Leadership challenges in modern organizations

¶ … Leaders Face

Leading organizations of people through turbulent, often uncertain times present leaders with an entirely new set of challenges and opportunities to excel than has ever been the case before. According to (Kouzes & Posner, 2003, pp. 3-23) the ten commitments of leadership are organized into challenging the process, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, modeling the way, and encouraging the heart. These form the foundation the authors rely on for framing the ten commitments they have defined (Kouzes & Posner, 2003, pp. 3-23). The challenges of leadership in the 21st century center on authenticity, transparency and trust, which is the greatest challenge for leaders to attain with those they look to guide, develop, and ultimately accomplish objectives in cooperation with.

According to (Davis, 1997) vision on the part of leaders creates ownership on the part of subordinates and associates. Davis (1997) also illustrates through example of challenging it is for leaders to manage significant change while needing to stay balanced between tradition on the one hand and the need for agility and responsiveness on the other. She also illustrates through several examples how challenging it is for leaders to stay consistently focused on a vision, and in so doing win the trust and support of subordinates.

Additional challenges leaders face include infusing autonomy and ownership for tasks, jobs and the broader vision of an organization on the part of subordinates and associates, managing teams with a high level of Emotional Intelligence (EI) which is the insight to place the best possible contributors in the roles that align to their strengths, and the ability to foster collaboration through a team as well. There are also the challenges of ethical decision making and use of data, the need for accountability regarding goal and strategies to attain them, and courage to face high levels of uncertainty and still make progress towards goals in spite of a lack of certainty. All of these challenges are predicated on a leader being able to inspire and continually earn trust by being genuinely concerned about their subordinates while at the same time staying true, even to a passionate level, to the visions they have.