What will the ideal leader of a global company be like in the new century? He or she may need to have 14 heads functioning all at once.

This is no exaggeration. Today's business leaders envision that the ideal leader in five to 10 years will be someone who has 14 leadership dimensions, according to a survey of 75 leaders by Andersen Consulting, Chicago.

When respondents were asked to rate the importance of these characteristics over time, all 14 qualities, which were rated as "unimportant" or "somewhat important" in the past, converge around the "very important" mark in the future. This suggests that future leaders must excel in all of the characteristics and to a higher standard than at present.

Because the results reflect an ideal, rather than a realistic assessment of what will be found, one might conclude that there will be few "superleaders" who possess all 14 characteristics. If that is the case, the respondents said, the alternative is not someone with top scores in a few qualities, but rather a team-based approach to leadership.

Alastair Robertson, an Andersen Consulting partner and coauthor with Cathy Walt of the survey report, The Evolving Role of Executive Leadership, says the need for shared or team-based leadership will continue to grow. "Central to the success of this sharing process will be the ability of CEOs to hire a team unlike themselves," he says.