Abstract
Organizations face their work in a rapidly changing environment, where globalization, technological advances, and the generation, management, and transfer of knowledge have become fundamental processes for competitiveness. This VUCA environment forces entities to readjust continuously. This implies attracting and retaining people with adequate and sufficient skills to work in this context and committing to management models based on leadership that contributes, as never before, to giving visibility, voice, participation, and well-being to its members. In the conviction, demonstrated by recent literature, the most satisfied collaborators are the most productive. This study is of an empirical, exploratory, and transversal nature, in which, firstly, the degree of conformity with individual capacities of the new leader is tested among personnel managers in organizations in the Bay of Algeciras Arch. Secondly, it is analyzed whether these opinions are related to specific socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents.
TopIntroduction
This book chapter entitled “A New Leadership for a New Era: Effects of Association of Socio-Demographic Variables on the Leader’s Competencies” represents an integrating part of the “Handbook of Research on Building Inclusive Global Knowledge Societies for Sustainable Development”, and is specially designed by the authors in order to present, to analyze, and to offer valuable solutions in terms of leadership, as an immediate and most natural result derived from the sudden and inevitable appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis. In continuation, it should be mentioned that both the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis have forced our society to regroup and to readjust to the new tendencies and the new requirements, thus implementing the need for more powerful, more empathetic and more capable leaders in order to create a New Leadership for a New Era. In addition, the authors ought to mention that the tendencies to create, to discover, and to implement a New Leadership for a New Era could have been foreseen long before the current situation that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis, since humanity was striving for the creation of a more human environment, with higher concern for individuals and the environment, in particular, and for the Planet Earth, in general. In essence, the need for a more secure, more robust, more resilient, and a healthier future for all was the new resolution for all countries and all individuals alike, since for many, many years the general economic, social, political and demographical tendencies were towards ensuring the sustainable development (SD), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and building inclusive global knowledge societies for sustainable development (SD) (Núñez-Barriopedro et al. 2021).
The COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis have brought immeasurable challenges and sudden changes to individuals daily lives, transforming the society in a very abrupt and profound way. These days, specialists and leaders worldwide are highly focused on building inclusive global knowledge societies for sustainable development, thus promoting a safer and a better future for all. In like manner, nowadays researchers’ immediate focus concerns discovering the best and the most important characteristics that belong to a New Leadership for a New Era, while addressing the most relevant effects of association of socio-demographic variables on the leader’s competencies.
These days, according to specialists worldwide, the pressure that our society experiences due to the involvement of the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis factors in our day-to-day activities is incapable of being estimated or assessed, while compared with the time periods before the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis (Bostancı and Yıldırım, 2022; Özsungur, 2021a). Thus, the motivation of understanding better today’s business environment needs and requirements is extremely high in terms of leaders and leadership at a general scale (Özsungur, 2021b; Popescu, 2022a).
Since the beginning of the 21-st century, there has been a great interest on the part of the social science researchers – especially the specialists in the area of human resources, in exploring what type of management or leadership organizations need to achieve advantages of a competitive and sustainable nature in the digital era (Adamik and Nowicki, 2020; Khan, 2022). This era is characterized by robust automation in production or manufacturing processes. This has brought with it, among other consequences, the fact that employees have an exhaustive knowledge of new technologies’ performance and a more open mind towards innovation, disruptive thinking, or creativity. In this way, companies aim to face the intense competition demanded by the market to achieve high productivity (Bauer et al., 2015). Traditionally, this objective has been pursued by an essential number of companies through human resources policies based on precarious employment and authoritarian or bureaucratic leadership. Far from these principles, other companies understand that their organizational culture must pivot in the generation of a climate that favors their workforce’s commitment and the transfer of internal knowledge. As is well known, this source of added value helps to improve the quality of their products or services, and therefore, customer satisfaction (Geisler et al., 2019).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Creativity in Business: Is seen as essential in the Post-COVID-19 Era, especially when willing to create and promote the image of a New Leadership for a New Era, since innovation empowers all individuals to become more opened to change, more willing to adapt to the most recent trends and challenges, by addressing change with optimism, and with constructive vision.
Continuously Changing Environment: Represents the natural reaction and the normal response of any type of environment – and most visibly, of the international business environment, to all the changes and to all the challenges that regularly appear in day to day activities and life; in the Post-COVID-19 Era, the environment will be forced to adapt at a faster and at a more visible rhythm than ever before, since survival of businesses will represent a must for all individuals and for all companies that are interested in their success, productivity, performance, and profitability.
Transformational Leaders: Are considered those individuals that are capable to adapt in the fastest and best way possible in the Post-COVID-19 Era, while embracing new challenges and taking into consideration new tasks, since a New Leadership for a New Era has the power to bring great success to entities and put a paramount accent on happiness management, mindfulness, well-being, and joy with every step of way.
Powerful Leaders: Are considered those individuals that will be capable to adapt at a faster pace than the rest of their colleagues and of their competitors in the Post-COVID-19 Era, since the “New Normal” imposes a certain abrupt degree of change, derived from the forms of the COVID-19 crisis that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic; in essence, the “New Normal” will create the background and the premises for a New Leadership for a New Era, which will especially and majorly revolve around leaders that will be, on the one hand, more inclined to understand and to react in a prompt manner to their employees’ needs, and, on the other hand, more agile in determining the marketplace trends and in anticipating the competitions’ position and next moves.
Leadership in the Post-COVID-19 Era: Implicates, on the one hand, facing, and, on the other hand, understanding and coping with the new forms of creativity, communication, innovation, doing business, emphasizing, and, in essence, surviving, while preparing for the changes and challenges that are derived from building the “New Normal” of our society; what is more, the COVID-19 Era has the power to create and to promote a New Leadership for a New Era, that is expected to take active and coherent actions that will be capable to show a deeper and greater concern for people, for the environment, for businesses, for Planet Earth.
Effects of Association of Socio-Demographic Variables on the Leader’s Competencies: Represent the key to building inclusive global knowledge societies for sustainable development (SD), since a well-designed and a well-developed strategy for leadership in the Post-COVID-19 Era has the power to enable Transformational Leaders to become more active and more involved in the day to day tasks, thus promoting New and reliable forms of Leadership for a New Era.
New Leadership for a New Era: Is considered the very essence of these days society and the most powerful instrument that the management of organizations possesses in order to make the best of the changes and challenges specific to the Post-COVID-19 Era; is believed to represent the motor that will bring competitiveness, profitability, and productivity at a new scale, while centering on individual’s needs, desires and requirements.