BUSINESS leaders will need a new set of skills to succeed in a world undergoing profound economic, political and social transformation. Sir Richard Lambert, former director-general of the CBI and now chancellor of Warwick University, said business schools had to question whether they were best equipped to deliver them.

Sir Richard, a former editor of the Financial Times, was giving a lecture to deans of business schools from around the world who gathered at Nottingham Trent University for their annual conference.

He asked them: "Are business schools as they are currently structured, and teaching programmes as they are currently designed, best equipped to deliver them?

"My guess is that quite a lot of schools still have much to do to keep up with the game in this fast-changing world."

Sir Richard identified four qualities he thought would be demanded of future business leaders:

The ability to manage diversity

The capacity to deal with uncertainty

A proper understanding of the role and workings of Government

A developed understanding of the role, responsibilities and purpose of business itself

During the 1990s, just 12 countries generated growth in incomes per head at a pace faster than the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation average. The number had now risen to 83.

"That means economies which come from a low base are catching up with the living standards of the West, and so experiencing turbo-charged growth.

"This is the era of the great convergence – a time when countries that have hitherto been of no economic interest even to their neighbours suddenly emerge almost from nowhere as major new market places.

"This has profound implications for global business. So do the massive demographic changes that are already under way around the world."

By 2050, there would be almost as many people in Nigeria as in the US, while Ethiopia would have twice as many as the UK or Germany.

Meanwhile, the working population of Russia and Japan could fall by a third.

Sir Richard said the opportunities for business would not be evenly dispersed.

"Successful leaders of the future will need judgement, imagination and the capacity to work in unfamiliar surroundings if they are to make the most of these extraordinary shifts in the global power balances.

"Pakistan is an example of a very poor country facing explosive population growth in the next few decades – it could be the sixth-largest in the world by 2050.

"But will its fragile political and judicial systems limit its scope for economic catch-up over that period?"

In contrast, Sir Richard pointed to the Philippines, which, with a rising population, could be the 16th-largest economy in the world by 2050.

As a consequence, there would be great shifts in economic power and many more important centres of decision-making. This was why the Government was opening six new embassies this year, said Sir Richard.

The second quality was the ability to deal with uncertainty. "Today's economic uncertainties are on a scale not seen since the Second World War," he said.

The chances of a disorderly breakdown in the Eurozone were small but not negligible

"But the consequences of such an event would be catastrophic. The euro and the dollar together are the essential lubricants of global trade and finance, accounting for nearly two-thirds of trading in foreign exchange markets worldwide."

"That's one reason why the result of a euro collapse would be all but unimaginable.

"The other is the potential impact on the global banking system, at a time when the balance sheets of the world's big banks are so closely intertwined."

The UK banks may not be exposed directly to the Greek banking system, said Sir Richard, but they were heavily exposed to those in France and Germany, which were.

The uncertainty explained why companies in the developed world were building up vast cash mountains rather than investing their money in new products and services.

Since the credit crunch started in 2007, US non-financial companies increased the share of their assets held in cash by 50 per cent to around $1.7 trillion. Apple alone had almost $100 billion in the bank – enough to buy Dell three times over, he said.

Tomorrow's business leaders required a proper understanding of the role and workings of Government.

In the UK, politicians were talking about "responsible capitalism" while the biggest oil and gas firms by reserves were all state owned.

"As we see this form of enterprise advance, we also see a corresponding loss of confidence in the Anglo-American economic model."

His fourth quality was to develop understanding of the role, responsibilities and purposes of business itself.

Business schools should be debating and leading the discussion, he said.

Business leaders did not know how to handle the politics of a much more uncertain world. Sir Richard added: "They need guidance. They need big new ideas and fresh thinking about their role and responsibilities.

"That, above everything else, is what business schools should be seeking to develop and promulgate today."