Current Trends in Leadership Essay

Now a day leaders are following a trend of As one, which is a short phrase but it is filled with meaning and inspiration. In simple sense As one means to sum up the individual actions into collective power. According to the article individuals can collaborate to achieve extraordinary results together. Every day people meet, collaborate from different countries, organizations and industries so that to make the things happen. In this, some collaborations are unintentional, some are deliberately or sometimes it uses web technologies. But the basic fundamental reason behind these collaborations or working as one phenomenon is to have a winning edge. And this winning edge is usually determined by the organization that best works as one. Leaders have added the phrase as one which has changed its meaning completely. For e.g. working, it is an individual action but when it is connected with â€Å"as one† the entire meaning of both word and the phrase has changed, i.e. working as one, which shows the power of collectivism in an organization. Similarly winning versus winning as one, stronger versus stronger as one. Now they know that sources of inspirations are endless, just think of the possibilities and believe as one, succeed as one. The definition of leadership is evolving, such as: * Some say leadership is all about productivity, making employees work together efficiently. They say that great leader should get people to have a common interpretation around how to work together. * Some say leadership is all about people. They say a leader’s job is to develop people’s sense of belonging to their group. They believe a great leader should get people to have a strong shared identity or sense of who they are. * Some say leadership is all about purpose. They feel a leader’s job is to drive people’s commitment to act on the goals of the organization. A great leader gets people to have a strong sense of directional intensity around what they need to do together. But a real leader should involve all these things. Some leaders call it working as one and it represents the pinnacle of collective leadership, or leadership that results in a cohesive group of people working together effectively toward a common goal or purpose. As one may seem primarily available to leaders and their teams, but it doesn’t just have to be about internal interactions. The concept is a starting point for all leaders to understand how they can apply specific collective leadership techniques to best fit their situations and challenges. * Employee’s Trust in his Leader2: One out of four employees do not trust their leader. What leaders do so that their employees trust them? And how they know that whether their employees trust him or not? A leader should have answers for these questions. As a leader, you can’t afford to avoid trust between you and your employees or teammates. A lack of trust in leader results in negative impact on staff retention, employee well being and performance. Trust requires a person to have reliance and confidence in the actions of another, with no guarantee that he/she will behave as desired in return. When applied to leadership, trust is a person’s willingness to take a risk for a leader with the expectations that, in exchange, the leader will behave in some desired way. To maximize the trust leaders receive from their employees, they demonstrate three qualities. 1. Competence (Can they do the job?); 2. Benevolence (Do they care about me?); and 3. Integrity (Are they honest?). Integrity is the most important part at 41 percent, the benevolence at 34 percent, then competence at 25 percent. When the goal is to maximize the trust, leaders must know how to do their jobs well, but it is even more important for them to be considerate, supportive and honest with their employees. Leaders not only demonstrate these three qualities- honest, benevolent and competent, but they have also try to be seen to be so. Now leaders show trust in people around them. They listen to their employees, empathize with them, show their concern for the employees, are honest with them, true to their word, and treat them fairly. Leaders actively manage how they are perceived by others. They try to connect their employees at a personal level, which could be as simple as shaking hands with them. There are clear links between professional human capital management (HCM) best practices (such as mission statements, regular surveys and performance reviews) and trust in leadership. These practices, typically of progressive organizations, and are also linked to levels of trust in leadership. Employees are twice as likely to trust their senior leaders if the organization has engaged in these practices. And the more of these best practices that the organization engages in, the greater the level of employee trust in leadership. Conclusion: On the basis of the studies, I came to know that different leaders are following different trends in their leadership techniques. So there is no set trend for leadership. Also different people have different opinion about their leaders. But what I realized from my learning on these articles that to have a winning and competitive edge, organizations require leaders who can inspire, motivate, direct, etc. their employees to achieve the company’s goal effectively and efficiently. Leaders should also build their trust on employees, so that they can trust and believe their leaders for better outcomes and staff retention. Also I came to know that leaders are practicing to work in a team and currently they are using a trend of As one, that is whole organization is one and they are having a common goal, objective and vision. Sources: 1. Leadership Excellence, Art. Collective leadership, March 2012 2. Leadership Excellence, Art. How to gain trust?, May 2012