This book explores the multifaceted challenges facing business leaders in the third decade of the 21st century, as they navigate an increasingly complex, volatile, and interconnected global environment. It begins by situating leadership transformation within the broader context of megatrends such as demographic shifts, technological acceleration, geopolitical turbulence, and the growing imperative of sustainable development. Against this backdrop, traditional leadership models, particularly those rooted in autocratic, transactional logic, are shown to be insufficient in addressing the motivational and ethical expectations of younger generational cohorts and knowledge workers.
This monograph presents a typology of emerging leadership imperatives, including intergenerational management, inclusive leadership, strategic communication, brand construction, and internal meaning-making in the context of Industry 5.0. It emphasizes the strategic significance of business model innovation, scenario-based foresight, and ethical resilience in responding to global disruptions such as war, sanctions, or systemic crises.
Through conceptual analysis and case-based reflections, the book identifies key leadership competences, ranging from communicative agility to paradox management, that are essential for guiding organizations towards long-term competitiveness and legitimacy. Ultimately, it calls for a redefinition of leadership as a value-driven, relational, and anticipatory practice capable of sustaining performance and trust in an era of systemic transformation and sustainable economy.
I. Facing the New Leadership Imperatives: Introduction to Sustainability, Skills, and Inclusivity in Industry 5.0 II. Challenges for business leaders 1. Extreme Leadership Models and Organisational Effectiveness: The Machiavellian and Loyola Models 2. External Experts as Instant Leaders 3. The role of generational diversity in shaping motivational drivers within the corporate workforce. Insights from Kuehne + Nagel 4. Female Business Leadership and Sustainability. The case of Womenomics in Japan 5. Inclusive Leadership: Integrating Gender Diversity for Organizational Success 6. The Leader’s Brand and Its Organizational Influence in the Social Media Era 7. Preparing Leaders for the Future: Strategic Foresight in Leadership Coaching 8. Leadership in the digitalized era – the challenges of business model innovation and overcoming strategies 9. How Sustainable Conduct and Companies’ Moral Values Shape Companies’ Reactions to War and Sanctions? III. Leaders' skills 10. Leader 5.0 and the engineering of strategic communication: linguistic design and influence among Gold-Collar professionals 11. Leading through the Technological Revolution 5.0: An overview of emerging trends and practical managerial implications 12. The Relational Effectiveness Model of the Leader’s Brand IV. Entrepreneurial leadership 13. Leadership for sustainable transition. The case of Tony's Chocolonely – a game changer in chocolate industry 14. The Role of International Corporations in the Sustainable Transformation of the Global Economy V. Anticipating 2035: The Future Trajectory of Leadership in a Changing World
Rafał Śliwiński is Associate Professor in the Department of International Management at the Institute of World Economy, Poznań University of Business and Economics, Poland. His academic work focuses on strategic management, competitiveness, leadership, and international business, with particular emphasis on organizational adaptation in the face of geopolitical, technological, environmental, and demographic transformations. He has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics such as international competitiveness, fast-growing firms, leadership, and new business models. He serves as a reviewer for several international academic journals and is actively involved in interdisciplinary research projects addressing the challenges of digital transformation and inclusive leadership in the global economy.
