Management

The Challenge of Contemporary Leadership

Leadership used to be viewed as innate. It was seen as a mystical blend of courage, charisma, and perhaps even a flair for the dramatic.

These days, we think of leadership differently — as much a skill to be acquired as a talent you either had or not.

Leadership still calls for charisma, courage, and decisiveness. But the changing nature of business today — organisational structures, the growth of alliances and joint ventures between companies, and so on — all these trends call for new approaches to leadership.

So, what are these new approaches?

They have less to do with formal authority and the power to control or command, and more to do with using influence — especially communications and conflict-resolution skills, and diplomacy and motivational skills — to keep teams on track and aligned with your overall business vision.

They also have to do with being alert, agile, and enterprising; with recognising an opportunity — a gap in terms of what the market offers — and responding rapidly, and creatively. Or identifying a performance gap within your business, and being able to explain the external consequences so your team sees the broader context of their work and understands that it’s worth doing some things differently.

Managing and leading remain distinct but complementary tasks. While managing involves coping with complexity; leadership is about coping with change. Here are some examples:

Managing versus Leading

Planning and budgeting versus setting a direction
Organising and staffing versus aligning people
Controlling and problem solving versus motivating and inspiring.

Management will always be essential, but as change has become the watchword of contemporary economic life, managers are increasingly being called upon to be leaders as well.