Challenges Faced by the 21st Century Leadership - Essay Example

Leadership Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 4 Leadership 4 Diversity as a challenge 4 Need for diversity management 5 Diversity outlook in the next5 years 6 Diversity management in IBM 7 Conclusion 7 References 9 Introduction Leadership within an organization is a process which presents continuous challenges to both the abilities and the skills of a leader in managing the external and the internal issues and changes within the organization. One of the most important facets of leadership is that the leader has to evolve and adapt according to the changing circumstances inside the business as well as in the external environment of the business. There may be a number of challenges for leadership within an organization. These may include emerging challenges like terrorism, global climate changes, technological changes, international competition, diversity and mobility of workforces etc. apart from the traditional challenges of motivating and developing the workforce, supporting growth and development within the organization and guiding the organization in the right direction even in situations of crisis and contingency. This project aims at discussing an important challenges faced by the 21st century leadership. The report includes an identification of a significant challenge for leadership. The specific challenge selected for the paper is the management of a mobile and diverse workforce. The report includes an overview of leadership followed by a discussion of diversity as a main global challenge in leadership and the need for diversity management in all kinds of locally and internationally functioning organizations. A section encompassing the discussion of the diversity management outlook in the next five years is also included. A case of diversity management through leadership in IBM is used as a real life example to demonstrate the leadership functions related to diversity management within an organization. The report is suitably concluded by summarising the main findings from the overall discussion of the different perspectives of diversity management as a challenge to leadership in organizations. Discussion Leadership The functions of a modern day leader are multifaceted and more complex than those defined as per the norms of traditional leadership. The aspect of leadership within a modern organization includes a consideration of both the complexities and issues within and outside the organization. Inside an organization, leadership involves the management of the workforce, in which they have to create, motivate and lead a heterogeneous and mobile group of people, achieve organizational growth, improve individual and organizational efficiency levels as well as work across the boundaries of the organization (Gentry and Leslie, 2012). Also, from the external perspectives of a business, the leaders have to function in a complex and continuously changing globalized environment that requires them to manage a number of varied issues like increasing competition level, external threats and contingences, meeting the expectations and needs of the internal and external stakeholder groups, managing the requirements of the governments and other international regulatory authorities and complying with the global requirements related to ethicality and sustainability (Ferris, Treadway, Kolodinsky, Hochwarter, Kacmar, Douglas and Frink, 2005). Diversity as a challenge The employees of an organization are the most important internal stakeholder groups that the organization should manage efficiently in order to improve performance and effectiveness (Boyatzis, 2001). All types of organizations, irrespective of their scales of operation, industry or geographical location have to focus on developing a motivated and efficient group of employees. The human resource being the most crucial asset for a business, the leaders in a business have to continuously focus on managing and maintaining a dynamic and satisfied workforce (Ferris, Davidson and Perrewé, 2005). One of the major challenges faced by the leaders of businesses across the globe is that of the management of a diverse and mobile workforce. Due to the extensive popularity of globalization, the cross border movement of workforce have become a common practice in the international business environment. As such, almost all the employers across the world have to deal with the recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce (Gentry, Harris, Baker and Leslie, 2008). Diversity is not only based on race, colour and creed but diversity can also be seen for the aspects of gender, age, religion, language and cultural background. In order to sustain in the global business world and in order to keep up an ethical image for a company, the leaders of the company have to ensure that they are able to enforce the equal opportunity employer profile for the company and are also able to ensure the maintenance of unbiased approaches and fair and equal treatment to all the employees in the organization, irrespective of their gender, race, colour, creed, religion or background. While functioning in a global environment, the leaders of a business have to focus on many cultural aspects. The leaders have to work across wide cultural goals and boundaries and often have to manage employees who are significantly different from them in terms of mindset, cultural backgrounds and origin. Therefore, the leaders have to develop unique and innovative ways to deal with different kinds of people in order to motivate them and get the necessary work in the organization completed in an efficient and timely manner (Harvey, 2012). Need for diversity management Fostering workforce diversity is based on the development of an organizational culture that not only recognises but also embraces the differences between every employee. The need for diversity is huge in all types of organizations because the maintenance of a diverse workforce is known to create financial, operational and overall organizational value (Harvey and Allard, 2012). Diversity management is also important for the creation of a productive and inclusive workforce. The economic and moral incentives of creating a fair and unbiased organizational culture strengthen the motive for the management of a diverse workforce by the leaders of a present day organizations (Eisenberg, Goodall and Trethewey, 2010). Diversity outlook in the next 5 years Embracing diversity is a key challenge for all levels of employees within an organization. The estimations by researchers and scholars in the field do human resource management imply that the diversity of workforces is likely to increase at an accelerated rate over the next 5 years (Gwendolyn, 2012). Encouraging the establishment and management of a heterogeneous group of employees within an organization would continue requiring effective management and leadership practices within a company (Stiehm, 2002). Diversity needs to be engraved within the organizational culture if the organization wants to build up a responsible, ethical and dependable image for itself in the minds of the global customer and employee groups. The management of a heterogeneous workforce and the development of an unbiased and fair organizational environment can be done through the development of fair and justified leadership practices (Mintzberg, 2005). In the future, there would be two main roles of leadership in a company. These would be the creation of a group of leaders within an organization who would be actively invoked in the development of programs that would bring about positive changes in the organizational culture (Yukl, 2006). The second goal of leadership would be to inspire the management of diversity within the employee groups. This would include an identification, recognition and acceptance of diversity and heterogeneity within then employee group of a company. This would require the display of leadership that would be equipped to eradicate oppression in all forms and would lead to the creation of a dependable, dynamic and motivated employee group. This would in turn lead to the enhancement of organizational productivity, efficiency and subsequently the profitability and continued success of the business organization (Gentry and Sosik, 2010). Diversity management in IBM Managing diversity is seen as the strategy for the creation of competitive advantage in many international organizations among which IBM has been a pioneer in developing and managing a widely diverse workforce. The leadership practices of IBM have always been unique and innovative and the leaders in the company have strived to ensure diversity and inclusion of people as well as thought in all levels of the company (Scouller, 2011). The company has built up and encouraged leadership practices to efficiently meet the external challenges faced by the company. Also, IBM has developed leaders over years who have managed to recognize and accept diversity in a wide array of areas including general diversity, gender diversity, diversity on the basis of physical disabilities, colour as well as social and cultural backgrounds (Brooke, 2012). Conclusion The leaders in modern businesses need to enhance their existing leadership styles and develop new leadership skills in order to adapt to the external and internal challenges faced by a business. Diversity management is found to be one of the main challenges faced by companies and as such by the leaders functioning in these companies in all corners of the globe. Since the trans-border flow of human capital is expected to increase by multiple times in the future, therefore, it is critical for the leaders to develop suitable strategies and practices to manage, encourage and support diversity in the companies. Leaders can develop the skills for diversity management through training and development practices and through the attainment of varied people management skills. References Boyatzis, R. E. 2001. Transforming Qualitative Information. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Brooke, L. 2012. Human resource costs and benefits of maintaining a mature-age workforce. International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 24 (3), pp.260-283. Eisenberg, E. M. & Goodall, H. L. & Trethewey, A. 2010. Organizational Communication (6th Ed.). London: Sage. Ferris, G. R., Davidson, S. L., & Perrewé, P. L. 2005. Political Skill at Work: Impact on Work Effectiveness. Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black Publishing. Ferris, G. R., Treadway, D. C., Kolodinsky, R. W., Hochwarter, W. A., Kacmar, C. J., Douglas, C., & Frink, D. D. 2005. Development and validation of the political skill inventory. Journal of Management, Vol. 31(2), pp. 126-152. Gentry, W. A., & Leslie, J. B. 2012. Developing Political Savvy. 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