Empowerment of the employees by their leaders in the current era
This era is a complex period where leaders need to attain the important skills and understanding to succeed in organizations. In the past century, it was observed that employees were seen as slaves of the leaders and were not given their rights, however, today the leaders need to evolve and adapt new ways to empower their followers. Like they need to be a good listener to the employees or help the employees when in need or the leaders can become a team player in some projects and encourage their followers to lead the team (Dike, Odiwe and Ehujor, 2015).
There are different leadership styles like transformational, transactional, autocratic, laissez faire, democratic and many more. Every leadership style has its significance like in the transformational leadership style the leader has a positive image and motivates its followers to achieve their goal. The transactional type of leader will provide its followers with a reward to get things done quickly, the laissez faire is kind of a sleeping partner who doesn’t have an interest in the matters of his employees, in other words, he is a selfish leader and many more.
According to McCallum (2013), to achieve a greater outcome in the organization followership is equally important as leadership because if there are no followers than there will no idea of a leader. If there are no supporters then who will support the leaders. It has been determined that followership is a dynamic social procedure of contributing by supporting a leader. Excellent followers have few talents like good observation, keenly follows the instructions given by the leaders and knows how to progress in any task. Nevertheless, it is expected from the supporters to follow and take direction from their manager however, not all of the supporters are active supporters. The ones who are not obedient or loyal are simply a cause of distress to the leader as well as the firm. The researches have concluded that a disloyal supporter blocks the development of the firm (Dike, Odiwe and Ehujor, 2015).
Today’s era is all about new technology and gadgets which have made an individual’s life easier. If the evolving technology is adopted by the leaders in organizations can bring about social changes in the organization (Prensky, 2001). Currently, the leaders and the businessman resolve their issues in the organization differently after the introduction of wide spread social media and new technology along side it changes the way how they lead their team. It is thus, really important that significant professional skills should be used to effectively function in the recent century (Kaplan, 2009 as cited in Dike, Odiwe and Ehujor, 2015). The majority of the employees in the 21st century’s firms are called digital natives that are those who were raised with these technologies are different from digital migrants that are those that were born before the introduction of the new technologies (Prensky, 2001). Before the advent of new technologies, the latter were in majority however, in the current century the majority is of the former. To be successful in leading and managing the team, the leaders need to adapt to these changes and motivate their employees to obtain these vital skills that will make them closer to their goals and objective. This era demands the employees to technological experts. Moreover, the leaders should be aware of the path that they are perceived by the common public as the way they are seen might have an impact on their repute as well as of that of the firm and their usefulness in handling their business (Dike, Odiwe and Ehujor, 2015).
Conclusion:
Leaders and followers are two faces of a coin, there cannot be leadership without followership and vice versa. The 21st century brought transformational and structural changes in the society along with the introduction of technology without which this society cannot function. So, the leaders need to adapt to these changes to motivate their followers in the organization and help them to achieve their goals or objective. The leaders should empower their supporters by helping the follower when they are in trouble or encouraging them to take a lead in a project as these followers are the future leaders of the organizations.
References:
Prensky, M. (2001), ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’ On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6
McCallum, J. (2013), ‘FOLLOWERSHIP: THE OTHER SIDE OF LEADERSHIP’ Ivey Business Journal, Latrobe University Database.
Dike, V., Odiwe, K., & Ehujor, D.M. (2015), ‘Leadership and Management in the 21st Century Organizations: A Practical Approach’ World Journal of Social Science Research, 2(2), 139-159
