Challenges of Leadership in Today's Era

This article discusses the challenges faced by leaders in today's dynamic business environment and provides strategies to overcome them. It emphasizes the importance of inspiring employees, effective communication skills, and developing teams and employees. By implementing these strategies, leaders can enhance their leadership skills and create a positive work environment.

LEADERSHIP

Introduction
Leadership is a dual focused management concept that strives to see the appropriateness for a
person and for the whole group. Leadership is a process that helps a person to become
empowered and influential in regards to become a decision maker so that it can influence the
employees and guide them in a way, which can encourage achievement of the goals.
Impactful characteristics of a leader lead them to stand at either the top-level management or
any level in the organisation Le (Fevre, & Robinson, 2015). The emphasized attitude of a
leader with skills and abilities are relevant to current operations of the company. The
important and renowned skills of the leader are relevant to the skills that can be applied to the
operations of the company. These skills are meant so that it can be applied during the hard
times (Ford, 2015).
The challenge of leadership today`s era
With the increase in the dynamic nature of the business and being influenced by globalisation
and liberalisation. In order to develop a broader and deep insight in the concept of leadership
to understand the worldview of others. The worldview is the total image of all the
subordinates created from the lenses of various people in the world. Individual perspective
has been transformed by self-attitude, believe system, culture, extrinsic forces, opinions, and
the surrounding he is working and living (Ford, 2015). In dynamic business environment, a
business strives to get maximum opportunity due to free trade practises over the domestic
boundaries. Leadership in today`s era is the collective and individual response to the business
world so that it can bring a better change. A practical understanding of leadership is
responsive which is needed in highly independent world that is full of huge complexity, risky
environment, and accelerating changes (Fevre, & Robinson, 2015). Today`s leadership
perspective is intended to respond to several unique challenges as the paradigm of the
leadership which are drawn upon integration of various theories and other practises that have

wide range of traditions and disciplines in order to foster the practical knowledge and
transformational changes to service to the world (Ford, 2015). Today`s leader is more above
traits, behaviour, and the styles of leadership, today`s leader has the huge social network.
Leadership is integrative and multidimensional view of leadership, which is based on
relationships. Leadership brings forward many new ways of becoming wellbeing, doing,
knowing, by accomplishing it with the development nature of individual`s life Le (Fevre, &
Robinson, 2015). Current leader is oriented towards collaborative, administrative functions,
distinct dimensions, development needs to focus, inclusive so that they can create a social
good with organisation’s sustainability. Most importantly, the leadership traits are limited to
critical thinking, creativity, communication, social intelligence, self-awareness, cultural
intelligence, team facilitation, and other collaborative processions. There are many challenges
faced by the leader while handling and tackling the diversified organisational culture (Fevre,
& Robinson, 2015).
With the evolution of technology, challenges faced by the leaders have become more
dynamic. An appropriate way to gauge the challenges of leadership would lead to conduction
of survey from different countries and different business (Reid, 2017). While identifying the
challenges, team building emerges a challenge, which is difficult to navigate in their teams
due to difference in culture and background, which has become hindrance to the direction
towards success (Reid, 2017). Encouraging employees is another issue with current leader in
order to put more effort and enhance their skills (Reid, 2017). Change management is another
difficulty to adopt the new changes in the policies and training processes in order to motivate
the employees. Most of organisational surveys reveals that it is not at all easy for the
employees to deal with the internal politics caused due to power, position, jealousy, and other
personal issues. Due to difficult situations and current dissatisfaction among the employees, a
leader is in dilemma that whether to handle the complex situation or handle the employees

because inspiring them to work harder during the complex situation can drive those monetary
incentives and job satisfaction. Managerial effectiveness is lacking behind in the industry as a
person with maximum resources usually engage into business organisation and they are not
able to cope up with the consequences of leader`s responsibilities. It is important for a leader
to update the skills according to the requirement of the world such as time management,
prioritising, and the decision making of the main leader that has found difficult to find and
manage. Leaders will have to understand the issue of dynamic situations and the corporate
catastrophe; a leader can enrol a leadership development program and hire a mentor. Leader
should be effective enough in order to impose power, control the employees, and lead the
companies. A leader should be determined enough to resolve professional and personal
strikes and conflicts. A leader should be role model to the employees. The concept of
leadership is considered as beyond the concepts of governance and other new realms of the
activities. For instance- leader always creates a different culture in the organisation that
insists the followers to follow sense of vision to achieve the purpose. Building the cultures
further materialises the culture and creating it remain transformed, changed and created.
As per gentry’s challenges faced by the leaders, it is important to know diversification and
liberalisation of economies have changed the approach of leadership challenges. Managerial
effectiveness is the challenge faced by the organisations, which includes improper planning
of task, distribution of work, strategic thinking, prioritising, and improper estimation of goals
due to dynamic environment (Leih, & Teece, 2016). Other challenge is the coaching, training
and mentoring because a leader is in the pressure of the organisation because it leads to
increase in costs. Development of a team is most difficult, and supporting the team in every
concern as a leader is not diversified in every field. Huge teams are difficult to handle
especially when it is associated to the virtual teams because it is easy to communicate people
when they are in in house teams whereas virtual teams provides diversified people to handle

different concerns but are difficult to controlled due to lack of communication (Leih, &
Teece, 2016). Other challenge at the global level is to manage different departments due to
difference in culture, beliefs, and values. The more risk is associated to mitigate the risks with
environmental challenges, and managing the changes which is used in further leadership.
Every business concern wants to earn maximum profits and a leader finds the proper solution
in the troubling complex business situation. Workload is extremely critical to challenges as
different activities and projects are drived with the limited resources as it is more of juggling
priorities that remains at the forefront (McKeown, & Carey, 2015). Other challenge is the
motivational issue. For instance- there are people in the organisation who are the same level
of position for more than 10-12 years. Development of business knowledge and the sense of
business knowledge will get the team members into trigger as the team often dedication and
trust. Lack of training leads to challenge while making strategies and other change initiative.
Lack of experience and critical thinking leads to management of internal stakeholders and
politics (Kickbusch, Cassels, & Liu, 2016). The issue is the challenge managing the
relationships, image, reputation, and politics in order to gain managerial support and manage
the groups, individual, and departments. Leading the business in the corporate world are led
by transformational program, which involves consolidation of offerings, driving the customer
centric products, well manageable, outsourcing and reduction in the number of the headcount
(Priest, & Gass, 2017). It becomes difficult to convince the stakeholders that follow regional
direction. Leaders often questions how to enhance each department and add more value to the
organisation in both strategic and operational perspective (McKeown, & Carey, 2015). Even
after modifying the solicit feedback, many leaders are not able to update emotional and
intellectual need according to the changes in the demand of the customers. Other challenge is
that it is very difficult to identify the background culture of the employee and create
transparency in the working of the employee where the candidate can make self-decision and

other can trust because it is necessary to know the knowledge and analytical knowledge of
leader (Kickbusch, Cassels, & Liu, 2016). The internet has changed the way of workplace
cultures work and team dynamics and this brings more responsibility because the length of
team has been extended in form of virtual teams. A leader often become too bossy who leads
and enforces employee`s thinking. It is significant to enhance the collaborative culture so that
they can embed respect (Kickbusch, Cassels, & Liu, 2016). Issues in leadership in some of
the countries brings out that India, US, Spain, UK, China and Egypt says that they have
identified several issues associated with team building issues in different nations because
each one has different concerns (Legner et al., 2017). With the differences in the human
behaviour, leader has to well acquaint with the background issue because any issue that can
be unbearable to one person and it can intolerable to another employee, which may differ due
to difference in ages, sensitivity and strong will (Iordanoglou, 2018). Team building find it
very difficult to steer to teams towards the teams that can direct them towards success (Ropo,
2019). Handling the change management in the organisation is another challenge, as it is not
easy to drop and the process of previous work and adopt the new method by delegating the
same level of profitability and success (Shamir, & Shamir, 2018). It is not at all accept the
changes at the same level as it differs from personality to personality. Internal politics is
another hindrance to the change management (Iordanoglou, 2018). For example- while
adopting new technology as required by the demand of the industry, it is necessary to provide
training facilities to the employees as per the changes made by the organisation. Job
satisfaction is another issue because once a person receives a level of position in the
organisation, he strives to get more and manages to handle more issues (O'Connor, & Myers,
2018). However, it is undoubted that in every organisation, the growth is limited by the
position because it has limited seat of manager, senior manager and even the manager of
different franchised organisation (Legner, 2017). Pacing and creating the rules in the

evolvement of the scenario can satisfy a difficult situation but still adopting up with the same
change in the dynamic environment and managerial effectiveness (Iordanoglou, 2018).
After identifying the challenges, it can be said that it is important to share common
experiences for middle and top-level management that is quite useful for a leader and
subordinates. In order to address these challenges, a leader should have learning attitude so
that it keep changing his attitude according to the environment in which they are operating
(Grint, Jones, & Holt, 2016). Further, he should undertake to build a leadership development
plan as it indicates setting up of goals, timeline, deadline so that a leader can keep the team
self–driven by the goals, and keep the team on track. Other more distractions are politics,
conflicts among the employees, dynamic changes in the digital world, and higher employee
turnover. Honourable approach includes SMART way that define itself as specific,
measurable, timed, attainable and realistic approach (Grint, Jones, & Holt, 2016).
Ways to overcome the challenges
1. Inspire the employees
One of the best ways to make the employees work is to inspire them and to motivate
them to work hard (Shamir, & Shamir, 2018). A leader should be able to understand
the employees. Apart from this a leader should not scold the employees unnecessary
instead a leader should always appreciate the employees whenever needed as this
gives the employee confidence and they work hard (Antonakis & Day, 2017).
2. Communication skills
 The best quality a good leader should have is good communication skills as
this is one of the main things which are very important in an organization
(Grint, Jones, & Holt, 2016). If there is no good communication in an
organization an organization cannot reach its goal on time and an organization

cannot work properly. Good communication helps in building good
relationship with the customers and the employees done (Klenke, 2016). If the
communication is better with the leader the end result is also better and the
customer relations also get better with good communication (Adner, 2016).
3. Leading a team and developing employees
One of the main and biggest challenges in any organization is developing the
employees and the following strategies can help in developing the employees
 Managing team effectiveness: a leader should understand the strengths and
strong points of the team and a leader should then accordingly build a team
that can manage the activities of the organization and reach the goals of the
organization on time (Grint, Jones, & Holt, 2016).
 Coaching, mentoring and developing the employees: listening to the
employees is also one of the most important characteristics of good leaders
apart from good communication skills. A leader should listen to the teams and
the employees and the issues the employees are facing, this will help the
employees to feel worthy in the organization ( Ford, 2015).
 Set an example: one of the best ways to show or teach employees to work
effectively is setting an example, if a good leader is someone who himself like
to work and reach the goals of the organization on time. A leader can be a role
model and help and motivate the employees to reach the organizational goals
on time and this ways the productivity of the organization increases as well
(Boyd et al, 2017)
Recommendations for the leaders
 Delegate more: a leader should focus more on working on the things that are
strong points of the organization or the strengths of the organization (Storey,

2016). A leader is responsible to know the strengths of the team and should
the make a team that can reach the goal of the organization (Grint, Jones, &
Holt, 2016).
1. Goal setting: this should be one of the first priorities of any leader as a leader should
have knowledge of where a firm is going and the goals or an organization. From the
starting a leader should have strategies in mind about goal reaching about the
organization.
2. Leadership development plan: it is one of the most important things to know if the
workforce or the employees are productive and efficient for these four steps are there
to create a development plan in a firm or an organization (Arena & Uhl ,2016)
 Outline the qualities and skills of a leader: these are the skills and abilities that
are the important part of any framework of a business and required for any
leadership skills (Roux, & Härtel, 2018). The skills are outlined from the
beginning of the job to the end till they are mastered as an example in change
management the following skills are needed, standards of developing change
and outline the case of change (DuBrin, 2015).
 Access the current knowledge: in the case of the above example a leader
should have knowledge and understanding of the above skills at the time of
development of leadership (Farjoun, Ansell & Boin, 2015).
 Develop a personal development plan: in this the leaders are ranked according
to the skills they have learned. The skills of the leaders are outlines for
polishing, getting and achieving (Abalkhail, 2017).
 Regular meetings: these meetings are done in order to know the growth of the
leader and the lever that the leader has reached from the starting to the end.
The documentation of the skills are done (Klenke, 2016).

3. Meet the needs of the employees
A leader has to meet the social and psychological needs of the employees. An
organization should always focus on the positive environment in an organization as
this helps the employees to work efficiently and effectively (O’Reilly, Robbins, &
Scanlan, 2019).
4. Work on the task that add value to the organization
A leader should know the value of prioritizing the task and should put the most
important task at the top in order to add more value to the business. As the most
important task add more value to the business (Hayter, & Cahoy, 2018).
5. Conflict management
A leader should know how to manage conflicts in an organization, conflicts are a part
of every organization and it is important for a leader to solve conflicts in order to
maintain a positive environment, thus conflict management is important (Hayter, &
Cahoy, 2018).
From the above challenges identified, it can be said that managerial effectiveness includes
strategic thinking, decision making, prioritising, inclusive of relevant skills, and finally
speeding up the security among the stakeholders. It is important to consider the development
of leadership plan.

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