Leadership: Today and Tomorrow

Cook (2010) has defined leadership as, “the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he/she wants to do it” (4). Leadership is an important part of all types and forms of organizations, whether it is an army, political group or a multinational business. It would not be wrong to say that leadership begins with a vision and ends with a result.

Today's leadership mainly comprises talking to a set of people present physically in a conference room. However, in future, with the globalization and technological advancements, people from different locations will only have a virtual presence in the meeting rooms. So a leader of tomorrow will be required to polish his/her skills with the developing technologies and also should be able to convey his/her ideas to the fellow teammates present around the globe and encourage them to work for a single goal (Cook, 2010).

Moreover, today people look for a permanent association with an organization. Therefore, leaders are required to lead teams and achieve long term goals. However, the changing trends predict that the future will be crowded with a large number of part-timers, contractors or freelancers, who have no interest in a long term association. This will require leaders of the future to focus more on short-term goals, reaching one at a time (Jobkar, 2005).

Being accessible will be an important characteristic of both future and current leaders; however, there will be a slight difference. The effect of globalization, as discussed above, will require the leaders of tomorrow to work beyond their regular working hours because of a globally scattered team.

All these challenges can be overcome by a leader who is a dedicated hardworking and smart worker in terms of management. Hence, using new technologies, a leader can guide a team of ordinary people to fulfill some extraordinary work.