Effective leadership in uncertain times 

Senior management consultant, Mostafa Sayyadi explores the most effective leadership practices necessary to achieve success in such an uncertain global era.

_{When leaders can generate a shared and inspiring vision for the future expansion into global business environment, they will secure a foothold in the ever-expansive global marketplace. Image: Zachary Blanton/123rf}

Leadership is a strategic prerequisite for business success in the global era. The globalised nature of competitiveness is placing more pressure on organisations to employ capable leaders to develop their global vision. Leaders need to think globally yet act locally, because local strategies need to be realigned with both the global economic integration and for individual countries.

There is a need to investigate leadership in order to accomplish sustainable competitiveness. A new leadership style may be necessary as the uncertain global era demands are increasingly difficult to adapt to and sustain profitability and performance. The emergence of global business environments drives companies to become world-class. Leaders within companies can play a crucial role in achieving a high level of effectiveness and even world-class efficiency and effectiveness.

Commitment, flexibility, and innovation are necessary attributes to evaluate the success of organisations. The uncertain global era represents cross cultural settings and requires executives who can adapt successfully to various environments. The major tasks of leaders include empowering employees, generating a shared vision and creating fundamental changes at the organisational level.

Sustained performance in this era is dependent on continuous learning. Leaders may be able to build a learning workplace through empowering employees. Leaders can also improve knowledge sharing and enhance organisation performance through empowering human resources and enabling organisational change.

Leaders can also shed light on the critical role of employee’s attitudes and values in implementing change. Thus, leadership should be embraced at the senior level of organisations to enable performance through implementing organisational change and developing a shared vision for future expansion into global business environment.   

Therefore, business success in the uncertain global era can be achieved when leadership is applied to changing attitudes and assumptions at the individual level and creating collective interests for cultural adaptation. When leaders can generate a shared and inspiring vision for the future expansion into global business environment, they will secure a foothold in the ever-expansive global marketplace.

Leaders can also inspire followers to rethink problems and challenge their current personal attitudes and values. Most importantly, leaders can effectively transform organisations by attempting to change the basic values, beliefs and attitudes of followers so that they are willing to perform beyond their previous or original level as specified by the organisation in their job description. Therefore, each leader plays a critical role in shifting organisations toward the creation of new services and products. Leaders can contribute to new products and services to meet dynamic market needs, through higher expectations and stimulation for new and strategic opportunities to meet the needs of customers in the global era.

By accepting the challenge of effective leadership, executives may be capable of overcoming deficiencies and leading better in our hypercompetitive global business environment.