Is it possible to have global leaders? Is it possible to generate leaders with global vision? Or are just leaders with an international projection? International projects managed by well-known leaders doesn´t mean global projects with a global leader. Is it here that we enter in the paradoxically complexity of being part of a global world but without clear guidelines for global leaderships.

To be a global leader supposes “jump” into an abysm of uncertainty on a constant changeable world. And this is just one of the new focus that leadership need to address.  Unlike past leaders, current and future leaders need to hold a global vision & global strategic focus. In the past, local leaders involved in a project of any kind achieved successful results without an international context. Nowadays, financial, economic and political impacts force to be more demanding and require old leaders to recycle themselves or/and generate new leaders with global values and projects based and measured through global standards. Real and efficient results on growth and development could only be achieved through the consistent work of joint individual efforts of leaders with a global mentality within a local performance.

In many of my articles I refer to the lack and need for a strong leadership at local and global level. But do we all agree on the meaning of leadership and the process to create leaders for a global society? Just to figure out the role of a leader on facing challenges on uncertainty such us financial shocks or migration crisis is enough to see that is very difficult to build a leader figure. Demanding individual and professional requirements let us pose the question: is it possible or is just an illusion?

The “defence on sovereignty” represents a milestone that must be revised and adapted according to present global demands. Common markets as the EU, need political leaderships able to unify national diversity and boost them into one-project-for-all. This is what constitutes the mission and not current political leaders too much focused on local interests, forgetting that a common market is also part of national interests and not an obstacle for their goals.

Indeed a global society also means dealing with competence, migration, financial shocks, commercial agreements, etc. It´s true that is troublesome but at the same time enriching. Only leaders with vision could see it, and only leaders that give up ideological aspects could move forward and take smarts decisions that shed “light” to the current dark stage of interconnected conflicts and crises.

What makes leaders with global vision? Education. Over all the factors, Education is determinate to build personalities able to shape national interests in a global context; and to achieve this goal a change in cultural values is needed.

Current standards of Educational systems are addressing these challenges by inserting environmental habits, modern technologies or cultural integration, as a way to approach students to the concept of modernity, but it´s too simple to pretend create leaders figures on this basis. Only a change on educational values could make the difference, using technologies as a tool for achieving these goals. An intercultural education is more than a lesson of tolerance and integration, but the creation of values and principles able to generate open-minded leaders.

Education is a key factor to create leaders and what´s more important to create voters with knowledge and perspective to see on their political leaders visionary ideas. Leaders that represent them ought to wield a vision that goes beyond local interests, with proposals able to handle with uncertainty and complexity.

Capacity of flexibility is one of the big failures of current political leadership style not able to change their patrons of behaviour, hence the minds of their citizens, submerged societies in ignorance and indifference.

Leaders aware and committed to a global strategy are those that lead to more responsible individual behaviors. Instead, the promotion of an exacerbated nationalism under a discourse based on a wrong interpretation of sovereignty, could only bring isolation and lack of perspective for a sustainable growth. Unfortunately this kind of approach succeeds on the short-term and is the basic for demagogic speeches with a strong lack of transparency and responsibility. The generation of euphoria is the last aspect that needs to be raised, but the balance and wide vision in a context of a global system. Current challenges: financial, climate change, economical, political, migration, cultural and ethics have an impact globally, with or without political will, there is not just about local consequences, but a global impact with serious problems on it´s measure.

The utopia of a global leadership could only become a reality if in-depth structural changes are done, particularly on Educational systems. Leaving room for the generation and recycling of current and future leaders through a strong institutional will for building corporate pillars that goes beyond local interests.