Leaders schooled in rational, left-brained thinking need to adapt to changing political, social and technological forces.

This requires not only the ability to drill down into details, but to look across the horizon and make right-brained connections, say Leadership experts Chris Lewis and Pippa Malmgren in The Leadership Lab: Understanding Leadership in the 21st Century.

Based on consultations and interviews with hundreds of global leaders from business and government, and highlighted with the authors' insights and thought leadership; the book holds that today's leaders need to develop 'situational fluency' with the technical, cultural, economic and geopolitical world in which they work.

Real leadership combines both logic and emotion, both short and long-term thinking.  There is a clear pattern to change and leaders can no longer lead by analyzing and trying to connect the dots separately.  They must learn to join them together.

"We can no longer analyze our way out of problems."

The Leadership Lab points out the dangers of over-reliance on analysis and extrapolation based on historic data.  It proposes a cyclical rather than linear model, which calls for less prediction of one outcome and greater preparation for many outcomes.  It highlights the importance of imagination to plan for contingencies and crises.