'New power' sits on Earth's edge: Column

We are facing a new global context. Evidence of it is everywhere: intractable unemployment in mature economies, unprecedented pollution and ecological damage in emerging markets, resurgent geopolitical tensions threatening peace and security, and the erosion of trust in the ability of our public and private institutions to resolve global issues. These are deep and structural challenges that will stay with us for some time.

While the challenges may be obvious, how to resolve them is less clear. In the past you would have looked in the boardrooms or parliaments of the world for solutions. But you will not necessarily find them there. Nor will you find them in the streets of our cities. Instead, solutions can be found in the minds of a new generation of leaders who have realized that the nature of leadership and power are changing.

I recently attended a presentation by a major publishing company seeking to collaborate with us to reach young leaders. I was shown an archetypal, grey-haired, serious-looking CEO with the caption: "We know how to talk to this guy." Next to it was a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur in more informal attire with the caption: "But we don't yet know how to reach the next generation of leaders." As the presenter looked to me for affirmation, I could not help but reply: "Of course not — because she is from Africa, not Silicon Valley." They had completely missed the point. The future of leadership looks very different from those holding power today.

The new power is more diverse, more female, more southern and more eastern. It has shifted from the center to the edges. Social media has strengthened the ability for diverse voices to be heard and to have impact. And the speed with which change moves from the edge to the center, wherever that may be, is ever-increasing. As one of our Young Global Leaders, Jeremy Heimans, and his colleague Henry Timms,recently wrote in theHarvard Business Review:

"Old power works like a currency. It is held by few. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible and leader-driven. It downloads and it captures. New power operates differently, like a current. It is made by many. It is open, participatory and peer-driven. It uploads and it distributes. Like water or electricity, it's most forceful when it surges. The goal with new power is not to hoard it but to channel it."

The blindness to the changing character of leadership and power should not be surprising. Periods of seismic change are always characterized by volatility and uncertainty: the future has not yet emerged but the past is clearly losing relevance, strength and power.

In my work with the Forum's New Champions Communities, I see a generation rising to the challenges of the new global context that clearly recognizes this shift in power and, with passionate intensity, they are disrupting their organizations before the tide of change washes them away.

According to our recent survey of Global Shapers (our community of leaders under 30 that now stretches across 400 cities around the world, from Shanghai to Makhachkala and everywhere in between) the issue of social and economic inequality is seen as the most important challenge for their generation to solve. While current leaders might think about reforming education or government initiatives, the more than 4,500 members of this community use new power entrepreneurial collaboration to achieve momentum quickly and prove impact.

A great example of this is the Re-Generation project of the Athens Global Shapers Hub. Recent graduates are given a six-month paid internship, offered 100 hours of leadership training and are required to do 50 hours of community service

With involvement from the Forum's Strategic Partners and Greek businesses, the project has already secured 56 positions at 21 hiring companies

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Climate change and economic sustainability ranked second and fourth respectively in the poll as the most important global challenges. An excellent answer to both comes from the Port-Au-Prince Hub in Haiti, where Shapers are planting medicinal plants and fruit trees at scale on 1,500 hectares over five years in order to provide nutrition to school cafeterias and food for export. In addition to mitigating environmental damage and developing the agricultural sector, the project educates and engages young Haitians in developing their personal health, a healthy natural environment and a vibrant economy.

As leaders gather in Davos-Klosters, the sessions I am most anxious to see are the ones that connect to the edge, to new context leaders around the world. Our Shaping Davos series of live events will virtually connect 40 cities around the world with this year's annual meeting in Switzerland. In doing this we hope to start a conversation that gives the new power voices the influence on global issues that they deserve.

David Aikman is managing director at the World Economic Forum and head of its New Champions Communities.

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