:

1. Make the seemingly impossible, possible.
2. Solve difficult problems in unique ways.
3. Create and exploit exciting opportunities.
4. Compete against tough competition and win.
5. Achieve extraordinary things.
6. Drive progress and move the Human Race forward.

It can be applied to your life, your career, your business or organisation, local, national or international issues and to big global challenges.

Never in human history has there been a greater need for new ideas, new thinking and new solutions than right now.  Pioneering Leadership is the answer and the solution, not just new ideas, new thinking and new solutions, but action that leads to results that are beyond the mainstream and best practice, at the leading edge, where the extraordinary becomes possible for those to dare to be first, new, different and better.

You might have heard of the mantra in the business world, “innovate or die”, but the reality is that we are living a world of exponential change, where change is happening all the time in virtually every area of human endeavour and enterprise. What matters most is where you are on the change curve, are you ahead of the change or behind the change or are you the one leading the change towards a better future? There is a cause and effect impact in play in the changing world. Pioneering Leadership is all about being in uncharted waters, beyond the mainstream and best practice creating better ways. It can be a frightening as well as an exciting place to be, it takes courage to practice pioneering leadership in uncharted waters, but the prize can be extraordinary. There is a balance between risk and reward, and the outcomes of pioneering leadership are uncertain, which is why it requires courage as well as skill. The adage “nothing ventured nothing gained” is true of pioneering leadership. Rather than pioneering leadership being binary e.g. something that you do for everything or something you don’t, you can see pioneering leadership as a strategy to use in your toolkit, where it is the best tool for the job. Normally Pioneering Leadership is good when you’ve got a difficult problem, perhaps when what you are doing isn’t working on one extreme, or perhaps when you don’t have a problem but you want to achieve something extraordinary rather than ordinary, or where you want to compete against tough competition and win, or where you want to create and exploit exciting opportunities or simply when you want to achieve truly extraordinary things.

Are you interested?