21st Century Skills and Competencies

What does leadership mean today? The 21st Century environment presents totally different challenges and needs from the previous centuries with regards to leadership. Studies have shown that emotional and social intelligence are two big areas that pertain to 21st century leadership, as they relate to how well leaders can effectively establish positive relationships with followers (Boyatzis, 2008; Den, Deanne, Belschak, 2012; Higgs, 2013; Schyns, Schilling, 2013). There are, nonetheless, many styles and theories of leadership that are discussed by both professionals and researchers today. These styles and theories range from servant leadership to authoritarian leadership. Yet as Higgs (2013) shows, in the 21st century, a "sense making" paradigm is needed in order for an appropriate model of leadership to be implemented that "is relevant to the context of complexity and change facing organizations in the early twenty-first century" (p.273). This sense making paradigm is actually a throw-back to what Luthans (1988) identified nearly 3 decades ago -- namely the need for management to be mentally and emotionally supportive of and available to subordinates: "successful managers . . . are not engaged in the same day-to-day activities as effective managers" but are leaders who "find that the way to get ahead . . . is to be friendly . . . both inside and outside the firm . . . find a common interest . . . and interact with [workers] on that level" (p.130). The key to successful leadership in the 21st century is to identify the needs of a complex and diverse workforce population, wherein generational gaps can cause misunderstandings and cultural differences can lead to resentment.

The proponents of behavioral theories of leadership maintain a popular belief that great leaders are made and not born. This leadership theory illuminates actions of leaders and not their mental qualities or internal states. The theory postulates that people can learn to be leaders through teaching and observation. According to Bass (1990), this is simply done by teaching an individual the most appropriate behavioral response to any given situation. This means that the contemporary leaders, will learn good quality leadership from the current professionals some of which were not in the previous century, and from interacting with the current systems like the email system, the social media and other IT related interactive platforms. The 21st Century in this aspect has been seen to totally reshape the conception of leadership.

Another concept of leadership is related to the transformational theory -- which is shown by Cavazotte, Moreno and Hickmann (2012) to utilize EI to a significant extent in order to transform workers into their optimal selves. Then there is the transactional style of leadership, which focuses on more routine tasks, where a rewards/punishment system is in place to motivate workers. For more long-term projects, however, the transformational style speaks more to the needs of organizations looking to tap the potential of their workers for the long haul (Harms, Crede, 2010).

The history of leadership can be viewed most readily in the societal shifts that have taken place over time across continents, as social structures are ultimately most reflective of leadership concepts (King, Johnson, Van Vugt, 2009). A large commonality among the various threads that are interwoven in the history of leadership is the idea that strong leadership is an outcome of experience -- a quality that is honed and refined over time and demonstrated by those who have been tested by the fire: "age correlates with leadership . . . [where] knowledge and training" are requisite "but not in domains that require risk-taking and physical bravery" (King, Johnson, Van Vugt, 2009, p.912).

Leadership styles and theories have also developed over time in ways that reflect social norms. In the modern era, the idea of the "Great Man," which held that leaders were born rather than made, has been replaced over time by theories grounded in the psychological concepts devised throughout the 20th century: Trait Theory, Behavioral Theory, the University Theories, Contingency Theories, Organizational Culture Theory, Motivational Theory, Needs Theory -- these are just a few examples of the types of ideas about leadership that have grown out of the 20th century's focus on psychology as a means of understanding human behavior. These theories and concepts have moreover built on one another over the years so that each is a reaction to that which came before. Of course, in some cases a new idea has come along that is completely radical and different from the others and is based on a new approach to human understanding (Maslanka, 2004). Nonetheless, even before the 20th century, leadership was a concept that philosophers, statesmen and religious thinkers all propounded upon. From Machiavelli to the modern political and organizational princes of today, leadership has been a topic that everyone has an opinion on.

The main styles of leadership that have taken center stage in the modern era have all come from the University Theories models. The role of EI and transformational leadership within today's discussions of 21st century leadership are now predominant because they reflect the trend in modern culture that seeks to maximize potential and use every last drop of one's resources towards achieving the overall organizational aim in the manner that is most effective for the long-term. The role of ethics has also become important in leadership, as the fall of corporations like Enron have shown a need for transparency, trust, authenticity and virtue among leaders to ensure success.

Today's trends in leadership include ideas about how leaders should assist others to grow. Thus, many assumptions are still made in any leadership discussion -- the main one being that leaders always attempt to "empower others" (Conger, 1989, p.17). Leadership is also defined as the art of "instilling a sense of power" within follower and most leaders in the modern era tend to embody this idea. Another assumption that is made about leadership is that its leaders should possess a number of qualities and characteristics that older societies identified as virtues -- or good habits: characteristics such as truthfulness, honesty, openness, communicative, empathetic (Avolio, Walumbwa, Weber, 2009). There are a number of styles of leadership approaches that can be utilized in order to facilitate leaders who operate according to this assumption: transformational leadership, confrontational leadership, the application of emotional intelligence, etc.

Another trend in leadership today is the concept of self-management. This is a type of leadership that puts the onus of development on the individual (Yukl, 2010). This style is also one that underscores essentially all styles of leadership because if the individual self is not oriented towards betterment, empowerment, and achievement of goals through the overcoming of obstacles, then the individual will never be useful for an organization. At some point, self-management has to kick in regardless of the method of leadership style adopted by leaders.

The current trends associated with describing leadership is that leaders' behavior can fit into four major categories -- namely 1) task-oriented behaviors, 2) relational oriented behaviors, 3) change oriented behaviors, and 4) passive leadership. Leaders with task oriented behaviors exhibit transactional-leader behaviors. They offer contingent reward and manage by MBEA-Management by exception-active (Management by Exception Active). These tasks are often defined by time and space. The 21st Century has brought with it a shift in the tasks that are carried out in organizations on a daily basis, things like attending to social media and responding to comments from followers was not a priority in the previous century, but now is a requisite for most organizations. This means the task-oriented leaders will still have to be shaped by the contemporary tasks. These Task oriented leaders are capable of defining task roles and role relationships among group members (Bass, 1990). They can coordinate group members' actions and determine standards of task performance. Task oriented leaders are capable of ensuring that group members perform up to the determined standards of task performance. A transactional leader will always make clear what is expected in terms of task performance and rewards for meeting those expectations. He can anticipate task oriented problems and take corrective action. Leaders should be clear about their expectations and standards for performance. These standards can be used to shape follower commitment, motivation, and behavior.

A leader's action in the 21st Century should attract follower's respect and encourage them to focus on the welfare of the group in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with the social media and global events rather than local events as it was in the previous century. Some aspects of transformational leadership like individualized consideration have relational orientation. A transformational leader must create and facilitate change in an organisation. A change oriented leader must develop and communicate a vision for change. Burns (1978) states these changes are important in the fast changing work environment, otherwise the efforts of the team may be rendered obsolete within a short time. The 21st Century is both creative and innovative, the technology and global access to information encourages new ways of thinking and consequent change in ways of carrying out activities. The leader in such an environment has to encourage innovative thinking, and be a risk taker. Bass (1985) further states that Transformational leaders should capitalize on inspirational motivation and intellectual stimulation. Such leaders should use the former to communicate a compelling vision for the future and the latter to seek different perspectives from group members, challenge assumptions, and take risks. Under circumstances when problems do not exist or the problem is not apparent to the leader may choose not to actively engage (Gastil, 1994). That is passive leadership. The absence of leader behavior is commonly referred to as laissez-faire (LF), such an approach may be detrimental in the contemporary society due to the highly competitive society.

There are peculiar traits, skills and behavior that are commonly displayed by the good leaders in any organisation particularly in the contemporary society of the 21st Century. These are the special things that set them apart from the leaders of the past century. Ontario of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (2011), discusses these qualities as below and their application:

a). Highly organized: these leaders are highly organized in terms of their goals and the time frame for finishing their tasks. The 21st Century has seen a drastic change in the workplace since there are more tasks to be handled, more calls to be made, more emails to be replied to, and more news to be caught up with as compared to the previous century. The handling of these tasks have been moved from the various corners of the office to the desktop computers or laptops, this makes it all the more confusing. If the individual is not highly organized, the tasks that are pending may end up overwhelming him and degenerating into pile of pending tasks and delayed replies and unnecessary backlogs.

b). Knowledge possession; every good leader will have to show that he possess knowledge of what the organisation deals in and the technical intricacies of the organisation. The 21st Century leader must have the why and how knowledge of the organisation and if not all then most of the technical engagements that the organisation undertakes. Since the contemporary organisations often deal in systems that are computer based, programs that are custom made for the organisation and the general internet world, it is mandatory for any good leader to have a good grasp of the way these systems run and how to troubleshoot and use them to get the maximum of any task that may arise within the organisation. These systems must then be used by the leader to handle issues to do with customer care and handling of technical enquiries that may come up from time to time.

c). Enthusiasm; this is another quality that a good leader must possess according to Barbara White, (2011). White argues this enthusiasm must be about their work as well as their role as leaders. This is the only way that many people will respond positively to the individual in an open manner than if the individual is not enthusiastic about their roles in the organisation. They need to be inspirational and act as motivators in the line of their duty Bass & Avolio, 1994). Even though their responsibilities and direct duties may be different, they always offer the sense of direction and are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get engaged in the menial work with the people they lead if there is a need. This is a central quality in the contemporary workplace since there is way much load that the previous century at the same time the business environment is full of high levels of competition due to the globalization and IT influence. If the leader is not enthusiastic about his work, there is likelihood of the individual underperforming and trailing the pack or resigning to join other less competitive organisations.

d). Good interpersonal skills; the 21st Century leader must have good interpersonal skills, these skills need to be so good that they can be radiated through phone calls, emails and even online chats as well as video conference since these are the main platforms of interaction with customers in the 21st Century. Hence, every leader in this time and era must have good interpersonal skills and continually seek to improve on it. This is the only way that they will be able to effectively relate and communicate with people both in and outside the organisation, at different levels of the organisation as well as on a cross cultural basis as indicated by International Institute for Learning, Inc. (2011).

e). Committed to excellence; every leader must show and be seen to practice the virtue of commitment to excellence in the organisation as per the standards of the organisation. He must be an individual who strives to meet the highest possible mark of quality and believes that second is not good enough. The virtue of excellence in the 21st Century is significant in that the competition is very stiff and hence only the best will survive in the market. The potential customers have little or no time for organisations with below average performance. This excellence in performance starts with the leader and the trickledown effect goes to the other employees.

f). Develop a vision and strategy; with the principle of transformation leadership, the 21st Century leader need to have a clear and well understood vision or map of where the organisation needs to go and how it will get there. With a clear vision and a well drafted strategic plan, it will be easier to stay ahead of the competition that is becoming stiff each day.

g). Focused on results; the contemporary society is one that depends on the outcome to justify the means. They would like to see results manifested in a faster manner than the past century. In the current digitalized world, the speed of execution of duties and tasks within the business circles is very crucial. If the leader does not have the quality of focusing on the production of results, and promptly so, then it can be disastrous for that particular organisation. Here, the concept of done being better than perfect takes dominance.

h). Managing diverse workforce; this is yet another key competence that the contemporary leader must have since he will be responsible for a highly diverse range of talents within the organisation. As the globalization takes root, the workplaces that hitherto had one race of people of similar cultural backgrounds become more diverse than before. This means the leader must know how best to handle these people and allow each of them to grow and develop their skills and talent in their uniqueness as displayed (Francke A., 2014).

i). Effective communication skills; unlike the past century, the current century has information pass from one hand to thousands or even millions of hands within a matter of minutes, what is referred to as information going viral. In the past century, information could be contained from spreading to even unintended parties. This requires therefore, that a leader of any organisation of department has to ensure that they have extremely good communication skills in order to be sure to deliver to the global audience what adds value to the organisation. Before the leader posts a status update to the organisation's social media platforms, or sends a mail, or utters a directive in a conference call, he has to be very sure it is the best quality and reflects the wish of the organisation and creates the perception the organisation intended to create.

j). High standards of ethics; professionalism and integrity; the contemporary leader must ensure that his acts and approaches to situations is ethical and of high integrity and professional as can be. This is important since with the social media and cable television, the worth of a company can easily degenerate due to one unethical action. A good leader in the 21st Century hence needs to constantly evaluate himself and reflect as they put their work their private life, their behavior and their life to the test constantly.

k). Global mindset; unlike the past century where the global influence was not high, the current leaders need to have a global mindset and whenever they are making decisions or giving directives they need to think with a global approach in order to be able to compete effectively in the current business environment. The standards set must be the global standards since the local standards will have a shorter life than the global ones, particularly in the currently fast changing business environment. It can be argued that contrary to the theory of Bass, (1990), that postulates that people can learn to be leaders through teaching and observation there are deeper levels of behavior tooted within personality such as ethics, mindset and interpersonal skills that shape 21st Century leaders.

The similarities and differences of 21st century leadership to classical leadership competencies are numerous. Classical leadership competencies are person-centric: 1) know thyself, 2) be aware of others, 3) work together, 4) be virtuous, 5) be creative, 6) be truthful, 7) set goals -- these are just a few of the classical leadership competencies. In some ways they overlap with 21st century leadership competencies -- such as 1) establish a vision, 2) focus on results, 3) and manage diversity -- these all correlate with being aware of others, working together, setting goals and knowing thyself. In this sense, the same competencies are needed, they are just rephrased in modern parlance. However, 21st century skills are also more corporate-centric in some ways: when it comes to embracing innovation, or embracing a global mindset, the ideals underlying 21st century leadership skills reveal the main difference from classical leadership competencies -- which is that in the 21st century, leadership is focused not on success through adherence to the abstract notion of Goodness but rather on success through the tangible notion of results.

Trait Theory correlates with the Great Man thesis -- namely that leaders have certainly qualities or traits that non-leaders do not have. Whether leaders are born with these traits or acquire them over time is something that researchers have attempted to study for a number of years -- particularly in the area of adolescence and leadership (Morton, Montgomery, 2013; Larson, Tran, 2014; Marshall, Parker, Ciarrochi, Heaven, 2014). In terms of classical leadership, trait theory deviates in the sense that it sees leadership as more of a mechanical process that is facilitated by characteristics rather than a holistic approach to leading. Traits that are examined include intelligence (social, emotional and cognitive), the ability to adjust, extroversion and self-efficacy.

Behavioral Theory implies that leaders must have strong personalities that are supported by a well-developed ego. Self-confidence is the driving force of this theory, but it is at odds with classical leadership theory in the sense that the latter puts virtue and ethics as the base of positive leadership -- and as the leaders of Enron showed, a strong ego is no substitute for ethics.

Situational Theory is a theory developed by Hersey in the 1960s and posits that flexibility and simplicity in one's approach to leadership are essential because they enable a leader to navigate diverse workplaces and consider multiple factors with nuance and grace. The grounds for this style are based on the effectiveness of being malleable and able to change based on the needs of the situation while also maintaining consistency of vision.

While these theories are commonly discussed among scholars in the modern era, there are many factors that have played, independently or in relation to several others, to significantly change the demographics of the 21st Century leadership to be as demanding as it is in the current times. Some of the outstanding factors that affect the leadership styles and approaches that are used in the current times include the following:

Demographic changes: demographic changes that have arisen from globalism are major factors in how leadership is applied in the 21st century. Whereas with classical leadership theories, accepted values regarding what is good were relatively orthodox among communities because there were not typically diverse cultures in one society, in the 21st century, many cultures are coming into contact through advances in technology, communications and travel that have made the world much "smaller" in a sense. As a result, leaders need to know how to address followers from multiple cultures at the same time -- or maintain cross-cultural relevance as Wardrope (2005) puts it. Likewise, with changes in gender in the 21st century and how cultures think about sex and gender in the workplace, leadership must also be able to deal with this complexity in the workplace (Bolino, Turnley, 2003). With the global economy at a possible inflection point, leaders must be able to know how to appeal to the diverse demographics that now appear in their workplaces for any failure to do so could result in organizational collapse (Bhargava, 2012). These changes are important to keep in mind, especially with regard to how leaders approach their role in a globalized environment.

Increased competition: increased competition is another factor that emanates from globalization. More and more businesses are competing for market share -- whether it is Wal-Mart in Europe, Asia or Africa -- or Mattel in China -- market share is a driving force for organizations and having the leadership in place to achieve the desired level of market share is essential. International market "have increased the pace of work" (Blair-Loy, Jacobs, 2003, p. 230) and the "long hours culture" has placed new demands on leaders interacting on a global scale with regard to workers who are used to working much more than competitors in the West (Rutherford, 2001; Buurgoon, Raess, 2007). This means that leaders are now expected to show even more EI and social as well as cognitive intelligence when working with global teams because of the complexity of the cultural and social expectations involved (Cronin, 2008).

Technological advancement: the world technology has astronomically grown over the last three decades, this ushered in a totally new approach to the way things are managed in most organisations. The increased mechanization and automation of operations have significantly shifted the previous leadership approach that was predominantly focused on human management to a level where the humans must be managed in relation to the mechanized and computerized environment within which they operate. The leadership in the era when computers and computerized systems had not taken root in many organizations is significantly different the contemporary times.

The levels of information access and information systems set up in organizations in the 21st Century are significantly different from the previous century. The workforce has become increasingly informed and information among the employees travels relatively faster than before. This means that leadership of any organisation must ensure that they are at par with the information levels and adjusts according to the trends of time. It is also advantageous for organizations and leaderships therein since they can access information concerning other competing organizations even faster than before.

The other aspect that affects leadership in the 21st Century is the idea of globalization. This has made the world flat and a small global village. Influences travel across borders and seas at a higher rate than before. The acceptability of standards from region to another is higher than the previous century. More companies open branches and dealership in other nations faster than it was previously done. This then means the leadership of any organisation needs to be informed of the requirements and legal outlines that exist in various regions of the globe where they may be having branches or may send their teams for fact finding.

The underlying causes of changes include exposure to different business environments and circumstances, different personal and emotional experiences, learning and development activities, personal evolution and growth, and age and maturity (Morton, Montgomery, 2013; Marshall et al., 2014). As businesses themselves adapt to the new demands thrust upon them by technological developments (such as the rise of e-business), and the new generation's own personal and emotional experiences that have informed their sense of expectation in the workplace, new trends have to be reconciled with ways of thinking about leadership because the ultimate goal in the 21st century is for leaders to be able to unite with followers so that there is a functioning relationship that supports the organizational aims.

Ultimately, it is worth noting that the 21st Century needs value-based leadership above any other form of leadership. Values-based leadership has a central role in the functioning and performance of an organization. On this, Boje, (2000) indicates that a moral value-based leader, is that leader who takes into serious account the social interaction between the employees or the followers and the leader or leadership of the organisation. This can be in the form of mutual needs or the psychological needs as would be dictated by the individualized consideration, charisma or even intellectual stimulation and even the inner motivation of the leader handling the organization (Homrig, 2001).