Mastering Leadership Challenges of 21St Century

Abstract

Leadership can be defined as the art of guiding an individual, a group or an organization towards predefined goals. Leadership is generally touted as an art, meaning that it is largely a reflection of the character and style of its possessors. However it must also be remembered that every leader or manager does use a combination of theory and practice in guiding the organization towards achieving its goals. In that context, leadership reflects the leader's values, experience and capabilities in dealing with situations where the outcome is unpredictable and dependent on a host of changing factors and circumstances. Success as a leader would therefore depend on individual responses to a situation that may be novel for the organization. Effective leadership would therefore be a combination of the intellect, energy, courage, temperament and other core values of the leader. However it would be foolish to ignore the distilled wisdom and thoughts of management scientists and practitioners of the discipline in our culture. Leadership is not static but dynamic- it must continually evolve, as the world must keep learning. Managers have a significant role in the leadership in their organization. In increasingly competitive and fast changing times Managers have a major responsibility to ensure that teams deliver quality services and products. The paper is a synthesis of the description, roles, attributes and challenges faced by the leaders of today. Starting with the role of the manager/leader in today's business world, it looks at theories explaining the nature and role of leadership, the attributes of a leader and how these can be learned and developed. It looks at the manager/ leader operating under different constraints with the boundaries of organizational cultures.