Our business world is in a state of constant evolution and requires 21st-century leadership. Various factors such as the digital business, globalization, and diverse workforces challenge leaders to manage uncertainty and quickly adapt while engaging stakeholders. Unfortunately, this complex environment could lead to anxiety and burnout amongst newly found leaders.
Fortunately, research gives us a practical model that outlines how to lead within the 21st-century. This model also offers practical insight into developing your leadership traits and styles to thrive in an unpredictable environment. This article discusses the traits and styles of 21st-century, the various influences that affect your business, and a four-step strategy you can use to begin your development today.
What is 21st Century Leadership?
21st-century leadership is a view of leadership based on several relationships, such as the leader, the environment, and followers, working together to achieve the organization’s vision. This type of leadership brings about new ways of being, knowing, and doing while fostering their followers’ personal growth. The focus is on being open and working with others while servicing society and the environment.
The rapid pace of change, demography, and expectations of employees and customers have given leaders new challenges to overcome. 21st-century leaders must be able to keep an eye on both the internal and external environment, which implies a certain level of self-awareness. For instance, these leaders had to manage their own and their followers’ internal states amid the Covid-19 epidemic. A leader’s role is to stop a disaster from turning into a crisis.
Fortunately, Lorz (2006) proposed a 21st-century leadership model that suggests the external environment significantly influences a leader’s action. Interestingly, the insight gained from the environment guides the development of specific leadership traits and styles. In other words, learning from one’s surroundings initiates the leadership process and leads to the development of compelling visions, which are key factors in leading followers towards a common goal.
21st-century leadership requires adaptability and flexibility, which largely depend on three categories of influence: Organizational, global, and follower trends.
Organizational Trends
Research points to five organizational trends that create potential challenges to leaders: globalization, diversity, flexibility, flat hierarchies, and networks. These five trends can influence your organization’s capacity for change. Leaders in the 21st century are aware of these trends and take precautionary measures to ensure that their organization and followers are not negatively affected.
A strategy evaluation process may assess your internal organization by looking at your strategic plan and determining how well your business is performing in goal attainment. In other words, the strategic evaluation identifies your strengths and weaknesses and growth opportunities, all while providing insight into your company’s overall position in the market.
Global Trends
These trends consist of outside influences that can affect business growth and your followers. Four global trends that pose global challenges for leaders include localization, climate change, health systems, and technology. 21st-century leaders remain up to date on global trends to stay competitive in international markets.
A valuable tool for taking a holistic look at your external environment is a SWOT analysis, an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Completing a SWOT analysis can help you analyze any social, technological, political, and economic trends that may influence your business operations.
Follower Trends
As followers’ knowledge of organizational and global trends develops, so does the value of their contributions to the business. Unfortunately, followers take their expertise with them when they leave a business. Thus, 21st-century leaders must remain aware of their followers and consistently maintain knowledge management systems with the latest insights. Knowledge management helps improve innovation, makes work clearer for employees to complete, and keeps your business ahead of the competition.
Leaders must be aware of organizational, global, and follower trends because they influence the development of specific skills to thrive within ever-changing environments. Depending on where your business falls within these three categories of influence is how you will adjust your 21st-century leadership traits and style.
21st-Century Leadership Traits
Research highlights three prevalent traits in 21st-century leaders: Power of Comprehension, Power of Personality, and Power of People.
Power of Comprehension
This leadership trait involves gaining knowledge efficiently. One way to accomplish this is by developing environmental analysis skills. Fortunately, various tools can help you scan your business environment. A helpful model is Porter’s 5 Forces which helps identify and assess five competitive forces to use potential opportunities to shape your business strategy.
Furthermore, 21st-century leaders have astute global business senses. Remaining current on globalization can help leaders acquire this skill. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is an excellent resource for staying current on international market developments.
Power of Personality
21st-century leaders also exude self-confidence and determination, which requires a high level of self-awareness. The first step is defining your mission while objectively assessing your strengths and weaknesses. By understanding your leadership style, you can better allocate your time and energy to achieve your objectives.
After identifying potential opportunities, 21st-century leaders are masters at crafting visions that align with the organization’s mission. Compelling visions allow you to lead and inspire your followers to achieve a common goal.
Power of People
Emotional intelligence is a hallmark of 21st-century leaders, and they make a great effort to communicate with their followers and stakeholders effectively. For instance, these leaders place a high priority on the cultural diversity that exists amongst different populations. Thus, leaders must develop intercultural communication skills to remain effective in international markets.
21st-Century Leadership Styles
Similarly, 21st-century leaders use three types of styles when interacting with followers: Discover, Develop and Delegate to Followers.
Discover Followers
Leaders with strong self-awareness also remain mindful of their followers and stakeholders. For instance, 21st century leaders ask probing questions to gauge their followers’ strengths, opportunities, and aspirations. These insights enable leaders to assess the potential of their followers while satisfying developmental needs. In the same way, stakeholder engagement allows the organization to meet their needs consistently.
What your customers and followers say about your business on social media can help you better understand their thoughts and feelings. Insights from social listening can give your business a competitive edge in market share. Also, responding to consumer feedback is an excellent approach to building solid relationships with your customers.
Develop Followers
The leader takes on the role of a coach and encourages the best in their followers. For instance, knowledge and training are readily accessible to followers, fostering a sense of personal responsibility and development. Superior coaches know that providing all the answers won’t help their followers. Instead, insightful questioning challenges followers to think independently. Similarly, superior coaches are excellent at stress regulation to prevent their stress from negatively affecting others around them. Typically, these leaders have a toolbox of regulatory strategies to help alleviate stress, such as mindfulness and breathing exercises.
Delegate to Followers
The leader serves as a role model by demonstrating how to lead processes and set realistic goals. 21st-century leaders focus on developing their followers to become leaders. Leadership development training programs effectively develop followers’ leadership skills and abilities. The most efficient leadership development programs are research-based and establish the necessary KPIs to confirm knowledge attainment. Additionally, providing followers with more autonomy empowers and inspires them to perform beyond their potential. Leaders learn to delegate more advanced responsibilities as followers demonstrate confidence and readiness.
The Four-Step 21st Century Leadership Process
Analyze the Environment
The power of comprehension is the cornerstone of analyzing the environment. 21st-century leaders must consider external factors before developing a compelling vision for the organization. Learning more about organizational and global trends can help you uncover potential local and international opportunities, guiding your strategic direction. Alignment of a new strategy with identified opportunities can help you identify the most attractive industry structure to gain a competitive advantage.
Craft the Vision
Once the leader has considered internal and external factors, they are ready to craft a strategic vision. 21st-century leaders need to incorporate insights from follower trends to ensure their proposed vision aligns with stakeholder interests and customer needs. The power of personality and people are essential in selling the vision. A combination of emotional intelligence and confidence can help you inspire your followers emotionally to adopt the vision and work towards achievement.
Lead Your Followers
Adapting your leadership style to your followers is paramount for leading. First, the leader discovers followers by determining their needs, strengths, and potential. Then developing followers consists of coaching and guiding them towards achieving objectives towards the vision. Lastly, the leader delegates responsibilities while inspiring followers to grow beyond their roles. 21st-century leaders foster more leaders aiming to achieve a shared vision for the organization.
Performance and Feedback
21st-century leaders are constantly assessing performance towards the vision and providing feedback for development. Coaching and open communication are essential during the performance and feedback step. Additionally, the leader might launch a new strategic course based on the fulfillment of the vision or changes in external factors.
Conclusion
To prosper in the 21st-century workplace, leaders must be acutely aware of their surroundings. The most strategic action cannot be taken until they have fully examined the opportunities and possible risks. It is critical to stay current on organizational, global, and follower trends. It’s impossible to maintain a competitive advantage if you’re not aware of your environment and stakeholders. Self-awareness training and fostering a growth mindset will assure the development of 21st-century leadership traits and styles. With proper attention and dedication, you can become a 21st-century leader.
Bianca Cardenas, M.S., Ph.D., is a Fellow in Executive Assessment and Consulting with Leadership Worth Following. Dr. Bianca Cardenas empowers leaders to transcend competition by helping them unlock their people's potential.
