Introduction:
In this essay, there will be an in depth discussion about what it really takes to be an effective leader in this generation i.e, 2022 and the challenges that are faced by the leaders in this ever growing era. Anyone can become a leader but in order to be an effective leader, it is important to possess certain leadership qualities which might help built the organization, the team and the individual (leader) as well. With the world leaning more towards advancement in every sector, it is imperative for the leaders to stay on track with the ever changing needs and demands of the people. Now there is a huge demand for human approaches with the emergence of new leadership techniques and ways (Moro,2019). Leaders in this generation has to be more sanguine making sure that issues faced by the organization or the business are being tackled using the right tactics. This will allow to create a workplace that has a positive workplace allowing to built trust, equity, cooperation leading the organization to achieve its goals and objectives. An effective leader will be able to encourage the team members and help them understand the importance of maintaining cooperation in an organization (Wang,2022). An effective leader will be able to push the workers in the best possible way no matter the circumstances. Each and every employees in an organization differs from each another, a leader who is effective enough will be able to understand these differences and treat them accordingly. When a leader is effective enough, they will be able to motivate and encourage the team members to truly understand their passion and figure out the their skills in contributing to the success of the organization. In an era where the needs of every individual in increasing rapidly, where the expectation from the leaders are increasing, a leader must not only remain a leader but rather be effective enough to deal with the increased needs and demands of the people, ever changing workplace and most importantly deal with the differing employees. It is also crucial for a leader to mitigate issues with an optimistic approach not allowing any individual to get affected by it. This way a leader will be effective enough and will be able to deal with organizational issues in this present era (Wasim,2022).
Background:
Critical review and evaluation of leadership (2022 perspective):
When it comes to leadership, it is all about how an individual (leader) is able to manage the teams in an organization or a business and how their actions and decisions helps in achieving the goals and objectives of an organization. It is all about providing guidance and motivation to certain group of people in achieving the same goal. A pessimist leader is likely to bring negative impact on the organization however a optimistic leadership will possess a positive attitude towards every challenges and hurdles faced by the organization so it will likely bring positive changes if the ideas and ways are implemented in the right manner to tackle the issue faced by the organization. A good leader in 2022 must make sure that they are able to have one of the strongest communication skills with the employees as by communicating with them it builds a sense of trust and loyalty between them which providing an assurance that the leaders have their back. With the COVID 19 pandemic hitting every sector in the world has had a huge impact even on leadership allowing them to conduct and prepare through online with the implementation of new regulations on social distancing from the government in every country. Decision making in every business organizations had to be conducted through online. This somehow brought positive changes in many organizations as discussions were conducted through video conferencing which brought a lot of employees and leaders together strengthening the bonding and the relationship between the leaders and the employees. In 2022, every leader must make know the importance of difference in every work culture. With more development come more differences in diversities as organizations are employing organizations from different countries to promote diversity as well as to generate new ideas in the workplace. Especially after the incident of George Floyd’s murder, organizations and business sectors are offering more job roles to black people encouraging the participation of different diversities and ethnicity (Rabiul,2022).
In 2022, leaders must incline more towards how to work and embrace technological changes and innovation in the workplace as well as in decision making, they must also learn how to experiment with new ideas and challenges, helping the team members to build resilience and breaking the boundary of leadership in order to be an effective leader. For a leader to be effective, it is important to be resilient enough so that they will be able to recover from issues faced by them as this is very important. In 2022, leaders must make sure that there is transparency in the workplace as well as in the decision making process. With organizations and companies employing employees from various countries, leaders must be able to able to have frequent conversations with the employees as well and this will build a stronger workforce and built strong relationship with the employees. Ethical decision making is also a key in building an effective leadership which includes equal treatment, being truthful and respecting everyone involved in the team. In an era like 2022, in order for a leader to be effective it must all be about smart leadership. An effective leader is emphasized more towards the relationship between the employees and the leaders because if there is positive relationship among them, everything will fall into place. There will be improved customer satisfaction, improved efficiency, better recognition of the organization etc. For example, CVS health which is under the healthcare sector which is one of the biggest healthcare company with a revenue of about One forty million Dollars follows a very transparent leadership style encouraging communication among the leaders and the employees. They are open to every kind of topic and have one of the best teamwork. An effective leader in 2022, must also emphasize on these qualities to help achieve the organization’s goals.
Application:
Leadership Challenge:
The more advanced a business gets, there are more bigger challenges to it for a leader. Along with this, the pandemic also inflicted very serious leadership challenges in every organizations forcing them to implement very strong measures in the heat of the moment without any preparation. This was a huge challenge for the organizations and especially for the leaders as they had to make sure that every step and process contributed to tackling the impact caused by the pandemic. The effect of pandemic on every sector was so severe that none of the organizations were left unaffected. With most of the companies entering into 2022 with past trauma it is crucial for each and every business leaders to change ways and make use of their experience to tackle any challenges that they will come across in the future. Leadership challenges can bring the organization at halt or can completely effect the organization if the leader is not effective enough (Vatnøy,2022). However, regardless of the kind of leader that an organization has challenges are bound to happen but it is up to the organization and the leader on how the ordeal can be tackled and decide on whether it will let affect the organization or not. At the end of the day, challenges are bound to happen and one cannot stop the challenges from coming toward’s one’s way. It is all up to how a leader will tackle the issue and with people becoming more demanding in 2022, there is increased expectation, increased performance improvement, improved technology increasing the expectations and needs of the people. These are common 2022 challenges faced by every organization in this generation (Lubis,2022).
For this essay, I am allowed to choose one leadership challenge faced by the organizations from the provided options in which I chose to discuss on “Leading in crisis situation”.
Leading in crisis situation:
For this section, I figured that the best example would be on the pandemic and the varying challenges that organizations and the leaders had to go through. Ever since the pandemic started in Dec 2019, it has set up very high demand on leaders and different business sectors. It has placed very high demand on every consumer while also at the same time ensuring that these organizations follow all the pandemic guidelines in order to prevent the spread of virus. It has placed very high standards and new regulations for the leaders and organizations. All these implementation process were new to every organizations causing major challenges to every leader and organizations across the globe. The excessive outbreak made it challenging for every sector to respond to these challenges. Figuring out the challenges of a crisis must be the first thing that the leaders must focus on because these challenges will eventually grow with time. A leader must consider on the impact and the after effect of the challenges. Another example would be the SARS crisis in 2003 was a major issue for leaders especially those residing in Hong Kong setting up strategies to tackle the ongoing issues caused by the crisis and strategies for aftermath of the crisis. (Wisdom, 2022)
A crisis is a time for the leaders to be most effective. They must develop the ability to figure out the probable issues that they or the organization might face and must come up with certain strategies to tackle the ordeal (Berraies,2022). Plans have to be made in advance and different actions and rules needs to be improvised to encounter the issue. Even during the times of a crisis, an effective leader is very important because they are the ones with the most idea and have better plans and thinking capacity than a leader that is not effective enough. Leaders must not only implement temporary strategies but also come up with strategies which will align with ongoing crisis issues (Jenssen,2022). Crisis can impact the organization either in a positive or a negative manner. For example, during the pandemic a lot of business sectors like airlines, restaurants, manufacturing companies etc faced huge challenges and were directly impacted by it as there was total restriction of movement while some other companies like Microsoft, Zoom gained a lot of benefit as every work was from home through video conferencing (Megawaty,2022). However the reason for this is not because of leadership but mostly because of the kind of sector they belong to. Regardless of this, leaders must take the responsibility to keep the organizational process in balance by making sure to control the cost and by maintaining the liquidity. There are certain qualities that every leader must possess in terms of crisis to deal with the ordeals and stop the issues from affecting the organizations (Cao,2022). They are:
- Speed decision making instead of opting for accuracy.
- Must be confident with strategy implementation.
- Accuracy deliverance.
- Involving in the impact.
During crisis, it is most likely that the leaders will face with major challenges that changes every day. They need to come up with new decision making process and steps to tackle the issue and so it is very important that there is speed in the decision making process. It is most likely that during a crisis there will be incomplete information, change in priorities and the stress and anxiety may be high but it is always important to not let these pressure effect the decision making. Leaders must be aware and trained on how to calm the situation while at the same time maintaining a certain speed fast enough to implement on any new crisis issue. Certain things must be prioritized and issues that might probably occur (Moro,2019). This will make an effective leader. During any kind of crisis, a leader must be able to properly decide on what must be done and the things to avoid. Relationships must be strengthened and build different network of leaders who are smart enough to speak about the crisis and discuss about the ongoing issues and the aftermath issues that they might face (Lyubykh,2021). Leaders must improvise their decision making and make sure that every stakeholder involved ( Eg, customers, employees, suppliers) are with them. Leaders must also take the responsibility to stay focused and alert on what is happening and which might come in the coming days. They must set up Key Potential Indicators to help them measure their performance (Lalor,2021). This will allow them to rectify any changes that needs to be done in the decision making process. It is also important for a leader to remain optimistic even when the employees are being discouraged. The role of an effective leader is more than just making the right decision or building a strong workforce during a crisis or any other regular day (Day,2022). It is crucial that they maintain a self care routine by implementing a healthy diet, meditation and must consider the mental well being which is the most crucial factor. With all these implementation practices, as a leader it is crucial to train the employees to how to control with emotions during any crisis and change their priorities based on the situation. It has been observed that every individual who were involved in tackling with COVID 19 pandemic had anxiety, depression and were distressed. There was increased depression by 41 percent, severe anxiety by 60 percent and severe distress by 34 percent. As an effective leader one must teach his team members to balance emotions and the work and not only focus on tackling with the crisis issue (Yue,2019).
Leadership Theories:
In any organization or business it is important to at least implement some leadership theories to provide the leaders with the right assistance and guide them through every process. Leadership theories focus more on the traits as well as the behaviour in which leaders can implement to maximize their capabilities. Leadership theories allows leaders to have very strong ethics and very high moral standards which is a very important factor in an effective leader, helps to improve growth in the employees and the organization and builds strong connection with different stakeholders. (Auvinen, 2022) A lot of research studies have proved that these factors are very important in every kind of leaders around the world. There are different options of leadership theories that leaders can implement on based on the structure of the organization some of which are Great Man Theory, Management Theory, Participative Theory, Power Theory etc. They all differ from each other and has their own way of making improvement and guiding a leader to become effective (Ariani,2022).
For this essay, contingency theory and charismatic leadership theory will be emphasized on. Contingency theory or situational theory is all about considering the situational impact on the success or failure of a leader in which the effectiveness of a leader is figured out based on the situation of the organization. This theory is all about focusing on a given situation and how a leader is flexible enough to adjust to every crisis instead of the type of personality that the leader possesses (Bakar,2022). Charismatic leadership is all about the leader’s personal quality. This kind of leadership allows one to push and motivate the employees and the followers by setting up a common vision and goal by implementing their personal qualities. These leadership theories ensures the leaders to tackle the issues that disrupts the working system of the organization in such a manner that it has less impact on the organization (Lubis,2022).
All leadership theories play different roles in molding a leader to be effective in the best way possible. When the world was hit by the pandemic in 2019, a lot of the organizations adopted contingency theory as this theory is all about being flexible to any kind of situation. It allowed the leaders to deal with the pre and post pandemic challenges that they have to go through. Along with this leadership theory, a lot of the organizations also implemented the charismatic leadership theory, transformational leadership theory, democratic leadership theory and bureaucratic leadership theory. The change in situation through the crisis also compelled many business organizations to change their leadership style to another to succeed in tackling the issues (Krehl,2022).
Through the discussions, it is evident that a leader who is flexible enough to each and every changing situation makes one an effective leader. Regardless of the field and the kind of sector that a leader is working in if a crisis hits the organization then leaders must make instant decision strong enough to provide a protection layer for the organization. There will be differences in opinion, there will be high increase of misunderstanding and the work atmosphere will be suffocating leading to anxiety, depression and metal stress to every individual. However a good and effective leader will be able to deal with all these issues as one will be flexible to adjust to every circumstance (Lee,2022). For this a flexible leader is required which is practiced in Contingency Theory. A leader who is flexible enough is an effective leader as one is adoptable to every crisis and challenges.
Conclusion:
A leader is the pillar for the growth of any organization who helps in achieving the set up goals and objectives but an effective leader will help organization to succeed and reach heights even in the future. An effective leader is concerned about both the present and future goals and objectives. With more advancement, there is high rise of demand and increased expectations from the consumers which is adding extra pressure to the leaders. It is important that these leaders align the strategy of the organization with the ongoing trends and demands so as to build a stronger organization while also meeting the demands of the consumers. With the pandemic settling down, in 2022 leaders have to make sure to stay positive, have stronger agility and build a workforce that will help to succeed and meet the demands of every individual. In order to be an effective leader, one must be more innovative and practice modern strategies good enough to compete in the competitive and innovative market.
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