Business Leadership
Introduction
The world environment is ever changing and so is all the other aspects touching the organization. Leadership is one of the organizational aspects that keep on changing to match the changes in the business environment. The tactics used by the 20th-century leaders differ significantly with those used in the 21st century. Besides, the challenges facing leadership also change with the changes in the business environment implying that the challenges of the past are different from those in the current. As a result, this paper focuses on comparing and contrasting the 20th and 21st leader roles as well as analyzing the challenges facing leaders in the 21st century.
The changing business environment has led to significant differences between the 20th and 21st century leadership roles. For instance, the 20th century management and leadership were more focused on finite goals whose concern was on provision of goods and services with an aim of making profit from. This was not a great challenge to leaders and managers of the time since it was easy to meet the goals. However, the 21st-century management and leadership focus on working hard to ensure the attainment of infinite goals. These goals focus much on enhancing customer service. It is a challenging environment for the managers and leaders to foster customer satisfaction today since the needs of the customers keep on changing depending on the changes in the business world.
Additionally, the 20th-century managers and leaders could manipulate their customers and employees anyhow. The customers and employees did not have enough knowledge and skills to understand their rights. However, the changes in technology and legal framework have assisted them to enhance their knowledge and skills regarding their rights. The leaders have now moved from crushing employees’ talents and energies in the workplace to creating more space for the development of talents and energies. They now focus on promoting the rights of their customers and employees.
Furthermore, the 20th-century leadership allowed one-way movement of information that is from top down to the subordinates. This is to mean that the leadership was centralized at the top with the leaders taking the lion’s share of making decisions for the organization. After making the decisions, the leaders used to communicate such decisions to their employees for consumption and implementation. On the other hand, the changes that came in the 21st century compelled the leaders and managers to focus on two-way communication. In this leadership, both the leaders and the employees through their representatives take part in the decision-making process. The leaders then make the final decisions and communicate them to the subordinates who implement them as required. The subordinates further provide feedback to the leaders about the operations of the organization making leadership in the 21st century to be participatory.
George (2010) reveals that most of the 20th-century leaders were men and promoted their male counterparts in higher positions in the organization. This is to mean that the leadership of the time was male dominated discriminating the female from accessing such positions. However, the changes in regulatory framework observed in the 21st century have seen many women climb to the leadership roles. It has enhanced equality in leadership roles thus enhancing efficiency and satisfaction to both genders.
Finally, the leaders of the 20th century focused on enhancing individual employee productivity. They believed that each employee should focus on quality delivery services in the workplace to foster high productivity. It discouraged working in unison thus making it hard for the employees to share knowledge and ideas important to the success of the organization. On the other hand, the 21st-century leaders and managers are encouraging the use of teamwork in the workplace. Work teams have emerged enhancing effectiveness and efficiency of each employee thus promoting productivity in the organization (Domnic et al 2010).
Nature and the types of challenges
The 21st leadership offers the leaders with various challenges that affect their effectiveness and efficiency. Firstly, there is a big gap in skill levels between the leaders of the 21st century. It is clear that advancement in technology has led to skill shortage among the leaders and the managers. The business environment currently requires each leader and manager to have a better understanding of technology to foster effectiveness and efficiency in directing the other employees of the organizations (Brown, 2013). Although some of the managers and leaders can perform their duties efficiently in the constantly changing business environment, many of them are still in their conservatism nature of doing things. It is a great challenge to leaders because they must adopt these changes to survive in the market. Such changes will have a great influence on what they do in their daily life, and there is no choice other than adopting the changes in the future. This impels the leaders and managers to focus on evolving and developing their skills to match with the changes in the business environment.
Secondly, global competition is another great challenge facing the 21st-century leaders. Advancement in technology has changed the way organizations were competing. This is to mean that organization should foster adopting new technologies in their production, management and marketing to enhance competitiveness in the market. In the past, competition in the market was not very stiff because organizations were using traditional methods of management, production, and marketing their products and services. However, the 21st century requires the managers and leaders to focus on adopting modern technologies to cut edge in the market. The challenge faces to those leaders with conservatism or those opposed to change. Although venturing to new technologies is expensive for the managers and leaders, it remains the only way they can use to enhance competitiveness in the market. Failure to foster such changes in their organizations will influence their competitiveness in the market negatively (William et al, 2013).
Furthermore, customers have become more demanding than in the past, and it is a great challenge to the leaders in the 21st century. Change in the business environment has helped customers to understand their rights. As a result, customers have become more demanding for their tastes and preferences based on the changing environment. In the past, organizations could produce products for the customers without any trouble as it regards to quality, taste, and preferences since most customers were not knowledgeable. However, with the changing environment the customers have realized that it is important to consume those products that lead to their satisfaction. This is to mean that what the customers need today is not what they will need tomorrow. The change in their tastes is now subject to the changes in environment. This is a great challenge to the leaders since they have to conform to such demands to survive in the market (Shriberg, n.d).
Nonetheless, employees have become more knowledgeable and skilled thus posing a great challenge to the leaders. The employees today know their rights hence the leaders cannot undermine them as it happened before. This is a big challenge to the leaders who are never ready to honor the rights of their employees. Therefore, the leadership of today is compelling the leaders and managers to use democratic leadership style where the employees should have a say in the decision-making process of the organization. It is worth noting that those leaders and managers who are not ready to give their employees opportunity to air out their views are deemed to fail in their leadership.
Dinham & Jones (2010) reveals work-life balance is an emerging issue in leadership which is also posing a great challenge to the leaders. There is a great concern from all quarters of the organization requiring the managers to focus on ensuring that their employees have a balance between work and private life. This is to mean that the managers need to control the activities of the organization in such a way to offer their employees with enough time to relax. This is a great challenge to those managers who think that working for longer hours is vital in promoting productivity in the organization. It is clear that the employees know their rights to work for a specified time and have enough time as well. This is to mean that the managers have to adhere and give such rights to the employees irrespective of the increasing workloads and high deadlines to meet.
Ways for Managers to enhance competitiveness
The leaders need to focus on enhancing their knowledge and skills to match with what is required by the today’s business world. This is to mean that they should aspire to learn more and adopt the new technologies in their leadership as a way of promoting their effectiveness and efficiency in their leadership. The focus on their knowledge and skills will encourage them to respect the rights of their customers and employees thus providing a conducive environment for success.
Besides, it is important for the leaders to concentrate on continuous training of their employees to ensure that they meet the necessary skills required for production and quality service delivery. Also, the leaders need to use research and development as a tool for investigating the changing preferences of their customers. The research would help the leaders and managers understand what their customers want in different times thus able to respond to the same very fast. Such a move will play a great role in promoting their leadership and management skills thus encouraging organizational success in the future.
Conclusion
The paper clearly shows that as the business world is changing so is the organizational leadership. Managers and leaders have no choice rather than adopting the changes taking place in the business world. This is the only way they will be able to survive in their careers and professions. The most imminent issues emerging from the 21st-century business world are the challenges that are facing manager and leaders impacting their leadership roles. Some of the challenges identified in the paper include level skill gaps, demanding customers, work-life balance, skilled and knowledgeable employees and increased competition in the marketplace. These are the key challenges that leaders need to strive to overcome them in the future.
References
Brown, A. (2013). Leadership in the 21st century. Place of publication not identified: Allegna Publishing House.
Dinham, A., & Jones, S. H. (2010). Leadership challenges: Case studies. York: Religious Literacy Leadership in Higher Education Programme.
Dominic B, Andrew G, & Michelle, H,. (2012, June). Leading in the 21st century. McKinsey Quarterly. Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/leadership/leading- in-the-21st-century
George, B. (2010, April 30). The New 21st Century Leaders. Havard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-new-21st-century-leaders-1.html
Shriberg, M. (n.d.). Sustainability Leadership as 21st-Century Leadership. Environmental Leadership: A Reference Handbook, 469-478.
William A, Regina H., Sarah A., & Sophia Z., (2014). The Challenges Leaders Face Around the World More Similar than Different. Center for Creative Leadership. Retrieved from http://insights.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ChallengesLeadersFace.pdf
