Leadership in the 21st century

Leadership for 21st Century

A retrospective look at the business community will reveal that leadership is no longer today what is used to be one or two decades ago. Numerous new features have emerged, generally as a response to the developing requirements. Contemporaneous leaders focus more than ever on attaining and consolidating a strong competitive position, increasing customer and employee on-the-job satisfaction or developing sustainable expansionist strategies.

Predictors of Leadership for the 21 Century

Past Performance

The economic agent of the past century revealed goals of inferior magnitude than the objectives forwarded today. A century ago for instance, in a time when the forces of globalization had yet to emerge, the organizations strived to succeed in the local, regional or, for those with greater expectations and possibilities, the national market. At a local level, various economic agents would coexist and most of their desires revolved around the ability to run the business in a way that ensured they would be able to feed their families, support a decent lifestyle and remunerate the few employees they hired. Even in terms of corporations, the performances and goals were set at a lower level than they are today. Wal-Mart's performances in 1962 for instance revolved around the ability to be the preferred store in Rogers, Arkansas, whereas today, they generate global revenues.

B. Behavioral Traits

The behavior of the leader has undergone numerous modifications throughout the past few years. Probably the two most relevant of these changes are the increased focus placed on the customer and the employee. In this order of ideas, the customer has become the force telling the company what to produce, instead of simply purchasing whatever products the company manufactured. Secondly, the employee has metamorphosed from the force operating the machines into the most valuable organizational asset. In order for these changes to be successfully implemented however, it was necessary to achieve a change in the mentality and behavior of the leader. The following lines summarize some of the most important modifications in the behavior traits of the leader:

the contemporaneous leader is no longer the boss who dictates his decision, but is an individual who discusses the problem and strives to reach a mutually beneficial solution the modern leader does not implement decisions top down but looks at his subalterns as his equals, values their creativity, originality and input the modern manager is not autocratic, but rather permissive or democratic

C. Global Perspective

While changes in leadership within the twenty-first century are present at the global level, they are mostly obvious within the highly industrialized and economically powerful states, where the competition is fiercer than ever. Nevertheless, economic agents across the globe find themselves in the situation in which they have to fight harder to achieve their goals, set higher objectives or even overcome their own limitations. Positive examples from the United States, where the economy has been revived by entrepreneurs, have influenced economic agents in other global regions to increase their efforts in ensuring business success. In this line of thoughts, it is obvious that the changes in modern leadership are recognized at a global level.

D. The Managerial Act

In direct response to the changing features of the contemporaneous society, the managerial process has suffered numerous modifications. Some of the most significant such modifications are succinctly revealed below:

a new role of the leader has been added and it refers to the necessity for the leader to implement a new direction and promote change as an ongoing process the manager relies more on the feedback retrieved from the organizational staff members the leader is not the undisputable ruler, but the person who unites and coordinates a group to ensure that it reaches the established goals the leader is not required to demand that the employees comply with their tasks, but is expected to motivate them the vertical structure of organizations is slowly fading away and is being replaced by a horizontally integrated organization

2. Challenges for the 21st Century Leaders

A. Thinking Globally

With the growing forces of globalization and market liberalization, modern leaders face new challenges. For once, there is the fact that foreign companies are able to penetrate national markets and compete against the local organizations. In numerous instances, the competitors revealed several comparative advantages -- such as technological superiority, cost effective labor force or an abundance of natural resources. Additionally, some states subsidize some of their sectors with the declared scope of increasing exports. To the host country, this translates into cheap imports, which, despite the good they do for the consumer, help demise the national industries, which are no longer able to compete. All these lead to the indubitable conclusion that competition in the twenty-first century is as fierce as it has ever been.

Aside the threat of cheap imports, the modern leaders also fear the possibility of losing their best staff members. Again, the forces of globalization have allowed a free circulation of not only commodities, but also human resource. Given that a company invests in the professional formation of its personnel, it is possible that the employees leave the organization for a better paid job within another global region. In this order of ideas, it can be concluded that competition for human resource is also increased. The same can be said about financial opportunities, in the meaning that national investors might find a foreign country to be a better suited investment destination than a national company.

B. Diversity and Cultural Awareness

Cultural diversity existed, especially within the United States, since early history, but increased emphasis on it within the workplace has only been placed recently. Not before long ago, women and minorities were often the victims of discrimination in the meaning that they would get lower salaries for the same amount of job or that they would be presented with fewer promotion opportunities. Today however, the trend is that of equalizing the wages based on capabilities, education and performance, rather than discriminating based on cultural diversity.

The issue of cultural diversity and awareness constitutes today a central point in the organizational statements of various multinational corporations. The website of the Ford Motor Company for instance argues that cultural diversity characterizes the company from its factory floor to its board room, and furthermore, they pride themselves on the long history of including culturally diverse individuals within the company. "Throughout the history of Ford Motor Company, inclusion has been as much a part of the company's success as the great products our diverse employee base has created."

Given this status quo then, the challenge to the modern leader is that of integrating the cultural minorities within the work place.

C. More Demands