Question

The traditional view of leaders “as special people who set the direction, make the key decisions, and energize the troops” is deeply rooted in an individualistic and non-systemic world view. Especially in the West, leaders are great men and women who rise to the fore in times of crisis. So long as these myths prevail, they reinforce a focus on short-term events and charismatic heroes rather than on systemic forces and collective learning. Leadership should center on subtler and ultimately more important work. Leaders should be designers, teachers, and stewards. These roles require new skills: the ability to build shared vision, to bring to the surface and challenge prevailing mental models, and to foster more systemic patterns of thinking. In short, leaders are responsible for building organizations where people are continually expanding their capabilities to shape their future, that is, leaders are responsible for learning.” Do you agree or disagree with these statements by Peter Senge.

Answer 1

I completely agree with the above-mentioned statement of Peter Senge about leaders and their changing responsibilities. The traditional views about leadership no longer hold true. The traditional view about leadership has greatly emphasized some specific traits of a good leader like “vision” and “charisma”. But the modern leadership traits are not limited to these two traits only rather effective leadership has become more complex and incorporates a lot of other traits in its ambit. Some of the newly added crucial traits of effective leadership can be listed as follows-

· The modern leaders ought to ensure a continuous high-performance level in the organization.

· The modern leaders should be able to handle rapidly growing complexity in the business arena.

· The modern leaders should be flexible and must initiate, embrace, and lead the change process in the organization.

· The modern leaders need to focus on the learning, training, and development of their subordinates.

· The modern leaders are expected to cultivate a learning culture in the organization.

· The modern leaders should behave as a part of the team instead of isolating themselves from the team.

· The modern leaders should give ample opportunities to his subordinates for their growth and development in the organization.

Hence, we can say that the role of modern leaders has immensely changed over a period of time. They cannot isolate themselves and take the decision from the top position of the organization rather they should take everyone along with them and fill the entire team with the spirit de corps. So the individualistic approach to leadership has become obsolete these days. This is the era of modern leaders like Richard Branson, Jack Welch, and Percy Barnevik whose leadership traits incorporate more than "charisma". Hence, the statement of Peter Senge about leaders and their changing responsibilities is completely relevant and true and I do agree with it.

.

P.S. - if you liked the answer please give an Up-vote, this will be quite encouraging for me, thank you! :)