The first quarter of the 21st century has shown us that leadership, as we know it, has not been effective at tackling the changes faced by our planet, or at keeping up with the unparalleled advances in science, technology, and society observed in the last 20 years. To be a leader today requires skill, but not the skill that calls for rigid and disconnected organizations which pay more attention to the leader than to leadership itself. This article suggests adaptive and responsible leadership as the leadership styles needed in our current context. As part of an adaptive and responsible leadership, humility, vulnerability, openness, initiative, integrity, creativity, optimism, excellence, and strength in kindness are the personal traits needed to succeed as a leader in the second half of the 21st century. Leadership today requires forcing ourselves to think seriously about our deepest assumptions and most strongly held values. It requires the courage to examine the principles and beliefs that have limited us in the past and to move forward with a frame of mind fit for the second half of the 21st century