Future Orientation

"Future orientation" is “the degree to which a collectivity encourages and rewards future-oriented behaviors such as planning and delaying gratification”.  Here are some of the characteristics of societies that have high and low future orientation:

HIGH FUTURE ORIENTATION societies have characteristics such as:	LOW FUTURE ORIENTATION societies have characteristics such as:
Propensity to save now for the future. Emphasize working for long-term success. Organizations tend to be flexible and adaptive. View material success and spiritual fulfillment as an integrated whole.	Propensity to spend now, rather than save. Prefer gratification as soon as possible. Organizations tend to be inflexible and maladaptive. View material success and spiritual fulfillment as separate, requiring trade-offs.

1. VALUES AND PRACTICESAccounting for all 61 societies, the average score for future orientation practices (“as is”) was 3.85 on the 1-to-7 scale, while the average for future orientation values (“should be”) was a much higher 5.49.
2. APPLICATION TO LEADERSHIP A high value placed on future orientation was not strongly associated with any global leadership dimension (CLT).

NOTE: Societies that highly value FUTURE ORIENTATION do not strongly associate it with any global leader behavior (CLT).