2. Contemporary Leadership Styles: How relevant are they in today’s changing world?

1, what is leadership

Leadership is defined as the influences on other people, to make people understand and agree with you about what to do and how to do? Leadership refers to setting a vision, demonstrate and share the vision, provide information and all relevant knowledge and approaches to achieve the goal, and it is also responsible for how to solve the interests conflicts between people in relation to the organization (BusinessDictionary, 2018).

2, Different leadership style and the challenges current leaders are experiencing in leading in a changing world

According to Lewin (1974) that traditional leadership can be classified as three classic styles:

• Laissez faire

laissez faire leadership style usually gives the team some freedom and space, and the results will be good if they work with a good team.

• Autocratic

Autocratic leadership make judgment and decisions without agreement and communication from team members. This style adapts to organizations that need quick decision-making. Although there are some drawbacks, such as the low degree of organizational participation.

• Participative

Participative leadership, leaders and organizations will have high degree of communication and consultation to achieve common decisions and achieve common goals through collective efforts.

Normally, the organization will choose specific leadership style, or mix in a variety of styles according to its own culture, structure, and situation, but there will be a dominant position in the style. Many organizations are still in a very strong sense of hierarchy. In the new era of high-speed development, leadership needs to develop new skills to face the new environment.

3, How leadership theories need to be developed in the future?

Modern world is changing rapidly, countries of the world are becoming more and more interdependent and interconnected due to the globalization, migration as well as the development of technology. As a result, the leadership is also facing diverse challenges, new range of skills need to be developed. Leaders need to be adaptable, prepare for unpredictability, guide uncertainty, solid professional knowledge and technology, and be good at managing the emotions of themselves and their teams, have clear understanding of their shortcomings, be good at discovering other people’s strengths and develop them, be good at motivating and delegating people, and integrity.

4, How does Alibaba group maintain its competitive edge and keep steady development in leading in a changing world?

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, a Chinese multinational e-commerce, retail and IT technology conglomerate established in 1999. In the highly competitive and rapidly changing e-commerce and IT industry, Jack Ma the CEO of Alibaba relies on its own charismatic leadership to lead Alibaba’s steady development.

Strong persuasion ability: let Jack Ma can find more outstanding talent, English teacher born Jack his eloquence is extremely good, and this has made a great contribution to the Alibaba‘s going public (Gibson, 2018).

A unique vision: as a decision maker of the team, Jack always ready for the uncertainty, Ma Yun has the ability to foresee and execute the future trend, as early as in 2004, has seen the limitations of the traditional financial service model. Through the customer base of Taobao Tmall and other e-commerce customers, he developed the Alipay into a multi-functional and stereoscopic online life style, and after the full occupation of the Chinese market, jack decide to enter the global market, signing Alipay cooperation agreement with the world’s major shopping groups to show the ambition and enterprising spirit of the richest man in China.

Continuous innovation: in 2006, Amazon and other overseas ecommerce entered China to seize the market. Ma Yun was constantly reflecting on the big structural transformation and innovation of the company. All the companies under the flag were divided into Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay, YAHOO. And Ali software to meet the challenges of different fields, it is also a classic integration of the e-commerce field. At present, the structure of the three domestic Internet giants begins with Ma Yun’s change (Gibson, 2018).

The unique incentive policy: Ma Yun thinks that the biggest wealth of an enterprise is employee, so Alibaba has always regarded “employees and customers” as the two things that the company can’t forget, so Ma Yun put forward the idea of “putting money on employees”, he thinks that it is better to put money in the employee than to put money in the bank. Firmly believe that the employees do not grow up, and the enterprise will not grow (Gibson, 2018).

5, Should leadership be conducted on feminine leadership?

Female leadership is considered as a critical role playing in business, more and more female is engaged in top management position. Female leadership in organization is not only about the gender diversity or social concerns, it’s more about to face the challenges in changing world together with male. It is commonly known that, in a corporation, their financial performance is strongly related to its organizational performance. whereas, leadership behaviors have a significant impact on organizational performance. According to the research from Bass and Avolio, women are engaged more frequently in most of these critical leadership behaviors (9 leadership behaviors are attached and see the picture below). Thus, it can be recognized that women make a great contribution to the organizational performance. As a result, it is strongly suggested to conduct on feminine leadership in the future business trend (Mckinsey&Company, 2018).

Source from: McKinsey analysis, 2003.

The new era requires businesses and leaders to develop new skills to face a rapidly changing world. The masculine leadership style may also need to consider the importance of the feminine leadership style to the unknown future.

References

BusinessDictionary, (2018). Leadership. Online available from < http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/leadership.html. [ Accessed on July 10, 2018]

Genovese, M. (2015). Leadership Challenges in A Hyper-Changing World. [Online] available from< https://worldpolicy.org/2015/12/09/leadership-challenges-in-a-hyper-changing-world/> [December 9, 2015]

Ree, l. (2018). 5 Leadership Styles for the 21^st Century Organization. [Online] available from <https://www.sycol.com/5-leadership-styles-21st-century-organisation/. [Accessed on July 12, 2018]

Mckinsey & Company, (2018). Women Matter 2. [Online] available from < https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Organization/Our%20Insights/Women%20matter/Women_matter_oct2008_english.ashx. [Accessed on July 12, 2018]

Gibson, R. (2018). Inside Alibaba – Jack Ma’s Digital Innovation Factory. [Online] available from< https://theleadershipnetwork.com/article/inside-alibaba-jack-ma-s-digital-innovation-factory. [April 27, 2018]