Importance Of Efficient Leadership In The 21st Century

Leadership in the 21st century

Efficient leadership is very important for any business operating in the 21^st century. It is also not confined to organization and business firms but also covers the area of government, politics, religion and education (Renzulli, 2012). In an organization, the role of business leaders is to strategically define the goals and vision of the company and ensure that is should be followed in the same manner to get higher level of success.

The leader in 21^st century are more focused towards power than trust and in most of the cases, organization gets the path of failure due to the selection of wrong leader and giving them much power than they deserved. Therefore, trust is a crucial element, which needs to be incorporated in the leaders (Schaubroeck, Lam and Peng, 2011). In addition, to recognize what kind of leader must be suitable in this scenario, it is necessary to get the exact definition of the leader and its related function.

In the betterment of the organization, the leader performs the process of directing and organizing a group of employees. The role of leader is not confined to just leading team but also to inspire and motivate the employees for achieving the goals and objective of an organization in an effective manner (Zhang, Wang and Shi, 2012). In this ^21st century, the major task of leader includes realization of oneself, communication of vision to all the individuals and employees, build trust in them for the achievement of that vision and making efforts with full leadership potential.

• Trait Theory– This theory is used to predict leadership effectiveness and it is based on the characteristics of various leaders. According to this theory, a combination of relevant set of skills and traits can give rise to the leader (Colbert, Judge, Choi and Wang, 2012). The important traits that leader must possess are situation flexibility, reserved towards societal environment, cooperative, dominant to motivate and inspire others, determinant towards the quality of work and show responsibility towards the work assigned.
• Some of the skills that leader must possess are being creative, intelligent and clever, capability of innovation, diplomatic, organizing and directing ability, socially competent, and fluent conversant.
• Behavioural theory– According to this theory, leaders are recognized by the work they performed and not by born with certain traits or skills. If a person has the ability to learn things and quality of defining, it can make transform into an effective leader.
• Participative leadership – In participative leadership, while taking decision relation to an achievement of the objective, it is important to consider all the necessary feedback from the fellow employees and then the decision needs to be formulated (Huang, Iun, Liu and Gong, 2010). This theory states that an autocratic decision taken by the leader will never be effective. Also a leader needs to focus that he could not ignore his subordinates while listening to opinion and not considering it.

Participative leadership also have three styles defined by Lewin’s – 

• Autocratic style – Taking of decision by the leader without consulting with the subordinates. The reason may be that opinions made by the subordinates may have no effect on the decision-making.

• Democratic style – In this style, leaders involve their fellow employees in the decision making process but the final decision needs to be taken by the leader only. Sometimes, this style also leads to a problem when the leader gets various range of opinions and this cause difficulty in reaching on a final decision.

• Laissez-faire style – This style imposed the restriction of a leader in the process of decision-making. This style can be seen when the employees make their own decisions and also there is not any requirement of the central coordination (Skogstad et al, 2007).

• Situational leadership – In situational leadership, an effective leader must align its business objective with the social environment and other situational aspects. It includes three forces relating to situation, follower and leader. This leadership also consider being variable leadership style.
• Contingency leadership – Contingent leader are those who take decision by considering various contingent and situational factors.
• Transactional theory– In this theory, the transactional leader execute his subordinate in an activity exchange regime. Employees can be encouraged with the help of rewards and recognition (McCleskey, 2014). Moreover, a transactional leader must frame structure of work to his subordinates.
• Transformational theory– According to this theory, leaders motivate their subordinates to change their expectation and perception towards the work and objective. 

The former chairman and CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz try to initiate a microlending programme in association with Community Development Financial Institution. In USA, there was a time when the situation of unemployment is prevailing and small businessman could not able to get credit card. However, Schultz convinces the American citizen to participate in the donation campaign, which would be lent out to small businessmen who would ultimately produce employment prospects. The worth of lending generated by this program was about $350 million and creates jobs. With the help of Starbucks branch, his employees and customers, Schultz did this. This proved to be an example of participatory leadership where the collaboration is made with all individuals in order to achieve a common objective. Schultz also represents the role of a situational leader who made it possible while the bank and government failed to do so.

Definition of a leader

There are also five sources of power formulated by French and Raven –

• Positional Power – It is also divided into three types of power i.e., Reward, coercive and legitimate power (Elias, 2008)
• Personal Power – It is also characterised into two types of power i.e. Expert power and referent power. 

Leaders come from various diverse groups and from wide arenas like racial, socioeconomic nationalities and religious background (Walumbwa and Schaubroeck, 2009). One can distinct the leader on the basis of his/her work, not from the designation. It can be ascertained that half of the leaders are CEOs and the other half consists of youth, mid-career and non-profit leaders.

For getting more further knowledge about how leaders are born and transformed, a story of Andrea Jung is taken. She was the former CEO of Avon products and after becoming of her CEO, the structure of the company vision completely changed (Lee and James, 2007). The organization, Avon is focused on selling of beauty products but Andrea tends the vision towards the women empowerment. The workforce of Avon rise to 5.5 million from 1.5 million and acquiring economic independence with their own efforts. The foundation in respect with Avon Women was also rewarded $1 billion to reinforce health and empowerment issues and this makes the organization focus towards largest women oriented corporate around the globe (Peterson and Philpot, 2007).

It can be said that Jung is a woman with strong determination. She was initially hired as the president of the marketing group in relation with US operations. In application with trait theory, Jung uses various combinations of skills i.e. assertion, determination, cooperation, and this led her to open up with a new Avon Apparel line, which got success in one shot. She also has the trait of constant innovation as she came up with slogan of “Just another Avon lady”. This step helps her in branding the corporation as hipper and younger.

Becoming the first ever female CEO of Avon was not a quality that Andrea Jung was born with. Her potential, performance and work determination led her to create a designation for herself in the company. Considering the behavioural theory, it is learned that no person is born with leadership qualities and it is the work which makes an individual to be recognized as a leader.

In respect with extending of women empowerment in the world, Andrea has ping an example of participative leader as she lends the credit to the sales representative and this makes the objective accomplished in relation of involvement of employees. In addition, as Jung introduces a new brand line in respect with women apparel, the objective of transformation theory of leadership is also accomplished. She had successfully motivated and inspire her employees to invent creative ideas by introducing a new line of business under the same brand name.

Participative leadership

One such happening incident also took place with the emergence of the epidemic breast cancer and this was spreading like a wildfire. Once a time in USA, when the incident of breast cancer covered 99% percent of the population and count of death was reached to about 100% of population (Glass, Lacey Jr, Carreon and Hoover, 2007). Andrea Jung took this epidemic as a cause and determines herself to end this. These steps make her a situational and contingent leader.

Up to the 20^th century, leaders are more perceived to be oppressive and powerful but with the emergence of 21^st century, leaders characterised has been changed (Van Vugt, Hogan and Kaiser, 2008). Employees now are more aware and have question about the benefits, work structure, payment, etc. Therefore, leader cannot misuse their position now for the purpose of exploitation of the worker.

It is ascertained that leading yourself is the toughest job. I need to follow six principles to inculcate leader in myself –

• I need learn self-awareness aspect to diagnose good and faulty trait in me and a possibility to make them right.
• Practicing principles and value when things are in your favour and on easy task. The issue raised when the pressure of time exercised over these principles.
• To stay focused, it is very important to bring a supportive team.
• Integration of life and work is also required to be embedded.
• I must need to make balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.
• My passion in relation with leadership must need to be expressed.

In relation to the leadership skills, Andrea Jung receives a Clinton Global Citizen Award. I would have acted in the same manner but I as a leader would also like to focus on giving employment and empower those who do not have work. Women empowerment is very necessary but employment on large-scale basis irrespective of gender is urgent.

In 2008, there were the corruption charges placed on Avon in China in respect with Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (Hemdon, 2008). These corruptions charges were against the employees. For the business expansion, diversification is necessary but it is also important to manager officials in spectating matters related to the corruption in the multinational branches. To prevent the act of corrupt practices, I would have appointed more officials. PETS also delisted Avon, as the company did not test their products on animals as per the China policy to perform corporate operations in their nation (Thompson, 2014). In my opinion, it is important to follow the rules and policies of a respective country where business need to carry out. In terms of strategic management, it is the responsibility of the leader to bind the corporation together so as to run the business effectively.

I could have considered the above leadership style and strategy with some other perspectives for the objective of ensuring higher level of success.

Conclusion 

In this report, a critical evaluation is done with respect to the various leadership styles and theories. This analysis needs to be considered highly effective for meeting out the strategic goals of the business corporation. An analysis is also being carried out in respect to the leadership style of Andrea Jung, former CEO of Avon. This study indicated that the leader has been highly enthusiastic in terms of making the organization to a level of success. Her leadership style was successful in achieving higher revolutionary development to the entire organization performance. Apart from these, bringing new line of Avon apparel seems to be highly visionary in nature and have great influential capabilities that can transform the business into a higher level of success. The analysis also includes what could have been done by me differentially and adaption of the participative leadership style in order to achieve highly efficient performance conditions.

References 

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