Introduction
Leadership is essential to the success of any organisation. This has led to many researchers and academicians focusing on the various ways leadership can be improved to increase the chances of organisational success. It is for this reason that there have emerged several leadership models and leadership theories that can be applied in organisations (Northouse 2013). The current models and theories are built around the modernist assumption regarding losers and winners, control and power, as well as local interactions as opposed to international interactions.
These theories are intended to lead post-industrial, as well as post-modern enterprises. In the 21st century, there has been an increased application of integral leadership, among other models and theories of leadership. By definition, integral leadership is the kind of leadership that seeks to integrate the various leadership styles into one style that is more effective and efficient. This article will focus on integral leadership in the 21st century.
Integral leadership
The world today has become highly dynamic, thus the needs of people are also changing rapidly. In addition, the increased globalisation has led to people from different cultures interacting in the workplaces. People from different cultures have varying needs and different leadership styles. The major objective of leadership is to influence people so that they can work together towards the achievement of a common goal (Prewitt 2004). It is, therefore, important for the leaders to try to understand the various mindsets of the people they are leading, their varied values, capabilities, situational dynamics, as well as their goals.
Leaders also need to interact with the employees in all useful ways to ensure that employees are fully motivated to work towards a common goal. For a leader to be able to understand all the values of the various employees, there is a need to apply a leadership style that integrates the various styles (Dervitsiotis 2007). Integral leadership is a style that is able to include different relevant variables. It is a kind of leadership that includes theory at an applied research level and at a meta-level. The style was coined for the first time in the 1980s by a man known as Ken Wilber.
In recent years, American businesses are said to be headed to self-destruction as the producers are currently making more goods with few resources. As a result, supply has exceeded demand. Nevertheless, the knowledge base of the people is likely to sustain the production for a relatively long period of time. Leaders have now focused on innovations and application of technologies.
Employees feel demoralized, and organisations have fallen prey of moral deficiencies of leaders as a result of the increased technology applications (Vugt, Hogan & Kaiser 2008). It is a system that is likely to become the basis of the fall of business in the future, rather than improving businesses. It is, therefore, the role of leaders to save the businesses, instead of letting them fall as the latter is likely to cause more harm to the economic development and the competitiveness of organisations.
One of the theories that have been applied in organizational leadership over the years is the modernist leadership theory. It is a kind of theory that works under the assumption that organisations are rational because of planning, problem-solving, and logic are activities that are likely to create sustainable structures (Northouse 2013). In addition, it is a form of leadership that is characterized by bureaucracy and several levels of decision making, as well as communication channels.
Decision making is lengthy, and communication is not entirely effective. This kind of leadership can be traced back to the 19th century, and it owes a lot to a German philosopher who was referred to as Friedrich Nietzsche. The modernist theory has not been able to achieve most organizational goals as it consists of a number of deficiencies (Prewitt 2004). For instance, with its lengthy decision-making process, it means that a lot of time could be wasted in making decisions and opportunities could pass before a final decision could is agreed.
In addition, the modernist leadership theories are not effective in communication, yet communication is one of the essential factors to the success of an organisation. Poor communication structures will lead to the failure of the organisation. It is for these reasons that there has been a need to adopt the postmodern leadership theories in a bid to improve on the deficiencies created by the modernist leadership model.
Postmodern leadership recognizes organisations as complex structures that are chaotic and have complex networks. Physical contacts in the postmodern era have been on the decline as the networks are too large, and it may be a challenge to carry out face to face transactions. Telecommunication use is more apparent (Prewitt, 2004). This coincides with increased technological advancement, which further facilitates communication and transactions across the globe. It is recognized that the workers in the postmodern organisations need to be highly empowered and sophisticated to be in a good position to achieve the organisational goals.
They are employees who can be able to make decisions on their own, thus they do not have to wait for the top officials to make the decisions on their behalf. This leads to faster decision making and increases the efficiency of organisations (Scott 2014). However, the theory assumes that businesses are so interdependent that they do not have winners or losers. In other words, if a business loses, it means that all other businesses lose and if it wins, then all other businesses win. This is not logical in the real world. Thus the postmodern leadership is also considered to have some deficiencies. This calls for the integration of modernist and postmodern leadership models.
Integrated theories create a framework whereby leaders in organisations are able to integrate the postmodern businesses with modernist businesses. This integration makes businesses more coherent and more effective. Thus organisations are more likely to achieve their goals and objectives both in the short run and in the long run (Blanchard 2010).
It is important for business leaders to be in a position to apply any possible resource that is able to give the businesses a competitive advantage. Among these resources include mental resources, spiritual, as well as emotional resources. The modernist kind of leadership would have leaders only focus on the cognitive resources and ignore the rest (Esbjörn-Hargens 2010). Integrating these with the post-modern leadership would give the leaders a complete leadership skill that nearly considers all aspects that can help them influence employees and achieve organisational success.
Conclusion
Leadership in the current business world has become more challenging as the world has advanced greatly, and the needs of people, as well as those of businesses, have changed. Leaders need to be able to address all the needs to have a high chance of succeeding in what they do. This calls for the application of an integrated kind of leadership that is able to address the various aspects and needs of both individuals and businesses.
List of References
Blanchard, K 2010, ‘Mission possible’, Leadership Excellence, vol. 27, no. 4, p. 17.
Dervitsiotis KN 2007, ‘On becoming adaptive: The new imperative for survival and success in the 21st century’, Total Quality Management, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 21-38.
Esbjörn-Hargens, S 2010, Integral theory in action: Applied, theoretical, and constructive perspectives on the AQAL model, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.
Northouse, PG 2013, Leadership: Theory and practice, 6th ed., Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications, Inc., CA.
Prewitt, V 2004, ‘Integral leadership for the 21st century’, World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 327-333.
Scott, D 2014, Contemporary leadership in sport organizations, Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL.
Vugt, MV, Hogan, R & Kaiser, RB 2008, ‘Leadership, followership, and evolution’, American Psychological Association, vol. 63, no. 3, pp. 182-196.