Contemporary advancements has put an end to the hierarchical structure of the organizations bringing in flat structure advocating team structure that promotes a team member to hold the responsibility of leading till that particular team project is completed.
DR ASHOK H S
The term Leadership is one of the concepts that has relevance in many of the social sciences originated from various fields of social sciences, humanities as well as in Education and management (Northouse, 2007). Leadership is a process of “influencing others to understand and to agree about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively, and the process of facilitating individuals and collective efforts to accomplish a shared objective” (Yukl, 2002: 3). In another definition, leadership is a procedure of shaping firm from present stage to the height that a leader aspires (Dess & Lumpkin, 2003). The gurus of the executive management and leadership mention that ‘today’s leaders are those who produce the leaders’.
Today the Technology has overtaken the responsibility of performing several functions that the leader used to take in the organizations. Sophisticated technology, built in troubleshooting mechanisms, app based solutions are available in abundance which has reduced the leader’s function of providing technical support/assistance and guidance. These revolutions has brought down the hierarchical structure of the organizations bringing in flat structure advocating team structure that promotes a team member to hold the responsibility of leading till the team project is completed. His or her role as a leader seizes once the project is completed.
There are seven current concerns that is found to have significant impact on the functioning of leaders in the modern organizations. These concerns have brought about the changes in the nomenclature of the leader. Leader becoming a team leader, manager, coach, mentor etc. The seven concerns are: increasing change, increasing diversity in our daily lives, increasing tensions around value differences, increasing requirement for organizational learning and personal development, increasing need for a long-term perspective, increasing need for leadership processes that match the complexity of the systems, and increasing power of relationships.
Increasing change: 21st century is marked by rapid changes in the various sectors of the economy. Globalization, liberalization, changes in the foreign trade practices, etc. has forced the organizations to adopt to these rapid changes. Though change is inevitable the human nature is to resist the changes even if it is for the betterment. It has become the role of the leaders to oversee how these changes are being adopted and accepted by the employees.
Increasing diversity in our daily lives: Urbanization, increasing rate of women taking up employment, changing structure of family, etc. has added a new dimensions to the world of work namely work life balance, work from home schedules, moon lighting which need to be handled effectively by the leaders.
Increasing tensions around value differences: Mergers and acquisitions, ego centric career growth perspective of the employees is one of the major sources of conflict of values both at the individual level as well at the organizational level.
Increasing requirement for organizational learning and personal development: on the one hand, today’s organizations are ever evolving and to keep up with the demands of the circumstances, learning to adopt and cope up with the change becomes the priority. On the other hand retaining the talent within the organization by addressing personal development of each one of the employee across the organizational hierarchy becomes the responsibility of the leader who is expected to coach and mentor the employees. The leadership challenge is to design organizations that facilitate continuous learning and personal growth.
Increasing need for a long-term perspective: The survival of the organization is contingent upon the long term perspective. Organizations of today need to derive its vision keeping in view its long-term perspective and making the vision a reality is the role of the leaders.
Increasing need for leadership processes that match the complexity of the systems: Today, we need leadership to think far into the future. Increasing need for leadership processes that match the complexity of the systems. Each of the adaptive challenges is a complex system in itself. When these systems interact with one another, they create a large, dynamic, non-linear system with smaller non-linear dynamic systems nested within it.
Increasing power of relationships: Leadership will be increasingly defined by the process of bringing people, ideas, and other systemic elements into new relationships; so organizations can develop the strategies to cope with adaptive challenges. Recent studies on the impact of technology on the organizational performance and effectiveness have emphasized on the power of human interpersonal relations. It is the responsibility of the leaders to encourage the employees to come out of their silos.
In addition to the above concerns the pandemic of recent times has reiterated on the role of leader towards facilitating the employees’ emotional and affective needs.
The need of the hour: Organizational leadership today is focusing on practicing transformational leadership, servant leadership, and spiritual leadership as alternative styles of leadership to that of traditional forms of leadership styles.
Emergence of positive psychology and its techniques and strategies are found to be more effective to deal with emotional and affective needs of the employees. The emotional needs arising out of pandemic in terms of anxiety, uncertainty, handling grief of the self as well as the others can effectively be handled by the practice of positive psychological techniques.
Practical tips for effective leadership: Being connected is the key. Leadership needs to facilitate an environment that fosters individual growth, trust, and organizational learning. Tension is a positive force in organizational learning. Spend time to reflect on the process. Articulate the core purpose and values of the organization. Finally, but seriously, reward risk-taking.
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