What characterizes a good leader in the 21st century? To answer this question, it is important to look at the circumstances under which leadership is practiced today. Digitalization and social media are creating increased global competition in many industries. In an HR report by the Institute for Employment and Employability (IBE) and Hays AG, 80 percent of survey participants see managing change as the biggest challenge facing managers: Leading under constant environmental change. However, the increasing complexity of work processes, the perception of the role model function, the creation of transparency and the work-life balance, which is increasingly coming into focus for employees, also play a decisive role for good leadership in the 21st century.
Corporate profits should continue to grow while taking these new aspects into account. This demands a great deal of tact from today's managers. For example, an open ear for the fears and wishes of employees. The latter prefer the "understanding comrade" to the "numbers-driven manager".
Good managers are at the same time role models, visionaries, practitioners, diagnosticians, concept developers, conflict managers, designers, leaders and top decision-makers. At the same time, day-to-day operations are becoming less important for managers: Only eleven percent of the participants in the HR study still see it as an important task for managers. Personnel management is accorded greater importance than structural management. But how do these two leadership styles differ?
Table of contents
Table of contents
List of figures and tables
1. Introduction
1.1 Good leadership in the 21st century
1.2 Structure of the paper
2. Leadership in Transition
2.1 Leadership and Leadership – Concept and Demarcation
2.2 Traditional leadership approaches
2.3 Modern Leadership Approaches – InLeaVe New Leadership Model
2.4 Requirements for a modern leader
3. Conflict competence as a requirement component
3.1 Content of social conflicts in groups and organizations
3.2 Conflict escalation – the 9-step model according to Glasl
3.3 De-escalation and conflict resolution strategies
3.4 Conflict resolution through non-violent communication according to Rosenberg
4. Reflection on one's own leadership behavior
4.1 Development of leadership skills during the winter semester 2016/17
4.2 Competence development in the field of conflict management through the use of non-violent communication according to Rosenberg
5. Challenges for the leadership of the future
Bibliography
List of figures and tables
Figure 1: Blake & Mouton Leadership Grid
Figure 2: Situational Leadership Theory according to Hersey & Blanchard
Figure 3: InLeaVe New Leadership Model
Figure 4: Components of transformational leadership
Figure 5: Contents and consequences of transactional and transformational leadership
Figure 6: Levels of meaning of conflicts
Figure 7: The nine stages of escalation according to Glasl
Figure 8: Four principal directions of intervention
Figure 9: The Model of Nonviolent Communication
1. Introduction
1.1 Good leadership in the 21st century
What distinguishes a good leader in the 21st century? To answer this question, it is important to deal with the circumstances in which it is conducted today. Digitalization and social media are creating increased global competition in many industries. In an HR report by the Institute for Employment and Employability (IBE) and Hays AG, 80 percent of the survey participants see managing change as the biggest challenge for managers: Leading under constant change of the environment. But the increasing complexity of work processes, the perception of the role model function, the creation of transparency and the work-life balance that is becoming increasingly important for employees also play a decisive role for good leadership in the 21st century (cf. Hays 2016: 16 ff.).
Corporate profits should continue to grow taking these new aspects into account. This requires a high degree of tact from today's managers. For example, an open ear for the fears and wishes of the employees. These prefer leaders prefer the "understanding comrade" over the "number-driven manager" (cf. Reller 2014).
"Good managers are at the same time role models, visionaries, practitioners, diagnosticians, concept developers, conflict managers, designers, drivers and top decision-makers" (Kestel 2014). At the same time, day-to-day operations are becoming less important for the manager: Only eleven percent of the participants in the HR study see it as an important task of managers. Personnel management is given a higher priority than structural management (cf. Kestel 2014).
But how do these two leadership styles differ? "Leadership" or translated into German "Leadership" is often divided into the two types of structural and personnel leadership in the literature. While in structural management, the behavior of employees is influenced by structures of different quality without this being carried out by one person, in personnel management, despite tightly defined regulations, it is a person who finally decides how these regulations are implemented and lived in practice. As an example of a guide through structure, the work on the assembly line can be mentioned, since here the success of this work is only guaranteed if each person on the assembly line adheres exactly to the regulations of his job description. In personnel management, the leader decides for himself how the regulations are implemented in reality and his ability to formulate the type, tasks and goals or to motivate his employees comes to the fore (cf. von Rosenstiel 2009: 3).
However, the change in leadership was not a process that happened overnight. Even when looking at modern and traditional leadership theories, this change can already be seen.
1.2 Structure of the paper
After an introduction that deals with the question of what constitutes good leadership in today's world, the description of the structure of the work and a short definition, differentiation and definition of the terms leadership and leadership follows. Afterwards, the author gives an overview of the development of leadership approaches over time. In addition to distinguishing between three traditional approaches, modern management approaches are presented and one of the four pillars of the InLeaVe New Leadership Model conjugated.
In the next section of the work, the author discusses the various requirements placed on a modern leader. This includes leadership tasks, competencies, styles and roles. In order to create the theoretical basis for personal reflection in the last part of the work, the following part of the work is dedicated to conflict competence as one of the important requirement components of a leader in the 21st century.
The subsequent personal reflection of the author begins with a personal description of the development of his competencies in the field of leadership during the winter semester 2016/17 at the University of Applied Management in Ismaning, before he then devotes himself to his personal change of competence in the field of communication through the application of non-violent communication according to Rosenberg as the focus of his reflection. The work concludes with a brief summary of the author's findings and a conclusion on the challenges to leadership in the 21st century.
2. Leadership in Transition
2.1 Leadership and Leadership – Concept and Demarcation
Before dealing with the development of leadership and leadership, it is important to define the terms leadership and leadership. Only in this way is an equal understanding of these central words possible. There are numerous definitions of the term leadership in research. These differ above all in focus, which depends on the respective theoretical current. Detailed collections of leadership definitions are provided by Gary Yukl (cf. 2006: 21) or, in Germany, Oswald Neuberger (cf. 2002: 12 ff.) in his book "Führen und führen lassen".
In order to do justice to the numerous aspects that are contained in the word leadership, a definition that is as general as possible seems to make sense at first: "Leadership is the conscious and goal-oriented influence on people" (Nerdinger 2014: 84). Conversely, however, this definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation and offers too little concrete content for a goal-oriented definition of the term. This is another reason why Yukl notes that even after decades, the term leadership still "represents a vaguely defined construct" (Werther 2014: 5), but influencing others is an important part of this construct. Finally, he defines leadership as follows:
"Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives." (Yukl 2006: 26)
This definition includes many aspects on which current leadership research focuses. Leaders influence others not through authority, but a common goal and understanding of the path to the goal. In this way, the leader supports the leader in order to achieve the common goals.
But why is it often referred to in German as "leadership" as a synonym for "leadership". In addition to the fact that "leadership" in German is translated as "leadership", this is due to a differentiation of this term, as its "inventor" Harvard professor John P. Kotter is seen. He made a clear distinction between management and leadership. Both terms are often translated as leadership in German. While managers manage a company, leaders are the visionaries who inspire and motivate their employees. Political scientist and historian James M. Burns' distinction between transactional and transformative leadership also goes in the same direction. This fundamental definition of leadership was later often taken up in the literature and should also be regarded as the basis for the understanding of leadership in this work (cf. Hegele-Raih 2004: 37).
2.2 Traditional leadership approaches
The traditional leadership approaches form the basis for the later development of modern leadership approaches. What they all have in common is that they focus on individual variables of leadership. They can be divided into three different categories: Person-, behavioral- and situation-oriented approaches.
While person-centered leadership approaches focus primarily on the innate or developable personality traits of the leader, behavior-oriented theories focus on the behavior of the leader. Since neither of these two approaches could adequately explain the success or failure of leadership, scientists looked for possible circumstances and situations in companies that could influence leadership outcomes. These approaches are summarized under the situation-oriented management approaches (cf. von Au 2016: 6 f.). Within the framework of this distinction, the author focuses on the most important global developments in the research field of leadership theories. Thus, the leadership approaches of systemic leadership, which are mainly developed in Germany, are not dealt with in this work, as they would go beyond the scope of the study work.
Person-centered leadership approaches represent the beginning of leadership theory research. Until the 20th century, research in this field focused almost exclusively on the personality of the leader and pays little attention to the relationship between the leader and the led. Influence is exercised only by the leader in the direction of the led. These are seen as a collective. With the Great Man Theory the Property Theory, both of which place the innate personality traits of the leader in the foreground, and the Skills Theory, which focuses on the skills that can be developed later, three of the most important leadership approaches of this kind are presented here (cf. Stippler et al. 2010: 1 ff.; von Au 2016: 8 f.). the Great Man Theory has been aligned with famous leaders of history and states that leaders are endowed with unique and special abilities at birth that enable them to lead in a natural way, always without the influence of the leaders. Based on this view, at the beginning of the 20th century, attempts were made to identify certain recurring characteristics in leaders that enable them to lead. In these as Trait Theory Known approach, properties are defined as time-stable and situation-independent and are clearly detectable and measurable (cf. Stippler et al. 2010: 2). In a review, Ralph Stogdill evaluates 124 relevant studies and compiles an extensive list of characteristics identified in successful leaders (cf. Stogdill 1948).
Later studies also tried to further specify these properties and to define new catalogues of properties (cf. Mann 1954; Stogdill 1974; Lord et al. 1986). The current research opinion takes the view that qualities such as intelligence, perseverance and extravision are usually found in leaders (cf. Wegge & von Rosenstiel 2004). However, property theory is considered outdated today for two reasons. On the one hand, the creation of a list of qualities that are conducive to leadership success in all situations proves to be impossible, on the other hand, the influence of the guided and the situation is completely neglected here (cf. Stippler et al. 2010: 3). the behavior-oriented leadership approaches, also called leadership style research, take up the criticism of the person-centered theories and focus not only on the respective situation in which the leader is located, but also on the relationship between the leader and the leader. The approaches in one-, two- and three-dimensional leadership theory (cf. von Au 2016: 9 ff.). in one-dimensional leadership model Lewin et al. (cf. Lewin et al. 1939) distinguishes between a democratic and an authoritarian style of leadership. While the democratic approach, in which the leader cooperates with the leaders and involves them in his decisions, promotes job satisfaction and the positive attitude of the leaders, the authoritarian style provides the opposite effect. Although the generalization of the results was viewed critically due to the design of the experiments (laboratory experiments with children) (cf. Hentze 1990: 103; cf. Browne 1955: 62), the two leadership styles are still used in research and practice today (cf. Glaesner 2007: 19).
Researchers at Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, blake and Mounton conducted studies in the 1960s and created models that are now known as two-dimensional leadership style theory are to be classified. Both the publications of the Ohio State University and the University of Michigan state "that employees describe the behavior of their superiors in two dimensions, namely person orientation (support, participation, praise, recognition) and task orientation (goal setting, planning, coordination, organization)" (cf. von Au 2016: 9). Building on these two dimensions, Blake and Mounton published the so-called "so-called" in 1964. leadership grid, a behavioural grid that concern for results (task orientation) and concern for people (Employee orientation) along 2 axes. Based on the respective characteristics (low or high on a scale of 1-9), the leadership style of a person can then be assigned to one of the leadership styles shown in Figure 1.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Figure 1: Leadership Grid according to Blake & Mouton (Stippler et al. 2010: 6)
Studies carried out on the basis of this model have shown that a strong manifestation (team management) lead to a high level of effectiveness on both axes. However, the success of leadership is strongly dependent on the respective situation (cf. Stippler et al. 2010: 3).
one third dimension added William James Reddin in 1981 with his 3D concept to improve management performance. As a third dimension, he adds the effectiveness of the leadership style. In addition to task and person orientation, Reddin includes the respective conditions and situations under which the leader leads. Depending on the situation, leadership styles can be differently effective (cf. von Au 2016: 10). The question in which situation which leadership style should be used remains unanswered, but only the consideration of the respective situation in his concept can be seen as a step towards situation-oriented leadership approaches.
at situation-oriented leadership approaches the basic assumption is that leadership success depends primarily on situation variables and that the leadership style must be adapted to the situation accordingly. The following approaches should be mentioned and distinguished here:
that Maturity model von Hersey and Blanchard (1969) makes the basic leadership style dependent on the maturity level of the leaders (see Figure 2). How much leadership is necessary and how strong the task and employee orientation is in each case depends exclusively on the maturity level of the employee. The higher the level of maturity of the employee, the lower the need for task-oriented leadership behavior. The employee knows what to do. The situation is different with employee orientation. While a management style with low employee orientation is recommended both at a low level of maturity and at a very high level of maturity, it is a high employee orientation for the middle maturity levels.
On the one hand, the reduction of the influencing variables on the factor of employee maturity and on the other hand the high demands on the leader due to the complex model must be viewed critically (cf. von Au 2016: 11).
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Figure 2: Situational Leadership Theory according to Hersey & Blanchard (Stippler et al. 2010: 8)
Building on the Maturity model Fiedler (1967) developed his contingency theory of leadership effectiveness. On the basis of a measuring scale with 18 opposite pairs of properties (e.B. friendly – unfriendly, tense – relaxed), the "Least Preferred Coworker Scale" (LPC), which determines the leadership style of a person. This scale forms the basis for describing the leadership situation, which is described by three variables: Relationship between leader and leader, task structure and position power. The strongest influence on the situation here is the relationship between the leader and the led, the weakest the position power. By evaluating the Contingency Theory a prediction of leadership success should be possible (cf. Stippler et al. 2010: 9 ff.). The criticism of this theory is that it does not provide an answer to the question of what to do if the leader and the situation do not match and that it does not explain why certain leadership styles are successful in certain situations. Fiedler refers to this as "Black Box Problem" (cf. Fiedler 1993).
the Path-goal theory The leadership, which was developed in the 1970s, has the peculiarity that it takes into account as a first approach the motivation of the led in the sense of a situation variable (cf. Evans 1970; cf. House 1971). The fact that leaders make the achievement of goals easier and more attractive for those managed has a positive influence on their motivation. In this case, the leader is a motivator, trailblazer and supporter for the leaders in achieving the goals.
Leadership behavior should always be adapted to the individual characteristics of the leader and the respective characteristics of the tasks. The core of the Path-goal theory form the four possible behaviors of the leader, which are applied depending on the situation: Directive, supportive, participatory or performance-oriented leadership. In practice, however, this theory proved difficult.
"The manager should be able to recognize the motivation of the guided and the expression of the above-mentioned characteristics of the led person and the task and react to it with the corresponding leadership behavior." (Stippler et al. 2010: 9 ff.)
The critique of the difficult feasibility in practice can generally be extended to the situational leadership approaches, since central basic concepts of the theories are often hardly (exactly) measurable or operationalizable and thus difficult to empirically test. However, these approaches clearly show that leadership must always be evaluated depending on the respective situation (cf. von Au 2016: 13).
2.3 Modern Leadership Approaches – InLeaVe New Leadership Model
The insight gained from traditional leadership approaches was that leadership is part of a complex system of relationships, situations and many other variables: "Leadership culture does not form in a vacuum, but is influenced by a multitude of social processes that are becoming increasingly dynamic and at the same time increasingly complex." (Grabmeier 2015: 3)
The onset of a change in values in people's attitudes towards work and occupation also ensured that management approaches were adapted or newly developed (cf. Fürstenberg 1993, pp. 193-197). In order to adequately classify the leadership theories arising from these developments, the author makes use of the Institute for Leadership & Change Developed New Leadership Model (see Figure 3).
Because "even if different foci are at the center of the consideration, the modern multidimensional and integrative leadership approaches have four common supporting pillars, which are static in the basic idea, but in the concrete design organization-specific and dynamic in nature." (from Au 2016: 13). The four cornerstones of this model are: Relationship, system, participation and meaning (cf. von Au 2016: 13).
In the following part, the author divides the most important modern management approaches into these four pillars, although a clear demarcation through flexibilization is no longer clearly possible.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
Figure 3: InLeaVe New Leadership Model (Own presentation according to Au 2016: 20)
In the case of the relationship-oriented leadership approaches the process of leadership is understood as a reciprocal relationship and interaction phenomenon between the led and the leader. Images of people and the individuality of employees become the focus of attention. As an example of central approaches in this area, the Leader Member Exchange Theory (LMX) that Servant Leadership Model And the Transformational Leadership briefly introduced.
In the case of the LMX Theory (cf. Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995) is above all the employee as an individual in the foreground of the consideration. Depending on the type of relationship quality between the leader and the leader, the employee of the in-group or out-group conjugated. While members of the out-group (with a bad relationship with the leader) only perform "service according to regulations", it is in-group members (good relationship with the leader) who receive positive performance ratings, are promoted and take responsibility. Building a trusting and respectful in-group relationship through fairness and open communication is the goal of the leader. Criticized in this theory is the lack of detailed proposals for building good relations between the leader and the leaders (cf. von Au 2016: 21 f.).
Stands at the LMX Theory the relationship in the foreground is it in the approach Servant Leadership Model by Greenleaf (1977) ) the employee himself, on whom everything is concentrated. The leader puts the benefit of the led above his self-interest: "Servant leadership promotes the appreciation and development of the led, the building of a community, the practice of authenticity, and the sharing of power and status for the common good of each individual, the entire organization, and those served by the organization." (Nerdinger 2014: 96)
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