Holmes Institute - HC3031: Leadership Challenges Report Analysis

This report delves into the multifaceted challenges leaders face in today's dynamic global business environment. It highlights the impact of globalization, the role of the internet, and the importance of adaptability in tackling industry trends. The report emphasizes the core definition of leadership as the ability to set clear goals and inspire others. Key challenges discussed include time management, the influence of workplace diversity, and the difficulties of managing decentralized teams. The report references the Leadership Challenge curriculum and other sources to explore how leaders can overcome these obstacles. It emphasizes the need for effective communication, strategic goal-setting, and the importance of leadership training to ensure business success. The report also examines the impact of diversity in the workplace and the need for leaders to adapt to different working styles and cultural backgrounds. It concludes by underscoring the critical role of leadership in creating a thriving business environment and the necessity of investing in leadership development programs.

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Leadership Challenges
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Institutional Affiliation

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Leadership Challenges
Globalization is rapidly changing the whole world. This is further propelled by the
presence of the internet, which has revolutionized workplace operations (Johnson, 2017). For
any serious business to succeed in any organization, there has to be a level of willingness by
the organization's members to tackle all the challenges they face and to keep Afloat on all
possibilities and trends that the industry within which the company works in, Adopts. One of
these critical areas and perhaps one of the most important sections in any business is
leadership.
According to Komives (2016), leadership is the backbone of any business as it
dictates whether the company will succeed. There are many definitions of leadership in
business. However, one of the definitions that stand out is that leadership is the ability of
individuals in management to have a clear goal for the business that they are willing to get to
at all costs. Leaders in business are tasked with the work of creating a common vision of the
goal for their colleagues and helping them maintain their focus towards achieving that very
goal. One writer went ahead to describe leadership as measurable, Learnable and teachable
skills that individuals acquire over a period in business (Grubb, 2015).
As much as leadership positions are envied by most people in organizations, leaders
always face immense challenges in their day-to-day activities. This has been further
underlined by the rapid growth of businesses worldwide. The fact that in leadership positions,
leaders are required to be great examples to their subjects on work ethics. This makes the
work of leaders to be more hectic. Leaders Being Human fell into the very same challenges
that each other worker has to face. However, the leader of the team must show excellent and
exemplary behavior, which is acceptable to both the organization and the employees
themselves (Johnson, 2017).

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Just like in the article, leaders face the same challenges despite the difference in age
or physicality, which means that a leader continues to lead his/her team only through his
influence and understanding of the team. That is the reason as to why the leadership
challenge curriculum is aimed at encouraging everyone on their prospects of being a leader.
This goes to show that leaders, just like any other people, need support because as a leader,
one ought to be able to overcome negativities and focus only on the essential tasks for the
other team members. On a day-to-day basis, leaders face different challenges. This can be
generated from either working conditions or employee relations. An excellent example, for
instance, is time management.
There are many people with different ideas of what an ideal leader should look like.
This includes age, position, gender, and even experience; however, not of this is true. This is
because leadership is the effect of skill that is learned and can be passed down to others
provided; they are committed and have a vision in achieving the set goals for the specific
organization. According to the Sonoma Leadership Systems, as much as leadership is a
concern for everyone in the company it is everyone's duty in the company to be a leader on
his or her own, as many challenges are company specific to the leaders themselves.
On a day-to-day basis, leaders face different challenges. This can be generated from
either working conditions or employee relations. An excellent example, for instance, is time
management. For any organization to succeed, workers must be time conscious; this means
that all the workers in the organization should be able to keep time and therefore be in a
position to give their best to the company always. This means that employees ought to be
able to manage their working hours to accomplish all the tasks that have been assigned to
them by their heads with minimal supervision. Different companies have different methods of
operation that makes it even harder for leaders to interact and associate with their teams. A
good example is the modern-day working environment. Leaders should make sure that the

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employees do not practice procrastination at their work stations, know when to say no to be
able to accomplish their daily objectives and lastly have a sense of accomplishment with
excellent problem-solving skills. Effective leaders must master time management for them to
focus on coming up with strategic goals and handling operations. Major principles of time
management should be delegation and entrustment, meeting balance, and meeting protocols.
With modern-day working, most offices are decentralizing their functionalities. This
was facilitated by the presence of the internet, which came up as a disruptive business
strategy which all organizations are embracing and adopting (Dion, 2019). Furthermore, this
has led to the creation of an environment in which most of the professional workers can work
away from the officers. One way this is an advantage to the business is, it cuts down on costs
that would otherwise have been channeled towards words creation of an infrastructure for
their business operations. However, the other side of this double-edged sword makes it harder
for leaders to manage their teams effectively. This has created work for leaders harder as they
are not able to monitor what their team is doing away from their offices. The challenge here
is that the leaders are not able to supervise, plan, communicate directly, and motivate their
team in line with the goals that they have for them (Grubb,2015). Having that in mind, the
employees who don't have a clear understanding of the project objectives will make
decentralization a challenge for the leaders. Effectiveness desires that all the program
components are clearly defined and actionable. Further, when a leader has a decentralized
team, it's imperative for them to communicate at all times, openly and explicitly, and they
should never rely on nonverbal communication. Lack of communication will eventually
impede on the effectiveness of the project. Challenges will arise when there are unclear and
undefined responsibilities and roles, and specifically, the desired deliverables expected from
them. It's important to note that flexibility should also be key to both the leader and the team.

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Most companies are adopting a consultative approach to leadership (Dion, 2019). This
is because this technique is mainly associated with higher levels of success. However, just
like any other approach, it has challenges that have to be embraced and handled well if the
business is supposed to prosper.
Another Challenge that most leaders face worldwide is the presence of diversity in
our natures. Workplace diversity is about understanding and building the organizational
culture and embracing personal differences and inspiring heterogeneous individual to be
productive towards the common organizational goal and objectives. Diversity is what drives
us as human beings (Adner, 2016). The reason for this is that diversity helps us complement
each other in ways, then we cannot. A great example is a diverse nature in which different
people work well. Some people are known to work well unsupervised, while others always
perform best with constant supervision. This, therefore, implies that as a leader in any
organization, there are different types of people with different abilities which need to be
handled differently. This makes the work of leaders even harder as they are forced to always
monitor and measure the capabilities of different individuals on a day-to-day basis
(Bolden,2016). With these two different kinds of people in one team, the leader must assess
each of them individually then no the best way that he can make the two work together. This
is a gap that the leader, in this case, must feel with his knowledge and skills. What makes it
even tougher is the fact that the leader must do all this aside from working on his or her
duties. Managing diversity also requires transforming the culture of the organization, such as
establishing a cultural diversity task force, structures, and internal systems. Such measures
will cost the organization.
This goes to show that there are significant challenges faced on a day-to-day basis by
leaders in different organizations. Hezlett (2016) mentions global companies leaders must

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deal with different people from various regions and time zones against the diverse nature of
our cultures. This means that for an effective leader, one must be able to handle situations
like this with both skill and precaution. They should be accompanied by a sense of openness
and strictness. It is evident that leaders face extreme challenges in their day-to-day work.
Most of these challenges are unavoidable since they are part of our nature and as leaders, they
are supposed to ensure that their team members are at a level playing field where they can all
work in synchronization to ensure the success of the team and in the long run the business.
The things that stand out in the leadership challenge include the qualities of a leader.
The types of people who can be leaders, how leaders are created based on the challenges that
they face and the presence of training programs such as the Leadership challenge being used
in place regularly to encourage more leaders to come up.
In Conclusion, the Leadership challenge helps understand the different types of
leaders and how the leaders can relate to their team members to achieve the set goals. Leaders
play a vital role in the creation of a thriving business environment. Therefore, their challenges
impact directly on the success of the business, which further means that the business should
investigate investing in leadership training for the various team leaders to ensure success
(Storey 2016).

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References.
Adner, R., 2016. Navigating the leadership challenges of innovation ecosystems. MIT Sloan
Management Review,
Bolden, R., 2016. Leadership, management, and organizational development. In Gower
handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Clinton, R., 2018. The making of a leader: Recognizing the lessons and stages of leadership
development. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc...
Dion, S., 2019. Leadership Development in a Virtual Work Environment.
Grubb, W.N., 2015. Leadership challenges in high schools: Multiple pathways to success.
Routledge.
Hezlett, S.A., 2016. Enhancing experience-driven leadership development. Advances in
Developing Human Resources, 18(3)

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Johnson, C.E., 2017. Meeting the ethical challenges of leadership: Casting light or shadow.
Sage Publications.
Komives, S.R. a, 2016. Leadership for a better world: Understanding the social change
model of leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Storey, J., 2016. Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership
in Organizations Routledge.
Rosenbach, W.E., 2018. Contemporary issues in leadership. Routledge.