Peter Drucker, among others, has said, “You cannot predict the future, but you can create it.”

No one can accurately predict the future because it is unknown. No one can change the past because it is set. But how a leader lives in the present is impacted by the past and directed toward the future.

Lead From the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth, by Mark W. Johnson and Josh Suskewicz, is a textbook on learning from the past, moving toward the future, and being intentional in the present.

Every leader wants to experience breakthrough growth, but it is rarely quick. Leading from the future can help guide the process.

The book seems contextualized for leaders of large businesses. Some of the content is not quite applicable to my own leadership role as a youth pastor, but there are principles from the book that can readily apply to any context.

Johnson and Suskewicz write about the rapidly shifting world and the potential for disruption in whatever line of business or leadership a leader may occupy: “…the pull of the present prevents [leaders] from really engaging with the future.”

The pull of the present is real and, while much needs to be done on any given day, if we as leaders neglect the future for too long, we will eventually be there without a plan and no idea how we got there.

This book is not a theoretical, inaccessible concept of the future. The authors put flesh on the bones of how to lead from the future and how it changes life now.

We look to the past with clarity. We often look to the future with uncertainty. We ought to live in the present with conviction. This book guides leaders on planning for the future and reducing uncertainty and anxiety about it.