Contemporary Management Issues in the 21st Century - Shackleton Leadership Style and Unilever Case Study

This report discusses the challenges faced by management in the 21st century and how the Shackleton leadership style can help. It also includes a case study of Unilever and suggestions for improving management practices. The report emphasizes the importance of teamwork, effective communication, and recognizing the value of workers in achieving organizational goals.

Contemporary
Management Issues in
the 21st Century

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK....................................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
There are various challenges and barriers that faced by the management in the present aspect
, which are basically the transformation in the technology, market trends, choices of the customers,
needs and wants of the clients, economic situation and so on. Every factor affects the profit as well
as the sales of the business (Popkova, and Gulzat, 2019). The business surroundings will develop
with a good speed and discarding all the risk factors will not be able to manage. The predicted risks
might lessen up the possibility of any kind of negative or bad influence on the business. For
accomplishing the setted target of the organisation, it is required to undertake the style of the
Shackleton leadership. This aids in boosting up the performance of the business enterprise. This
respective report describes the Shackleton leadership style as well the essential lessons learned by
the article linked with the contemporary organisation during crisis. This report will analyse the
condition of the organisation related to the leadership and provide some suggestions for enhancing
the performance (Gunasekaran, Subramanian, and Ngai, 2019).
TASK
Shackleton leadership style
This style describes that the leader should be aware about how to make the base of the team
stronger in an efficient way. This is one of the most considered and suitable style that team leaders
of a company can use to increase the productivity by generating more and more profits. It also aids
in developing a positive as well as healthy working surroundings in a company between the
employees, who ensures the cooperation among the group. To accomplish the long term and the
short terms goals of the company, a team should work in coordination with other members by
performing various other different tasks. On the basis of the observance drawn from the article, it
has been seen that the leadership qualities explained by Shackleton are much more effective and
efficient. It is believed that teamwork is important in meeting the needs of the organization and can
be achieved by encouraging employees to work with full energy and dedication. It ensures the
development of employee interest in the performance of assigned tasks (Gutmann, 2018).
Shackleton himself was a great leader, embracing the qualities of a good leader and leading the
team to traverse the Antarctic continent. It is stated by Shackleton that the team must sometimes
work under adverse conditions, but proper guidance and information from the team and leader will
help achieve the desired result. Crossing Antarctica isn’t easy, but team spirit and coordination
along with working together made it possible for the entire team to cross the continent. All people
associated with the team should work to achieve the same goal. It further helps in completing the
assigned task in the allotted time. A good leader is responsible for the work of the whole group. The

team leader also possesses traits such as the ability to make the team perform, persistence, sincerity
and responsiveness. This would further help them deal with challenges that will come their way
while completing certain tasks. A team leader must provide the team with the necessary information
and resources to help them achieve the desired goal. The team leader must show effort to attempt
tasks. You need to be adaptable, adaptive and creative to keep the team working in the right
direction (Jaafar, Zambi, and Fathil, 2021). A team leader must not pressure or burden employees
to complete the task as it is possible for team members to lose interest in completing the required
task. Employees must not be forced to perform complex tasks that require experience without
support or assistance. Instead, a team leader can use specific methods or techniques and guidelines
to motivate employees. This would help change the way employees approach work. Interaction and
communication is one of the most important factors required in a good leader. The leader should
interact with the team members before starting the work or project and also after completing the
given tasks. It is important for team leaders to collect feedback from employees regarding the
working environment, the quality of the work and any difficulties that may arise. There must be a
peaceful environment in the team. And if conflicts arise between employees, the team leader must
resolve them harmoniously by keeping an open mind. A team leader should treat each individual
employee as an asset, recognizing that each of them is valuable to both the team and the company.
The leader should have a clear vision of the goal they are working hard for. You should create a
complete strategic plan before embarking on any project. Only then can they give team members a
brief overview of the task. Employees should be assigned work that fits their knowledge and
expertise. Otherwise, so much chaos will lead to confusion and arguments among team members.
The team leader should encourage employees to come up with their ideas and they must include
them in the team’s decision-making process. A team leader needs to know employees’ internal
strengths and weaknesses so that they can work on weaknesses to make specific improvements to
them. You are obliged to clear any doubts of the employees in order to avoid discrepancies of any
kind (Kadiyono, and et. Al, 2020).
From the article above, it is clear that a team leader should have the qualities of a good
leader so that they can lead and guide the team effectively. The major target of a team is to
accomplish the goal of company. This is only possible when there is a sense of collaboration and
coordination between the members of a team. They need to be properly trained by their respective
team leaders in order to work efficiently. The article looks at the Shackleton style of leadership that
must be adopted by organizations to ensure the smooth functioning of the business. All the
attributes of a good leader are mentioned in this article including enthusiasm, clarity to carry out
various tasks, ability to deal with complex situations, maintaining coordination between team
members, interacting with co-workers regularly and many more (Sandybayev, 2019).

Contemporary management
To understand the concept of contemporary management, the company Unilever is selected,
which has a well-known brand image in the UK. The company faces many challenges related to
poor leadership, such as: Weak organizational framework, staff disagreements, no or insufficient
training of team members, etc. All of these hinder the performance of the company and also affect
the productivity, quality and turnover of the organization. Managers of the company have created a
dominant culture in the organization. They unnecessarily burden new hires without adequate
training. You don’t interact with employees. Due to the autocratic nature of the administration,
employees cannot express their opinions and views on discussions within a company (Xie, and et.
Al, 2018).
Suggestions
• Use of the Shackleton style of leadership - this is proposed as the management of the Unilever
company, which was required to change the corporate structure and management style of a
company to address challenges that were responsible for reducing the company’s productivity. You
must use Shackleton’s leadership style to effectively lead people as they work on their own ability
to achieve the organization’s stated goals.
• Recognizing the value of workers - Workers should be allowed to participate in the decision-
making process to express their opinions and views in a certain way. New employees must be
trained before being assigned a task. The leader of a team needs to interact with the member of his
team to reduce the possibility of any kind of conflict within the team members (Syakur, and et. Al,
2020). This helps provide clarity to a team member regarding each action.
CONCLUSION
The conclusion from the above report is that the business environment consists of external
factors that affect the functioning of the business enterprise. The Shackleton leadership style offers
several characteristics that a good leader possesses. It must be noted that every individual possesses
such traits, but the thing is that they are unaware of these traits. In order to understand the concept
of a preferred leader, one should work on it. This could be achieved by improving and incorporating
the required elements of a good leader. A person who has the sense of leadership can lead the team
effectively and efficiently. It explains and recommends the concept of contemporary management
through a case study of the Unilever company.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
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artificial intelligence. In Institute of Scientific Communications Conference (pp. 339-345).
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Gunasekaran, Subramanian, and Ngai, 2019. Quality management in the 21st century enterprises:
Research pathway towards Industry 4.0. International journal of production economics, 207,
pp.125-129.
Gutmann, 2018. Consulting the Past: Integrating Historians into History‐Based Leadership
Studies. Journal of Leadership Studies, 12(2), pp.35-39.
Jaafar, Zambi, and Fathil, 2021. Leadership style: Is it autocratic, democratic or laissez-
faire?. Journal of Management and Business Studies, 3(1), pp.1-7.
Kadiyono, and et. Al, 2020. Develop leadership style model for indonesian teachers performance in
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Xie, and et. Al, 2018. Leadership style and innovation atmosphere in enterprises: An empirical
study. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 135, pp.257-265.
Sandybayev, 2019. Impact of effective entrepreneurial leadership style on organizational
performance: Critical review. International Journal of Economics and Management, 1(1),
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Syakur, and et. Al, 2020. Sustainability of communication, organizational culture, cooperation, trust
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Research and Critics Institute (BIRCI-Journal): Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(2),
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