By Dan Cardinali

President and CEO, Independent Sector

I am thinking a lot about Next Gen leaders. As I embark on my time at IS, here’s the question I am considering: are we sufficiently creating authentic spaces for Next Gen leaders to have a voice, to be real interlocutors, as this community grows and changes?

How intentional are we in sharing power with Next Gen leaders, in ways beyond mentoring them or guiding them – to allow them to lead and make decisions?

Our sector at this moment needs to adapt to a set of dynamics that are building momentum in terms of their collective impact on our democracy, the technology we use, the information we act upon. People in geographically disparate places come together to create change. The world’s geopolitical power base is shifting. Our economy is transforming before our very eyes as employment in knowledge-based fields overtakes the manufacturing sector. And so our sector and we ourselves are finding it hard to understand these forces, much less adjust.

Many of us grew up in a world where our sector operated very differently – and increasingly there is a gap between the old world and the new. Next Gen leaders – like digital natives who started in a different place in terms of technology and social networking – have the skills to lead in this new world. They require real opportunities, not the illusion of shared power, if we are to capture the essence of what they have to offer and support their vision and goals.

So as we look to the future, IS will explore ways to unleash Next Gen leadership. It will be exciting to see the results.

You’re invited to start exploring such ways to unleash Next Gen leadership at the NGen Experience of the 2016 Independent Sector Conference.