Running head: LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

The Leadership Challenges of Today

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LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

Introduction
Leadership can be chiefly defined as being able to form solid relationships with ones
followers, as well as between employees and followers as a group. Good leadership relies on
amicable collaboration, as leaders work to compensate for workers weaknesses and emphasizing
their strengths. There are a variety of organizational leadership styles that can accomplish this,
but no leadership strategy is the same from leader to leader, as each individual environment and
group of team members must be taken into account along with the organizations goals and
strengths. Organizational leaders face many unique and complex challenges in modern contexts;
due to the increasing influence of globalization and the democratization of information through
the Internet, it is becoming both easier and harder to run a business in an effective manner. As a
result, it is more important than ever before to solidify principles of organizational leadership
that can make leaders and managers more effective within a constantly changing, evolving
workplace. By integrating principles such as followship, situational leadership, and
transformational leadership into ones management style, it is possible to overcome the many
challenges that face leaders.
Leadership Challenges in the Modern World
There are a number of significant challenges facing leaders today, some of which are
holdovers from previous eras and some specific to todays modern world. Leaders can feel
incredibly isolated in their position; being on top, there is often no one within the organization to
share your burden or give impartial counsel on a situation within the workplace. When other
team members or followers are asked for advice, they can often just tell the leader what they

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

want to hear. This can often make leaders avoid conflict, which can prevent forward progress and
momentum for fear of taking on an emotional burden they cannot handle alone.
Some more modern issues include being able to adjust to new technologies; every year, it
seems as though more and more computing technology is released, building up pressure for
leaders to keep up lest their organization is left behind by competitors who adapt more quickly.
Furthermore, leaders need to know how to implement new technologies effectively in their
workplace, a task which becomes more and more difficult with each passing year as the rate of
technology grows.
Globalization is another modern factor that has made leadership even harder. In addition
to the increased reliance on technology due to the rise of e-business and the automation of many
organizational tasks, leaders must understand the changing motivations and demographics of
their workers and potential customers/shareholders. Todays markets are increasingly catering to
middle-class customers of varying ages, genders and races, with more disposable income and
varied interests than ever before in history (Hewison & Holden, 2016). Whats more,
globalization has placed a new premium on individual creativity, meaning that the individual
employee is expected to bring much more to the table than their otherwise ordinary tasks
(Hewison 2016, p. 14).
Leadership and Management Styles
Given the challenges of the modern world, a leader has to be able to identify markets that
are most profitable to them, while also being able to change with trends as needed. Furthermore,
the role of the employee or follower within an organizational context needs to change to cater to
the higher expectations workers have of their organization to cultivate their interest and excite

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

them. More important than ever before, good followship is essential to a strong leader in todays
business landscape. With followship, group members must be able to follow the instructions and
orders of their leader, and fulfill their individual duties as part of the organizations well-oiled
machine. Followers who are effective are able to comprehend their own subordinate position in
the organization, but also feel free to share advice or counsel if the leader needs it. Followers
must be at a leaders disposal and vice versa; groups with good followship leave their egos at the
door, as an organization cannot lead effectively when multiple people presume authoritative
positions over the companys direction.
In order to facilitate good followship and adapt to the constantly changing requirements
of the increased pace of modern organizations, leaders should practice some form of situational
or contingency leadership. This is an extremely context-based leadership style, as it allows the
leader to shift or adapt to the individual or situation (Nohria & Khurana 2010, p. 411). Team
members come in all different forms, and so leaders must learn how to individually handle them
in order to get their best work. For instance, a situational leader might confront a confrontational
person in order to assert their own authority and quell discord, or bring a more introverted
worker into the fold to provide them with the encouragement they need to feel included.
Situational leaders tailor their managerial style to the person or situation they are dealing with,
making them infinitely adaptable to whatever issue the organization may come across (Hersey,
Blanchard & Natemeyer, 1979). With this level of improvisation, a situational leader is uniquely
equipped to handle the constantly shifting demands of the rapid-fire modern economy.
Another important element to a modern leader overcoming the challenges of changing
demographics and expectations in the workplace is transformational leadership. With
transformational leadership, leaders take on more personalized, development-based roles in the

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

lives and relationships with their workers rather than interacting with employees in a
transactional way, where leaders simply expect tasks of workers and vice versa, transformational
leaders take a vested interest in being an important part of their workers lives. Transformational
leaders are inspirational, and focus immensely on getting everyone in their command excited for
their tasks, and encourages them to improve their skills and capabilities so they may be of greater
use to the organization. This has the result of not only increasing the quality of the employees
involved in an organization, but also increases morale by making team members feel fulfilled in
their positions (Avolio, Bass & Jung, 1999).
With transformational leadership, there is a much greater concern toward worker welfare
than other kinds of leaders, which befits one of the greater social challenges inherent to leaders
today. Given the changing social attitudes of the modern era, it becomes more and more
important for people to feel personally fulfilled and excited about their work; transformational
leaders have the ability to achieve that goal (Avolio, Bass & Jung, 1999). These kinds of leaders
create followers who not only want to perform well at their tasks, but want to earn the leaders
satisfaction. As a leader, it is possible to cater this kind of loyalty and hard work by cultivating
particular visions for the organization, which you then sell to the workers in order to get them
to rally behind it. Followers are then encouraged to work toward this collective vision for the
company, making them more excited, productive and fulfilled (Avolio, Bass & Jung, 1999).
One model that can help facilitate better leadership in the modern world is identity-based
leader development, in which leaders identify the intrinsic values for leadership they already
possess and develop them further through their own individual process (Nohria & Khurana,
2010). In many cases, with the modern world placing a greater emphasis on corporate social
responsibility, leaders must find ways to develop an ideological perspective for their

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

organizational vision, allowing them to achieve ethical or philosophical goals in addition to the
overall goal of earning profit and satisfying stakeholders (Nohria & Khurana, 2010). In order to
do this, leaders must examine the relationship triangle, where behavior patterns between
leaders, their past and their present are evaluated in order to see if there are better ways to
interact with these factors (Nohria & Khurana 2010, p. 209). Leaders must also find ways to
create a transitional space where change can occur, and allow workers to comfortably manage
changes that would inevitably happen as a result of an adaptive, transformational model of
leadership (Nohria & Khurana, 2010).
Conclusion
The challenges facing leaders in the modern world are numerous, from the constantly
changing demographics of both workers and stakeholders to the encroachment of technology in
increasingly faster and more prevalent ways in the conduct of organizational business. As a
result, organizational leaders must learn to adapt, to look at new issues and concerns in a
situational way and shift the way they approach it to achieve the most favorable results.
Encouraging good followship is paramount so as to allow ones team members and workers to
feel invested in the direction of the organization, which can be accomplished through cultivating
a sense of transformational leadership. If these tenets and principles can be applied to
organizational leadership, it is possible for skilled leaders to weather even the most dramatic
changes in technology, demographics, and market forces that come at an increasingly fast pace in
the modern world.

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY

References
Avolio, B. J., Bass, B. M., & Jung, D. I. (1999). Reexamining the components of
transformational and transactional leadership using the Multifactor Leadership. Journal
of occupational and organizational psychology, 72(4), 441-462.
Caldwell, C., Hayes, L. A., & Long, D. T. (2010). Leadership, trustworthiness, and ethical
scholarship. Journal of Business Ethics 96: 497-512.
Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H., & Natemeyer, W. E. (1979). Situational leadership, perception, and
the impact of power. Group & Organization Management, 4(4), 418-428.
Hewison, R., & Holden, J. (2016). The cultural leadership handbook: how to run a creative
organization. CRC Press.
Nohria, N., & Rakesh, K. (2010). Handbook of leadership theory and practice. Harvard Business
Press.