The Evolving Roles of First-Time Leaderships in the Digital Era: A Hybrid Leadership Approach

The Evolving Roles of First-Time Leaderships in the Digital Era: A Hybrid Leadership Approach

Nadine Barrett, Jenice M. Lynch, Janette E. Grayson
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-7592-5.ch002
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Abstract

The disruptive and uncertain nature of the digital space requires that the first-time leader be very responsive in the dynamic environment. The agile and lean approaches provide the platform for the continuous development of talent and give autonomy to team members, allowing them to be creative and innovative in their approach which can result in novel solutions. New thinking and flexibility in leadership is paramount in a decentralized space that is filled with unpredictable, evolving, and complicated events. The success of first-time leaders will be dependent on their ability to navigate the evolving digital environment where the traditional hierarchical command-and-control leadership constructs are not welcome. Dynamic and revolutionary leadership practices are paramount in the new “workplace order” where changes occur almost at the speed of light. This exploratory study investigates how the merger of agile and lean thinking principles can result in a hybrid approach to leadership in the digital era.
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Background

In this section we investigate the present approach to leadership. We review the relevant literature based on the context of our study.

Research reveals that there is a relationship between employee satisfaction and performance and the type of leadership in any organization. According to Yaghoubipoor, Tee, and Ahmed (2013) leadership plays the greatest role in employee loyalty, happiness and job satisfaction. However, in many organizations, traditional leadership approaches fail to pay attention to the interplay between motivation, dedication and loyalty of employees and the leadership of the organization.

Leadership

Leadership research is not new and many researchers have tried to coin definitions for this very important role. However since the 1900s there have been over 350 different definitions for the term leadership and this makes it difficult to offer a single definition for the word (Yaghoubipoor et al., 2013). In this chapter we will refer to leadership as “the ability to inspire others to follow and to become their best selves and achieve the desired goals”.

Traditional Leadership Approaches

Traditional leadership models are not effective in the new paradigm of leadership. The new leadership paradigm is more focused on efficiency, decentralization and innovation and is closely related to the development of organizations (Rasmussen, 2020). However traditional leadership is static and even as it evolves, it seeks to maintain bureaucratic functions along with the old order of efficiency and control which results in a more complex leadership process (Schreiber & Carley, 2006).The twenty-first century leader must find the right balance between traditional leadership and leadership in the new age which will make their organization as efficient as possible while learning, growing and inspiring their teams.

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