BUMGT5970: Analysis of Leadership Challenges in Contemporary Business

This essay examines the multifaceted challenges leaders confront in the contemporary business environment. It highlights communication breakdowns, deficiencies in managerial effectiveness, and difficulties in leading and guiding teams as key obstacles. The essay emphasizes the importance of clear goal setting, effective time management, and the need for leaders to foster innovation and enthusiasm within their teams. Furthermore, it underscores the significance of adapting leadership approaches to address challenges related to stakeholder management and organizational politics. The paper explores the challenges leaders face in the modern workplace, emphasizing the need for leaders to develop skills in communication, managerial effectiveness, and team leadership to navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape. The essay also suggests that leaders should focus on training and goal setting techniques, and also to emphasize on innovative leadership approach to improve the overall quality of the leadership programs.

Leadership
2019

Leaders
The challenge of Leadership today
It has been examined that leaders in the workplace has the main aim to boost the productivity
level of the employees. If the leaders do not consider the skills that are required to control the
activities then goals and objectives are difficult to be attained. It has been examined that effective
leaders requires different skills and characteristics that should be followed to attain success in the
company. The leaders of the team should consider the qualities such as honesty and compassion
so that it could be easy to motivate the employees to give their best towards the set goals
(Kaptein, 2017). In this paper the discussion will be made on the topic “Challenges faced by the
leaders in Today’s world”. It is required for the leaders to be effective so that they can deal with
the challenges with the challenges that are faced by the leaders in today’s world. It is noticed that
effective leaders consider the feelings of the employees and they tries to improve the qualities
that are necessary to be maintained by the management.
It is important for the leaders to consider the right skills and techniques so that challenges that
are faced in the present business world can be minimized. In today’s world there are various
challenges that are faced by the leaders such as challenge related with communication,
managerial effectiveness, clarity of goals, leading and guiding a team and also to have control
over the stakeholders and politics. These are the major challenges that are important to be
managed so that positive impact can be seen on the operations of employees and also on the
leader’s attitude (Landers, Bauer & Callan, 2017).
Communication is the major challenge that is faced by the leaders in the dynamic business
world. It has been examined that in this case, inconsistency of communication also takes place as
the process of communication starts at the top and it is rely on grapevines to spread the overall
word. In this case many times lack of clarity also creates inconsistencies and also individuals
begin to assume the meaning and focuses on the incorrect data (Li, Wu, Johnson & Avey, 2017).
There are many leaders who lack the capability when it relates with communication and also it is
not capable of assisting to the others people. There are many workers who have the feeling of
awkwardness when the leaders ask for their opinions in front of the senior staff. It is analyzed
that it is important for the leaders to maintain the challenge related with communication so that
positive results can be attained (Price, 2018).
1

Leaders
Managerial effectiveness is the leadership challenge in which it is observed that the major
challenge related with boosting the skills of the employees in the workplace. It is difficult for the
leaders to develop the basic skills that are essential such as time management, strategic thinking
and decision making. These skills are difficult to be enhanced by the leaders, as these are the
skills that relates to the behavior of the individuals. So, it can be stated that managerial
effectiveness is one of the challenges that is faced by the leader in the competitive market
(Zacher & Rosing, 2015).
Clarity of the goals can also be considered as the challenge as the leaders has to face the
challenge at the time of bringing clarity in the overall process of management. It has been
examined that it is important that higher authorities should clarify the goals with the management
but there are many cases when they are not able to express their views and opinions with the
higher authority. In this case, it can be said that clarity of goals is also the challenge that should
be minimized by the leaders so that employees can give their best towards accomplishing their
set goals and objectives (Priest & Gass, 2017).
Leading and guiding a team is a challenge as it is observed that when the leaders focuses on
leading a team then the challenge relates with team building, team development and also with the
team management. At the time of leading the team the major challenge is concerned with the
different perceptions that are possessed by the employees. It can be said that to lead a team is one
of the important function of the company and it should be done effectively by the leaders. But on
the other hand it can be examined that they face the challenge that is concerned with creating the
new teams. In relation to guiding about change, the challenge emphasizes on managing,
mobilizing and also leading the change. It is important for the people to know that how to
overcome the resistance to change and also to deal with the reactions of the employees. So, it
creates the challenge to consider all these factors at the time of managing the organizational
operations (Storey, 2016).
It has been analyzed that to have control over the stakeholders and politics can be stated as the
challenge in which the emphasis is given on maintaining the relations among the employees and
also to maintain the positive image in the market. It is necessary for the management to
emphasize on these factors as it assists in bringing improvisation but in Today’s world these
challenges are enhancing which is also creating the major issue for the leaders to maintain
2

Leaders
control over the stakeholders and politics in the competitive market. Therefore, it can be stated
that these should also be maintained so that it could be easy to attain the positive results (van
Knippenberg & van Kleef, 2016).
It is important to bring change in the way the leadership is considered to meet the challenges to
lead in such complex times. It can be said that in the present scenario, the major challenge relates
to the workload that is faced by the workers in the workplace. Due to different projects and
activities the people are utilizing the limited resources in the group. It is necessary to focus on
maintaining to focus on bringing change in the activities so that the challenge related to
workload can be reduced. The change should be made in the overall structure of the company
and also in the goal setting technique. If goal setting technique is changed by the management
then it would be easy to attain the positive outcome (Crosby & Bryson, 2018).
The changes should be brought in different areas such as goal setting is important to be
considered. It is important to be proactive at the time of setting the goals and with the overall
setting the timelines should be set so that deadlines of the employees can be met. This can be
considered as one of the best way that can help in reducing the workload of the employees as by
setting the goals; the employees will be able to complete the task on time. To manage the time it
is necessary to delegate more as it helps in boosting the productivity of the employees in the
workplace. It can be considered as one of the effective method that can assist in empowering the
people at the time of assigning the work. It is also important to maintain clarity in the roles so
that the activities can be completed in an effective manner. This can help in managing the overall
work of the employees and also of the leaders in the workplace (Chen & Hou, 2016).
According to the present scenario, the competition level is high so it is necessary for the leaders
to bring improvisation in the process of training. It is important for the higher authority to offer
training to the employees so that the skills and knowledge of the employees can be enhanced in
relation to the assigned work. The competition level is so high that it requires the high level of
training to the employees so that they can give their best towards the work allocated by the
managers or the leaders of the company (Cohen, 2017). Training should be given on the latest
techniques as it can help in saving the time of the employees and also bring clarity in the
working process of the company. So, the focus should be given on bringing change in the
training process as it can help in giving guidance to the employees and can also help in
3

Leaders
accomplishing the set goals and objectives of the company in the highly competitive market.
Therefore, it can be stated that training is the best way that can help the leaders to control the
activities in the complex situations and it can give guidance to the employees to attain the
positive results (Carkhuff, 2017).
The quality of the leadership programs can be improved if focus is given on different factors that
should be considered by the leaders such as innovative leadership approach should be taken into
consideration. It is necessary for the higher authorities to focus innovative leadership as it can
help in solving the complex issues and also assist in gathering the new and innovative ideas and
concepts. If this approach is considered then it will help to improve the leadership that will also
bring improvisation in the overall productivity of the employees. If this approach is considered
then leaders can easily set new policies and procedures that are beneficial for the success of the
company (Arena & Uhl-Bien, 2016).
It is recommended that Enthusiasm can be one of the traits of leadership that should be
considered by the leaders. To resolve the challenges in the competitive business world, it is
necessary for the leaders to be active and also energetic so that the complex issues or the
challenges can be minimized effectively. This can also be the effective method that can assist in
boosting the leadership and also the leaders according to the changing environment of the
business.
It can be concluded that the challenges that are faced by the leaders in the today’s world are
many but it is important to take the right step so that positivity can be maintained in the
workplace. The challenges that the leaders face in the present environment are concerned with
communication, Managerial effectiveness, leading and guiding people and also to have control
over the stakeholders and politics. To bring change in the way the leadership is considered there
are different ways on which the emphasis should be given such as training and goal setting
technique should be considered. Also, to improve the quality of the leadership programs it is
important for the leaders to emphasize on innovative approach and also the on the leadership trait
which is enthusiasm. These all factors should be considered so that positive results can be
attained in the competitive market.
4

Leaders
References
Arena, M. J., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2016). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting from human capital
to social capital. People and Strategy, 39(2), 22.
Carkhuff, R. (2017). Toward effective counseling and psychotherapy: Training and practice.
Routledge.
Chen, A. S. Y., & Hou, Y. H. (2016). The effects of ethical leadership, voice behavior and
climates for innovation on creativity: A moderated mediation examination. The Leadership
Quarterly, 27(1), 1-13.
Cohen, E. (2017). Employee training and development. In CSR for HR (pp. 153-162). Routledge.
Crosby, B. C., & Bryson, J. M. (2018). Why leadership of public leadership research matters:
and what to do about it. Public Management Review, 20(9), 1265-1286.
Kaptein, M. (2017). The moral entrepreneur: A new component of ethical leadership. Journal of
Business Ethics, 1-16.
Landers, R. N., Bauer, K. N., & Callan, R. C. (2017). Gamification of task performance with
leaderboards: A goal setting experiment. Computers in Human Behavior, 71, 508-515.
Li, C., Wu, K., Johnson, D. E., & Avey, J. (2017). Going against the grain works: An
attributional perspective of perceived ethical leadership. Journal of business ethics, 141(1),
87-102.
Price, T. L. (2018). A “critical leadership ethics” approach to the Ethical Leadership
construct. Leadership, 14(6), 687-706.
Priest, S., & Gass, M. (2017). Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming, 3E. Human
Kinetics.
Storey, J. (2016). Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership in
Organizations (pp. 33-58). Routledge.
5

Leaders
van Knippenberg, D., & van Kleef, G. A. (2016). Leadership and affect: Moving the hearts and
minds of followers. Academy of Management Annals, 10(1), 799-840.
Zacher, H., & Rosing, K. (2015). Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal, 36(1), 54-68.
6