The Aspiring Leader's Guide to the Future: 9 Surprising Ways Leadership Is Changing

You may not hold a position of leadership or think of yourself as a leader. But if you want to create, change, or impact the world around you—even in a modest way—then you're guided by a leader's impulse and shaped by a leader's principles.

You are an aspiring leader.

But the fact is that you've come to this role at a time when leadership—like everything else—is rapidly changing...and too many leaders are addressing the problems of today and tomorrow with the style and substance of yesterday's leadership. We need an update.

In The Aspiring Leader's Guide to the Future, Clay Scroggins (author of How to Lead When You're Not in Charge) explores nine new principles of leadership that will help leaders adapt to a changing world and work culture, such as:

• Today's leaders lean into vulnerability.
• Today's leaders develop relationships primarily around trust.
• Today's leaders celebrate the successes of others.

These may seem like counter-intuitive principles, but they provide a new way forward for leaders and teams and will prove versatile in the event of change and durable in the face of conflict. With humor and a pastor's candor, Clay will show you why the old ways need updating and what developing new leadership skills could look like for your future.

To be clear, the author does not know the future. If he did, he would have used his talents on sports betting or stock trading. What he does know is that yesterday's leadership axioms are today's myths and what that means. The way forward requires an understanding of the past, a conviction of what's at stake today, and a vision for how different tomorrow will be.

You don't have to be a young entrepreneur with big dreams or someone looking to land a leadership role just to be considered an aspiring leader. You are one now. And by developing your skills for the future, you can become today's version of a leader worth following.

About the Author

Clay Scroggins is the lead pastor of North Point Community Church, providing visionary and directional leadership for all of the local church staff and congregation. As the original and largest campus of North Point Ministries, ranked by Outreach Magazine in 2014 as the Largest Church in America, NPCC averages over 12,000 people in attendance. Clay works for Andy Stanley, one of the greatest leaders on the planet, and understands firsthand how to manage the tension of leading when you’re not in charge.

Starting out as a facilities intern (a.k.a. Vice-President of Nothing), he has worked his way through many organizational levels of North Point Ministries and knows all too well the challenge of authority deprivation. Clay holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech as well as a Master’s degree and doctorate with an emphasis in Online Church from Dallas Theological Seminary. He lives in Forsyth County, Georgia, with his wife, Jenny, and their four children.