Write a five (5) page paper not including the cover page, table of contents, or references in APA format.
2 THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES OF TODAY Laura Achury Leadership Dr. Annie Cruez-Samuels Table of Contents Introduction3 What Makes a Good Leader?3 Skills and Traits Required to Deal with Leadership Challenges4 Understanding Behaviors of Leader under Different Organizational Structure5 Leadership Models in Workplace5 Conclusion7 References8 The leadership challenges of today In today’s technological world each leader must face challenges in different fields starting from handling the team members to managing the outside threats encountered by the organization. Failure to communicate, lack of alignment, lack of accountability, lack of clear vision, mission, goal, fear of firing, mismanaging team members and poor execution are some of the challenges that are faced by today’s leaders. With the changing and developing market, leaders must keep themselves updated to mitigate the consequences. Organizations always require leaders who might inspire as well as encourage the entire team to operate together to conquer the obstacles and meet the required objectives. What Makes a Good Leader? Great leaders always have a clear goal, mission as well as vision and possess humility, integrity and honesty. They encourage confidence among the team members and produces new as well as innovative ideas within the organization. Good leaders are not those individuals who strictly instruct the works and receive the task from the team members forcefully, but rather they are someone who guide the team, motivate the team members to be energetic, boost confidence and achieve the targeted works smoothly. They are purely committed to improve the organization’s productivity and mentor the team members through several effective meetings as well as exercises (Baker, 2019). The leaders are connected efficiently with the team members by sharing the organization’s vision and objectives in a way that is simply well understood by them. Effective communication is yet another skill that should be enchanted by a good leader in order to understand each team members along with their personal traits. Paying attention and listening to each opinion produced by the team members creates a good leader and in this way, a leader can establish a good rapport with the team members. Hence, a good leader should be perceived as a role model by setting examples among the team members, as the team members should always admire their leader within the workplace. Skills and Traits Required to Deal with Leadership Challenges Leaders are the pillar of the organization who conquer and fight against any evil confronted by them. They are the one who not only deals with the inside organizational threat but also brawl with the outside challenges. In order to overcome the leadership challenges, leaders need to concentrate on certain basic skills, which includes empathy, positive attitude, confidence, honesty, creativity, dedication, humility, commitment, enthusiasm and well-defined goals to achieve the success. A great leader should always have confidence on their personal values as well as beliefs, should always make tough decisions, earn the respect of the team members and understand the strength of the organization. In terms of traits and competencies, the leaders should possess accurate knowledge regarding the technological perspectives as today’s clients demand more innovative and digital market rather than manual and traditional one (Cortellazzo, Bruni & Zampieri, 2019). The leaders should understand the concept of social intelligence in order to handle the clients as well as the market and should grab the idea of conflict management. They should hold their strong grip over change management and should initiate powerful decision whenever organization required. Interpersonal skills should be developed among them and they should establish a trustworthy relationship with the team member. Motivating and guiding the team is not only the work of a good leader, but also, they should have a keen observational power on the clients and should educate themselves to handle them vigorously. Understanding Behaviors of Leader under Different Organizational Structure Usually, organizations are structured in four types of functional structure, flat, hierarchy, matrix and divisional structure. All these organizational structures are either centralized or decentralized. These organizational structures determine how the responsibilities, roles, duties and power would be assigned, coordinated and controlled. Through these organizational structures, leaders and other get to know how information flows between the different levels of management. Under these organizational structures, the behavior of the leaders can be assessed through their performances of the assigned roles and responsibilities. The leaders in this regard try to maintain each role with full dedication and highlight themselves as a role model in front of the team. Every organization demands certain behavioral approach from a true leader, which might include relationship-oriented behavior, task-oriented behavior, job-centered behavior, or employee member-centered behavior. They are supposing to follow each of the above-mentioned behavioral approaches in the different organizational structure to maintain the decorum and guide the entire team of the institution. In today’s challenging situation, these behavioral approaches are highly needed for a true leader in order to mitigate the threats and control organizational power (Asgari, Mezginejad & Taherpour, 2020). Leadership Models in Workplace There are different leadership models in workplace, which are usually followed by the leaders (Govender, 2017). Firstly, the transformational leadership model is that kind of leadership model, where a leader achieves their goals through open lines of communication, innovative procedures, demonstrating the integrity and holding the respect from the staff (Ardi et al., 2020). This model highlights the adaptability of the leaders in changes and transformation. Secondly, the transactional leadership models that kind of leadership style that focuses on supervision, organization and performance of the leaders through reward or punishment procedure. This type of leadership is often found within those leaders who are usually practical in nature and prefers a hierarchical environment in order to build an improved corporate structure and suitable cultural phenomena (Donkor & Zhou, 2020). Thirdly, servant leadership model is that form of style, which focuses on helping the organization thrive and here the servant leaders prioritize the need of their employees first. A servant leader plays their role to share the power, to put the need of others first, to listen empathetically what employees says, creating conceptualization and possessing stewardship. Fourthly, charismatic leadership model is that form, where the leaders allow the team to participate, share their opinion as well as passion for the vision and it brings rewards in the form of employee engagement (Shamir & Howell, 2018). Fifthly, autocratic leadership models do not allow the leaders to consult with others or take their opinion into consideration while taking any decision. Next comes the democratic leadership model, where the leaders are found to encourage the staffs in participating in any form of works and produce their valuable opinion. Next comes the laissez-faire leadership model, where the leaders provide the necessary tool to the employees and then step back to allow the staff to work with that provided equipment. Next, the bureaucratic leadership model allows the leader to follow each rule and protocols of the organization strictly. Among all the above-mentioned leadership models the most unbiased leadership approaches are transformational leadership and servant leadership model as both are employee friendly as well as deals with the interest of others and both proved more effective for business success as well as employee motivation in both short and long-term run. With the help of these leadership models the leaders could successfully able to mitigate any kind of challenges faced by then in today’s digital and modern era. Conclusion From the above essay, it can be concluded that true leaders have the capacity to conquer against any challenges faced by the organization and guide the entire team accordingly. It is the true spirit as well as the skills of a leader, which assist them to control any kind of threats and strongly hold a decision, which might lead the organization towards positive direction and shape the success. The several unbiased leadership models along with the behavioral approaches help a leader to overcome any kind of challenges within any organizational structure. References Ardi, A., Djati, S. P., Bernarto, I., Sudibjo, N., Yulianeu, A., Nanda, H. A., & Nanda, K. A. (2020). The Relationship between Digital Transformational Leadership Styles and Knowledge-Based Empowering Interaction for Increasing Organizational Innovativeness. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 11(3), 259-277 Asgari, A., Mezginejad, S., & Taherpour, F. (2020). The role of leadership styles in organizational citizenship behavior through the mediation of perceived organizational support and job satisfaction. Innovar, 30(75), 87-98 Baker, C. (2019). What makes a good leader. Early Years Educator, 21(7), 33-34 Cortellazzo, L., Bruni, E., & Zampieri, R. (2019). The role of leadership in a digitalized world: A review. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1938 Donkor, F., & Zhou, D. (2020). Organizational commitment influences on the relationship between transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles and employee performance in the Ghanaian public service environment. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 30(1), 30-36 Govender, K. K. (2017). Leadership styles, organization culture and employee performance. International Review of Management and Marketing, 7(4), 191 Shamir, B., & Howell, J. M. (2018). Organizational and contextual influences on the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leadership. In Leadership now: Reflections on the legacy of Boas Shamir