critical Literature Review on Leadership

Compared to their predecessors of the previous century, leaders in the twenty-first century work in a very different environment. The environment is now unclear due to globalization and the ongoing development of technology, and businesses are becoming knowledge hubs. This paper underlines the fact that traditional leadership strategies like bureaucracy are obsolete as a result. The characteristics of the modern world are better suited to new leadership models that place an emphasis on the requirement for the leader to create a compelling vision and involve the team in creating a shared purpose. Change is a word that describes the 21st century and leaders have to deal with its different sources which are global, organizational, and follower. A critique of the hierarchical leadership models of the past century which are appropriate for predictable situations reveals that they are no longer relevant in dynamic environments. In response, organizations are doing away with the hierarchies and command lines to develop flexible structures that can quickly adapt. Therefore, leadership has shifted from the traits schools to focus on the response of the followers, and now the interaction between the leader and follower in building engagement towards attaining the vision.

Introduction

The 21st century has brought significant changes primarily as a result of the rapid development of new technology, the widespread use of the internet, and ever increasing competition. The impact is a lot of turbulence and uncertainty in the environment in which contemporary organizations operate. Hitt, Haynes, & Serpa (2010, p. 437) point out that in this context, a particular style of leadership is needed at the top of the organization to implement new strategies to deal with the rapid changes and uncertainty.

The 21st-century competitive landscape includes the elimination of the traditional industry boundaries, extremely competitive markets, increased emphasis on price, quality, and customer satisfaction, global focus on innovation and continuous learning, and changes in employee expectations and careers. Vries and Korotov (2010, p.4) points out that the traditional leadership model of command-and-control hierarchical structures is no longer appropriate. Therefore, the leaders of today must possess a wide range of competencies and approaches to perform their roles successfully as well as being flexible and adaptable to the different situations they face.

The literature on leadership is extensive, and over the years, there has been the development of many schools of leadership such as the trait, behavioral, contingency, rational, and charismatic. However, today’s organizations operate in completely different landscapes, and some of these theories are limited in application to the 21st-century leader. This paper undertakes a critical literature review of 21st-century leadership by analyzing the key issues which are the core competencies for leadership, the factors of change, the challenges, and issues that relate to gender and diversity.

Analysis

Core leadership competencies

The contemporary leaders need competencies to enable them to guide their organizations to compete successfully in the global environment. The OECD (2005, p.4) defines a competency as “…more than just knowledge and skills. It involves the ability to meet complex demands, by drawing on and mobilizing psychosocial resources (including skills and attitudes) in a particular context.” Higgs (2003, p. 278) developed a potential model that makes sense of leadership in the 21st century. In the model, the predicted competencies for the 21st-century leader are: envision, engage, enable, inquire, and develop.

Envision refers to the ability to identify a future picture, which informs the way in which people direct their efforts and utilize their skills (Higgs 2003, p.278). Ratcliffe and Ratcliffe (2015, p.3) assert that organizations must shift from their dead-end “business-as-usual” tactics to transformative strategies to navigate turbulence, dilemma, and confusion in the environment. The leader has the task of visioning by creating a bold, unique, and ambitious image of the preferred future. It entails taking a long-view backward as well as into the future, delving deeply into the broader understanding of concepts, strategies, and realities, and evaluate risk and uncertainty.

Engage means that the 21st-century leader has to find the appropriate way of communicating the vision and ensure it is understood. It involves effective communication where the leader clarifies the direction, expectations, and the vision of the organization. The 21st-century employees want to be part of an organization with a compelling vision, and the leader must provide a sense of mission and inspire its acceptance.

Enabling means that the leader trusts the talent and potential of the employees and creates an environment to release their potential. Such an environment will appreciate that the traditional leadership of seeking to enforce written rules and strict procedures is no longer relevant. Raqvi et al. (2013, p.93) point out that workers value autonomy where they can make choices in scheduling and achieving their tasks. As a result, the 21st-century leader needs to create an environment of trust and open communication where workers exercise their autonomy, receive direct and honest feedback, and get recognized for their performance.

Inquire means that the leader is open to real dialogue with the organizational members. The hierarchical structure where decision making is at the top is no longer relevant, and leaders have to appreciate they must use a “bottom-up” approach to drive change. In this case, they must seek the feedback of the lower level employees. According to Kim and Sting (2014, p.38) in a study that compared top down and bottom-up approach, the "bottom-up" approach embodies opportunities for improvement as well as refining the organization’s priorities.

Develop is the last element of Higgs 21st century leadership model. It means that the leader works with the people within the organization to help them in making the envisioned contribution. The workforce of today places importance on personal development, work that fulfills their skills and experience, and making a positive impact in the world. Today’s leaders must provide opportunities for people to improve their skills through training and development programs and crucially, clarifying how the employee contributes to the achievement of the organization’s vision.

Factors of change in 21st leadership

The 21st century was expected to bring about significant changes that would increase the turbulence in the environmental organizations operate. Bligh, Kohles, and Pillai (2011, p. 1058) in their study that sought to establish the past, present, and future of leadership observe that the approaches have progressed from biased, follower centered, the social constructionist view, and finally understanding the role of crisis and uncertainty. Lorz (2005, p. 2) identifies global, organizational, and follower trends are the main factors of change in the 21st-century leadership.

Global trends

These refer to the changes that emerge externally from the organization but have an influence on the leadership approach, and they include globalization and technological revolution. Hitt et al. (2010, p.438) suggest that globalization enhances the development of cross-border relations not only in the markets for goods but also in their supply chain. Previous researches show that organization deal with complex networks of relationships across countries and their economies. Jokinen (2005, p. 200) in her study that reviewed global leadership competencies argues that the 21st-century leaders must develop a global mindset, work equally with persons with diverse backgrounds, participate effectively in multicultural teams, facilitate organizational change, and seek ways to motivate the employees in an uncertain world to excellence.

Organizational trends

These affect the way the design of organizations as well as their reaction to the environment. In response to the global trends, organizations are forced to become flexible and more adaptable. Ouye (2011, p. 2) point out that organizations structures are now spatially and distributed with the traditional hierarchies of authority are becoming flat. The effect is that responsibilities are pushed to the lower organizational levels, and decision making is increasingly pushed wider and lower. Also, organizations have adopted enabling technologies and social collaboration tools making the sharing of data easier, and workers can now collaborate asynchronously. The 21st-century leader, therefore, must develop an organizational culture that enhances the chances of driving change, drive innovation and creativity, increase the response to changes in the environment, and builds a single-minded commitment to the mission and goals (Mbeba 2014, p.666).

Follower trends

A trend that is attracting a lot of interest in organizations, as well as that of researchers, is diversity, not only cultural but also regarding gender. Calls for greater gender inclusivity in organizations where particularly women and minority groups demand greater recognition and equal opportunities. Leaders in the 20th century did not have to address such an issue, but as a result of the changing gender roles, contemporary leaders are being forced to take it seriously. Another key follower trend is identified by Ouye (2011, p. 6) where workers now want more autonomy, flexibility, and say in how organizations run their things. The 21st-century leaders must also recognize that employees no longer want “bosses” but individuals who coach and mentor them as well as instilling a greater sense of purpose in their jobs.

The challenges facing 21st-century leaders

Leading in a VUCA world

As repeatedly pointed out in this review and by many researchers, the first problem is leading in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. Lawrence (2013, p.5) defines VUCA and points out that volatility means the nature, speed, volume, and dynamics of change occur in an unpredictable pattern. Drivers of volatility today include trade liberalization, global competition, and digitization. Uncertainty refers to the unpredictability of the issues and events, complexity refers to the difficult to understand causes and factors in a problem, and ambiguity means lacking clarity and conditions having mixed meaning. Leaders all over the world have to make sense of the complexity, drive change in uncertain times, and provide a compelling vision that builds commitment in followers in unpredictable situations.

Managing talent

The second key challenge facing 21st-century leaders is talent management, and Peter Capelli in “Talent management for the twenty-first century” discusses this at great length. Capelli (2008, p. 1) points out that the heart of talent management is the leader anticipating the need for human capital and setting out a plan to achieve it. A lot of leaders have been responding in two ways: first, doing nothing where they neither anticipate talent nor set plans. Secondly, some of them use the reactive approach where they rely on the traditional bureaucratic models for forecasting talent needs and succession planning. Such an approach will fail because organizations no longer operate in predictable environments which are suitable for bureaucratic managers. Allio (2013, p. 10) argues that effective talent management requires the leader listening to the needs of the followers and responding appropriately. Studies show that followers want leaders who develop trust, inspire, motivate, and coach. As a result, it is becoming difficult for leaders to foster the culture of shared purpose where the members can get meaning from their work.

There has been a lot of attention drawn towards diversity in the workplace in the 21st century. Podsiadlowski et al. (2013, p. 160) point out that a lot of studies in defining diversity focus on dimensions such as gender, age, ethnicity, education level, and nationality. Research alludes that the highly diverse teams outperform the less diverse teams regarding creativity and innovation. However, countless studies agree on the fact that maintaining culturally diverse workplaces is challenging and leaders constantly have to address discrimination, disparities in equal employment opportunities and stereotyping. Managing the different viewpoints and creating a work environment that values all people is proving to be a challenge for today’s leaders, and there has been the reporting of discrimination cases across gender.

Theory: leadership is changing over time

The field of leadership is undergoing significant changes, and according to Avolio, Walumbwa, & Weber (2009, p.422), the focus has shifted from the individual leader unto the followers, peer, supervisors, the work setting, the culture, the public, and global partners. Avolio (2009, p. 430) points out that a majority of the leadership models were appropriate for the past century and they do not capture the dynamics of operating in the current knowledge driven economy. Today’s leadership literature focuses on the new-genres which emphasize a leader who possess charisma, is visionary, inspiring, and raises higher order values in the followers. The effect has been a rise in complexity leadership theory which argues that “leadership is an emergent phenomenon within complex systems” and organizations cannot underestimate the complexity of the environment they have to adapt and operate. Servant leadership has featured in literature, and it lists down ten characteristics representing a servant leader; listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment, and building community. The most recent interest is in ethical leadership, and Brown and Mitchell (2010, p.583) point out that a lot of empirical studies are conducted to understand the role of the leader in building ethical work behaviors. The organization will conform to the ethical values of the leader, and research shows that leaders perceived as ethically positive will influence ethical and productive work behaviors in the employees.

Leadership in management refers to managers developing empowering leader behaviors. Srivastava & Bartol (2006, p.1239) apply leadership in a management setup, and their study identifies knowledge sharing and team efficacy as the key elements of leaders in management. Knowledge sharing involves the members of a team sharing relevant ideas, information, and suggestions. In this case, the leader provides guidance and recognizes and values the input of the leaders, and the result is improved decision making and coordination. Also, a manager who empowers the team improves the ability to adapt to the competition and aggressively attain high targets.

There has been a lot of research on the issue of gender in leadership, and the findings indicate that the evaluation of men and female leaders is different. For instance, the success of the male leader is attributable to elements such as his skills and abilities while for the female, it is luck or simplicity of the job. Crites, Dickson, & Lorenz (2015, p.2) in her study that explored leader gender observes that most leadership positions are male dominated, with women will find it difficult to get promoted to these posts. Some women cite the lack of company position as the hindering factor, but there have been calls for increased gender equality in today’s organizations. According to Crites et al. (2015, p.22), the stereotypes towards female leaders are inconsistent with their performance and every 21st-century leader has the challenge of creating an environment that will enable more women to take up senior leadership positions.

In conclusion, leadership is possibly one of the most widely researched topics, and the review above reveals that it is a continually evolving concept. The styles of leadership today might no longer be relevant in the coming century where artificial intelligence will have a prominent role in organizations. The review points out that the 21st-century leader operates in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world where both the organizations and followers are evolving. In this case, new approaches are required, and leaders in every sphere of life must exert their influence over people and build commitment towards achieving the vision. Therefore, there is no correct theory or approach to leadership, and in this century, leaders must lead people and the environment through the turbulence in the environment.

References

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