What Next-Level Skills Will Leaders Need by 2030?

• According to interviews involving 20 global companies, future leaders will need to combine analytical rigor with creative problem-solving if they are to be effective in complex, evolving contexts.
• Interviewees emphasized that, by 2030, employers will expect leaders to possess both deep and broad expertise, adopt entrepreneurial thinking, and apply cultural intelligence to ambiguous global challenges.
• Future leaders will need to demonstrate digital fluency and human-centered capacities such as adaptability, empathy, resilience, self-awareness, and compassion.

 
The business world is changing faster than business schools can develop curricula. This pace of change presents a singular challenge: How can business schools equip students with the skills and mindsets they’ll need, all while technological, geopolitical, and cultural shifts redefine what it takes to succeed as a leader?

Recently, CEMS—The Global Alliance in Management Education, whose membership comprises 70 companies and 33 business schools, interviewed 20 of its corporate partners. Through this qualitative research, we identified five “next-level” competencies that our partners predict will be essential for leaders to have in 2030 and beyond.

Their insights are outlined below, along with examples of how schools in the CEMS Alliance are incorporating the development of these skills into their curricula.

1. Analytical Rigor Combined With Creative Application

Our corporate partners emphasized that while technical expertise and strong knowledge of business fundamentals will remain vital for future business leaders, those skills alone will not be enough. In other words, the ability to work with large volumes of data will remain indispensable, but it will not be data analysis skills that differentiate tomorrow’s leaders. What truly matters is how creatively leaders can apply the insights their analyses reveal.

As one interviewee put it, “Let's say you have the best horsepower ever. You’re a super professional, you’ve got great practical skills, and you have great vision. That’s fantastic, but where you differentiate is how you use all that.” The marks of successful leaders, the interviewee continued, will be their ability to understand the implications of data, facilitate change, drive impact, and relate well to and influence others. 

The marks of successful leaders will be their ability to understand the implications of data, facilitate change, drive impact, and relate well to and influence others.

“The most successful people,” the interviewee noted, “will be the ones who are able to apply all this and adopt their own approach based on the needs and the context that surround them.”

Business educators can cultivate this skill set by creating assignments that go beyond number-crunching to require innovative applications of data. For example, students enrolled in the Marketing Analytics course at the London School of Economics (LSE) explore analytical techniques such as A/B testing, discrete choice modeling, and sentiment analysis to tackle decisions on pricing, distribution, and product launches. In addition to using analytical results to reach accurate conclusions, they are encouraged to apply their insights to inform strategic and creative choices in dynamic, uncertain circumstances.

2. An Entrepreneurial Mindset

Interviewees told us that companies need leaders who can embrace ambiguity, question norms, and create new pathways. Entrepreneurial leadership, they emphasized, is about cultivating agility, demonstrating resourcefulness, and possessing the confidence to act without a clear roadmap.

Universities can develop this mindset by putting students into situations where they must navigate uncertainty and draw inspiration from other entrepreneurs. For instance, Business Development and Doing Business in Africa, a weeklong seminar at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, pushes students to understand how politics and economics shape opportunities across the continent.

The seminar includes field experiences in local communities and case studies from Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya. It also features a visit to Philippi, a historically excluded area of Cape Town, where students can engage with local entrepreneurs running microenterprises and small businesses.

3. Cultural Intelligence

The practitioners we surveyed cited cultural intelligence (CQ) as foundational to effective future leadership. This skill, required to build consensus among disparate groups, has become increasingly important as the world grows more fragmented and polarized.

Defined as the ability to understand different perspectives, work inclusively, and adapt to unfamiliar environments, CQ is not a skill that can be taught from a textbook. Its development requires immersive experiences and guided reflection, which are at the heart of curricula at CEMS-member institutions.

For instance, students in the Global Leadership course at the Vienna University of Economics and Business spend time in microcultures such as the Roma community, a group that now comprises Europe’s largest ethnic minority; they also interact with the Sinti, a subgroup of the Romani culture. The goal is to encourage students to reflect on their own assumptions, develop empathy, and practice perspective-taking.

Similarly, at the Onsi Sawiris School of Business at the American University in Cairo, students not only take a CQ test, but also blend theory with practice. They participate in a Tribal Leadership Project in Dandara, a village in Upper Egypt that is located on the west bank of the Nile River. There, students meet local leaders to learn about their leadership strategies, sustainability efforts, and unique education system.

4. Depth and Breadth of Knowledge

According to those surveyed, developing a broad understanding of management principles will no longer be sufficient preparation on its own, and neither will the cultivation of narrow technical expertise. Instead, successful future business leaders will possess both deep, specialized knowledge in specific fields and integrative vision—the ability to connect that knowledge to strategy, ethics, and societal context.

As one corporate partner said, “Students need to learn hard skills and acquire practical experience.”

Successful future business leaders will possess both deep, specialized knowledge in specific fields and the ability to connect that knowledge to strategy, ethics, and societal context.

Business schools can encourage this dual focus by designing courses that incorporate specialized domains into general management challenges. The University of St. Gallen in Switzerland adopts such an approach in a module that places humanitarian principles in the corporate context. The module is designed to teach students to consider how global issues such as climate change and migration intersect with business operations.

Similarly, an elective on the global game industry at Korea University Business School in Seoul examines strategy, distribution, and ethics. A course objective is to help students develop sector-specific knowledge as they view that knowledge through a broad management lens.

5. Digital Fluency

This competency encompasses the understanding of data analysis and the implications and intricacies of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) within the domain of international management.

“Each and every company from any sector will have its own microsoftware house in its core in the next decade,” one interviewee commented. As a result, the interviewee continues, companies will be “on a quest” for employees whose academic backgrounds combine the skills of international managers, industrial engineers, and software programmers.

Universities can respond to this development by offering a range of programs that familiarize students with programming languages and new technological tools. For example, students at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, can take an elective in Python programming for data analysis that ensures they can manipulate large data sets and understand the basics of algorithm design.

Managing Artificial Intelligence, a course at LSE, goes further, challenging students to think critically about the ethical, political, and social consequences of AI. The course asks students to consider profound questions such as “How can we manage AI while maintaining our humanity?” These examples show how schools can prepare graduates not just to use digital tools but to lead responsibly in a technology-driven world.

Human-Centered Leadership Is Key

Apart from the five competencies outlined above, our corporate partners highlighted other skill sets that they think will be relevant. These include deeply human skills: the resilience and adaptability required to weather uncertainty and the emotional intelligence and humility necessary to build trust.

Individuals will also need to embrace values-driven leadership to balance profit with responsibility, as well as a commitment to well-being and sustainability to support both their teams and the planet. One interviewee emphasized that “self-awareness and self-reflection” will be key success factors in the years to come.

For educators, this means that leadership development cannot be confined to case studies or classroom simulations. It should be woven into the student experience through coaching, feedback, wellness initiatives, and reflective practice, so that graduates leave their programs with not only sharper minds but also stronger empathy and purpose.

Leadership development should be woven into the student experience so that graduates leave their programs with not only sharper minds but also stronger empathy and purpose.

Many CEMS schools are already taking steps to build purpose and self-awareness into their programs. At Western University’s Ivey Business School in London, Ontario, Canada, for example, students can participate in a session on Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Leadership in a World of Uncertainty. This session takes a research-based approach that helps future leaders develop inner resources to manage the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity that define today’s business environment. Through practical exercises and mental techniques, students learn how to regulate themselves, sustain resilience, and lead with compassion under pressure.

Lessons From Employers

To prepare young professionals for this future, leadership development must evolve. Executive education and talent programs must do more to accelerate the cultivation of the competencies highlighted above.

We see progressive models already emerging among CEMS corporate partners. At Lufthansa Group, leadership is grounded in ambition, responsibility, and empathy. “Ambition means agility and readiness to create impact,” said Jonathan von Gutzeit, the company’s senior director of talent attraction and employee experience. “Responsibility fosters a culture of empowerment, and empathy enables collaboration and inclusion. These traits guide how we develop leaders from the ground up.”

BNP Paribas values flexibility, global perspective, and a collective mindset in its future leaders. “We look for graduates who can ‘connect the dots’ and thrive in cross-functional teams,” explained Nicolas Barbier, head of company engagement at BNP Paribas Portugal. “Success today comes from co-creation, adaptability, and the ability to apply data and technology within diverse, dynamic settings.”

As these survey respondents noted, organizations will need leaders who drive results while they uplift others and contribute meaningfully to society. Businesses are looking for next-level leaders who have not only sharp minds but also bold vision, inclusive mindsets, and the courage to lead responsibly.

With that in mind, CEMS partners are working to adopt strategies that develop the whole leader. As we move toward 2030, the demand for leaders who can bridge the gap between innovation and humanity will only intensify. Organizations will look to business schools to train such leaders by fostering these essential, future-ready skills.