Transformational leadership effectiveness in twenty-first century organizations
It is often said a manager is what one does, and a leader is who one is. Leadership theorists, experts and practitioners agree that leadership, especially the turbulent 21rst century, is more driven by unanticipated change that strict, formal execution. Leaders who are effective today have the ability to keep their organizations agile, goal-focused and moving forward to attaining challenging objectives despite formidable obstacles and uncertainty.
Transformational leaders in the 21rst century nurture and foster creativity and a high level of autonomy, mastery and purpose on the part of their teams (Cheung, Wong, 2011). The growing reliance on virtual teams and the need for creating and sustaining trust within them, transformational leaders are called upon to do more than just accomplish tasks, they are expected to lead entire teams beyond their current levels of performance to higher levels of achievement (Andressen, Konradt, Neck, 2012). The combining forces of greater economic pressure on organizations and the need for greater accuracy and speed in new product development is leading many organizations to create virtual teams that are thinly staffed with highly qualified professions, with many having over a decade of experience in their own fields (Andressen, Konradt, Neck, 2012).
The role of the transformational leader has also changed markedly in the 21rst century as well. Now, leaders are expected to maintain teams at high performance levels while also ensuring they stay agile enough to respond to market fluctuations and changes in direction of their firms. To attain this level of agility, the best transformational leaders infuse a very high level of autonomy, mastery and purpose into their organizations, creating a culture of self-driven motivation and long-term learning (Cheok, Eleanor, OHiggins, 2012). It takes a transformational leader to be able to attain this very high level of performance however, a manager acting in an authoritarian or even transactional leadership style will not be able to accomplish this. The prerequisites and foundational elements of a transformational leader enable and accentuate a very high degree of autonomy, mastery and purpose. These foundational elements of transformational leadership have been proven through decades of research and empirical study, and have been underscored in importance due to the pace of severity of change occurring in the 21rst century with teams and what they are expected to accomplish.
Unilever's strategic approaches to recruitment, selection, and performance management
This paper provides an examination of the peer-reviewed and scholarly literature, as well as organizational material from Unilever, to determine how this company achieved this harmonization and a competitive advantage by applying strategic approaches to its recruitment and selection as well as its performance management functions. A summary of the research for both tasks and important findings are presented in the paper's conclusion.