LEADERSHIP IN 21ST CENTURY AND STRATEGIC

DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANISATIONS

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 Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3
Understanding the Topic ............................................................................................................ 3
Application and evaluation of the theories and concepts........................................................... 3
Leadership in the 21st Century............................................................................................... 3
1. First Layer: Vision and Value ............................................................................................ 4
2. Second layer: Learning and trait. ....................................................................................... 4
3. Third Layer: Communication ............................................................................................. 5
Comparison of Old and New Leadership Imperatives ............................................................... 6
Old leadership imperatives: .................................................................................................... 6
New leadership imperatives: .................................................................................................. 6
Strategic development of Organizations .................................................................................... 8
Synthesis .................................................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 9
Reference List .......................................................................................................................... 10
Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 11

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Introduction

The theories, practices, and models of leadership have changed significantly over the years.
The traditional ways of administration are no more followed and not only that it has been
verified that for proper strategic development of an organization the administration needs to be
modified. In this essay, we will be discussing, analyzing and critically evaluating that how the
direction of the 21st century can help an organization to make strategic and progressive
development. This essay will provide with all the analysis of the 21st-century leadership and
also compare the old methods of administration with the 21st-century leadership to differentiate
the significant improvement in the development of the organisations.

Understanding the Topic

One of the most critical factors of management that are responsible for the proper growth and
development of an organisation is leadership. Therefore an organisation may swim or sink all
based on the appropriate command. The direction of the 21st century is a basis of a new
perspective in a direction which seeks to improve and change the whole meaning of traditional
leadership. The modern way of leadership tends to face all sorts of unique problems and also
grab all kinds of opportunities present by the current world. Modern leadership also focuses on
the administrative as well as management functions. The direction is a broader dimension
which needs a lot of focus and distinct qualities. The strategic development of a company is
the proper planned and well-verified improvement and growth of an organisation (Goetsch and
Davis 2014).

Application and evaluation of the theories and concepts

Leadership in the 21st Century

In the 21st century, it is rather very much possible that the world may see more than one
transition of the integrated global market and a society that is more knowledgeable. Not only
that, there is also a chance that the entire context of the globe might rapidly change under
globalization. Thus the current situation demands a new model of leadership so as to manage
and develop the organisation properly. The leader must be able to dictate his group towards the
achievement of the project and not only that the leader must be knowledgeable and must be
able to make quick and responsive decisions to accelerate the development in such rapid

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changing environment. The hierarchy of the new model that has to be developed as per the
21st-century requirements has four different hierarchical layers.

1. First Layer: Vision and Value

The most important element in the model is value and vision. The vision refers to the foresight
of the leader. This means that the leader must be intelligent enough to understand and assume
the future happenings of the organisation. It requires careful planning but that planning to
happen under the leader (Han, 2014). The vision of the leader will be the ultimate vision, and
it means that when the leader decides and forecasts what has to be done that will. Be final, and
no changes should occur. It is the responsibility of the leader to make his followers understand
the vision and obey to work accordingly. The vision of the leader will be the final decision of
the leader. The main element of vision comes mainly from the value. The use of ethical values
is significant. In the modern society of organisations, there is a lot of use of unethical and
immoral values, that is financial frauds then comes political scandals and of course corruption.
It is the responsibility of a leader to properly manage and dictate his followers so as they cannot
use any unethical behaviour and neither should they involve themselves in any corruption or
scandals. The skill of leading people is a tough task. It is never easy to maintain a group of
followers without having any moral issues, and hence a leader must share the knowledge of
ethical values with the people working under him.

2. Second layer: Learning and trait.

Trait refers to the distinct features and instincts that belong to a certain person.
Here he refers to the qualities and the features that a leader must have for the systematic
development of the organisations In the new model of the leadership a leader must have at least
four traits: 1. The proper amount of Emotional intelligence, 2. Adequate communication skills,
3. Open minded and 4. Conscientious. Below there is a table that defines all types of traits of a
leader.
The leader should also have the intensity to learn new things. In this critical function of
leadership, a leader must be self-learning. A leader should understand what are the needs and
should adapt to the requirements and hence he must be learning new things by himself.
Self-reflection: A leader should have the ability to reflect on his work and understand what are
the mistakes and what kind of changes are required to be made as per the job requirements.

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Self-improvement: Along with the reflection on the work a leader does all the time the leader
must also realise that everything does not go the same way every time. Thus the leader needs
to make improvements to his work(Reynolds, 2017). The leader must have to ability to realise
what are the mistakes that have taken place and how the improvements are to be made
according to the organisational needs. This is called self-improvement.
3. Third Layer:
It was earlier discussed in layer one that it was the heart of the new model. The third layer goes
along with the first layer. The vision is not the only thing that is required in proper leadership.
The leader must be able to communicate with his followers or else no matter how better his
vision is not mattered how much speaks about the ethical values they will have no meaning
with the ability to communicate (Katzenbach and Smith, 2015) properly. The leader must be
inspirational.[Referred to Appendix 1]

4. Fourth layer: Decision making according to situations

This important central aspect of the new model is the leader should always be able to adapt to
the situation. In a company not still do the events flow smoothly and hence there will be
situations where the leader will have to take unwanted steps, and that is when the actual
qualities of a leader will be tested (Bititci et al. 2016). As said the organisation might face
sudden overflow of work and that is when the leader has to make harsh decisions if required,
such as allocating overtime to the staffs etc. Therefore the ability to take calm and composed
choices at a certain hard situation is one of the main aspects that a leader must have in their
qualities. As discussed the leader must also have excellent communication skills so that he can
transfer the message to all the employees without making them panic and thus getting the
situation under control (Holgateet al.). This way of taking painful decisions in the sensitive
case is the ability to make situational choices.

Layer 1 • Value and Vision

Layer2 • Trait and Learning
Layer 3 • Communication
Layer 4 • Situational Decision Making

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Comparison of Old and New Leadership Imperatives
leadership imperatives:

● Results are everything: the Old ideology of leadership states that the result was
the sole ruler. The results were everything and thus if the projects were finished
in time, and if they were under proper budget, then it was assumed that the work
was giving correct results.
● Stated protocol following: Work as per the stated rules not a single thing can
be out of the box (Romero et al. 2015). Limit the work to rules only, nothing
else gets considered.
● Data rules: The work that is being done should be a systematic and methodical
way.
● Presence is mandatory: This means that you must be seen by others in the long
working hours so that it can set a perfect example of how people must work.
● Seniority matter: The old methods only focused on seniority. The more senior
the employee, the more experienced and never wrong is the employee. That
means that the order that a senior gives has to be followed no matter whatever
happens.[Referred to Appendix 2]

Stated
Results are
protocol Data rules
everything
following

Presence is Seniority
mandatory matter

FIGURE 2: Old leadership imperatives

(Source: Created by author)

New leadership imperatives:

● Proper coaching and developing based: This means that the staffs should not
take deadline as the deadline of life (Male and Palaiologou, 2015). Employees

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 must take some time and help others with their work as well. The staffs that
complete the work in time shall use emotional influence to inspire others in the
work that they are doing
● Foster innovation: This means that the leader should not only think and work
as per the rules. The leader must think out of the box and work with creativity.
The new leadership imperatives focus on creativity and also the simplicity of
work. It might often happen that the workers are unable to understand a topic
that is when the leader needs to use his creativity to make follow the employee.
● Give back: The leader should also have human senses. The leader should raise
funds and make a charity for the betterment of his followers.
● Communicate generously: The use of polite and influencing words is a
considerable aspect of leadership these days. A leader can never become a
proper leader if he does not have the proper ethics and manner. If the leader
communicates politely and makes an order look like a request, even the
employees would be pleased to work for the leader and hence totalize into better
development of the organisation.

These are the significant differences between the old and new methods of leadership.
These changes are just not for theoretical studying. These approaches have been
applied, and proper development has been seen in all the organisations that have
followed the new leadership imperatives.

Proper coaching
Foster Allow
and developing
innovation disruption
based

Communicate
Give back
generously

Figure 3: New leadership Imperatives

(Source: Created by author)

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Strategic development of Organizations

Leadership plays a vital role in all sorts of organisations(Collings 2014). According to present
experiences all the organisations often require the help of the leader in the following areas:
● Planning strategies for growth in long-term
● Measurement of outcomes meaningfully and continuously
● Ways to maximise the administrative and operational efficiencies
● Nurturing and growing human capital

The solutions that are to be provided by a modern leader for the strategic development of the
organisations are:
● Development of the board and training: With the help of the leadership of 21st-
century leadership this process has been created to help people with training.
● Change of process
● Change the management and changing the system
● Competent cultural planning and language management
● Supervision mentoring: The current leadership has helped in mentoring
management as well.
● Organisational verification
● Evaluation outcome-based
● Measurement of performance
● Professional development
● Development of resource planning
● Strategic planning
● Study design
● Team building

Synthesis

As discussed leadership is the main ingredient of any successful organisation. The better the
leader, the better organised and strategically developed the organisation. Therefore all the

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organisation has now improved their leadership methodologies to gain more and more
development. The old methods of leadership are no more used and neither are those ideologies
referred to (Shaikh, 2015). The direction of the 21st century is far more developed and better
in all aspects. The details have been shared above. The organisation in earlier times only had a
minute or no growth at all, and that is why the leadership of 21st century has brought about a
great deal of change resulting in the strategic development of the organisations.

Conclusion

From the above understanding, it can be concluded how the leadership of the 21st century has
brought a change in the development and growth of the organisations. The requirement of
current administration exists in every organisation. In some organisation, the need for new
leadership methods are more, and some are less. But eventually, all the organisation no matter
how big or small will need the leadership of the 21st century if it wants to develop along with
the rapid changes in the globalisation. Apart from direction, there are also many other aspects
which are required for the development of the organisation but over all the aspects leadership
plays a great deal. It is because through the proper leader and proper direction only an
organisation can overcome its limits.

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Reference:

Books
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organisational excellence.
Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson.
Han, H., 2014. How organisations develop activists: Civic associations and leadership in the
21st century. UK Oxford University Press.
Katzenbach, J.R. and Smith, D.K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance
organisation. US Harvard Business Review Press.
Reynolds, M., 2017. Organising reflection. Abingdon, UK Routledge.

Journals
Alwan, Z., Jones, P. and Holgate, P., 2017. Strategic sustainable development in the UK
construction industry, through the framework for sustainable strategic development, using
Building Information Modelling. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.349-358.
Bititci, U., Cocca, P. and Ates, A., 2016. Impact of visual performance management systems
on the performance management practices of organisations. International Journal of
Production Research, 54(6), pp.1571-1593.
Caldwell, C., Hasan, Z. and Smith, S., 2015. Virtuous leadership–insights for the 21st
century. Journal of Management Development, 34(9), pp.1181-1200.
Collings, D.G., 2014. Integrating global mobility and global talent management: Exploring the
challenges and strategic opportunities. Journal of World Business, 49(2), pp.253-261.
Jindal, P. and Shaikh, M., 2015. A Study of Behavioral Training as Talent Management
Strategy in Organisations. Universal Journal of Management, 3(1), pp.1-6.
Male, T. and Palaiologou, I., 2015. Pedagogical leadership in the 21st century: Evidence from
the field. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 43(2), pp.214-231.
Romero, M., Usart, M. and Ott, M., 2015. Can serious games contribute to developing and
sustaining 21st-century skills?. Games and Culture, 10(2), pp.148-177.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Traits of a Leader

(Source:https://www.slideshare.net/jenica_olacao/21st-century-skills-
39907544)

Appendix 2: Old vs New Leadership

(Source: https://www.leadfully.com/blog/leading-world-will-not-stand-still/)

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