The 21st century Manager

The 21st century sustainability leadership is about courage, creativity and faith in people. It is a values-based leadership.

Sustainability opportunities and challenges are so complex, both of global scale and yet deeply rooted in people's cultures and beliefs, that tomorrow's leaders will need four core qualities to achieve success:
• systems thinking to identify paradigms driving change
• mediation skills to facilitate knowledge sharing, ensure stakeholders' ownership and foster innovation
• vision rooted in community service and ethical behaviour
• decisiveness in ever changing environments with blurred boundaries
The 21st century leadership is about leading with the heart and to serve rather than rule.

A sustainability leader of the 21st century has to have the ability to create a meaningful context out of the existing sustainability landscape. Sustainability is a broad notion that encompasses all aspects of our lives from economic to social and environmental actions.

A number of ways to promote sustainability is infinite, and this vague plethora of contents is often the source of difficulty in raising awareness and participation in the movement toward sustainable future. It is therefore important for future leaders to recognise and provide innovative, sensitive, and meaningful sustainability possibilities.

As an entrepreneur, leadership is the most important part of your job. But in a constantly changing business climate, you can't model yourself on leadership archetypes from the past and expect to meet the challenges of today's workplace. Barking orders at your subordinates a la the domineering 1950s boss won't get your staff on your side. And the buddy-buddy, hang-loose management style of the 1990s won't get results fast enough to keep pace with the competition.

Some of the factors that make a great leader haven't really changed. The abilities to innovate, execute and be a strong role model for your staff will always be essential. But in addition to these qualities, a new leadership style is emerging, with skills uniquely tailored for success in today's environment. One management consultant has dubbed this new leader The Enlightened Warrior.

Features OF 21st Century Manager

Adaptability: If you could have only one skill in your toolkit, this is the one you need right now, says Marty Linsky, co-founder of consulting firm Cambridge Leadership Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With the marketplace changing practically overnight, CEOs need to be ready to learn fast and shift on the fly.

"Adaptability is a very complicated process," he adds. "You're making hard choices, including sometimes giving up values or beliefs, or ways of doing business that may even have been crucial to earlier success."

Self-Awareness: Before leaders can tackle the challenges at their organizations, they have to look in the mirror, says Ken Blanchard, co-author of the management classic The One Minute Manager, and more recently author of Leading at a Higher Level. "The journey of leadership is first taking a look at yourself," he explains. "Then you're ready to deal one-on-one, then you can take over a team, and then an organization."
People Skills
Everybody says their employees are their top priority, but management consultants say few companies' actions show it. Changing work force dynamics make managing people an increasingly crucial skill for leaders, says Trudy Bourgeois, president and CEO of the Center for Workforce Excellence in Lewisville, Texas.

Purposefulness: Experts are split on whether having a strong vision is a good thing. "Leadership is about going somewhere," Blanchard says. "You need a clear vision that's about who you are, your picture of the future, where you're going."
But Linsky counters, "Vision is as much a constraint as a resource. In my observation,
CEOs get invested in their vision, and then they don't see contrary data."

Decisiveness: The days of holding endless meetings to discuss possibilities are over, says Stevens. At the current pace of change, fast action is what matters. The desire to reach consensus or get buy-in from all parties has to be curtailed at some point, and the leader has to make a decision.

Collaborative Skills: The problems today's companies face can't be solved if department leaders stay in their own silos, says Cynthia McCauley, senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. CEOs need to create cultures that foster idea exchanges among all corners of their organizations and beyond. "We need more managers who can work across boundaries--with vendors, external partners, across business units,

The Private Enterprise System

No business operates in a vacuum. All operate within a larger economic system that determines how goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed in a society. Some economic systems, such as communism, feature strict controls on business ownership, profits, and resources to accomplish government goals. • Private enterprise system or Capitalism An economic system that rewards firms for their ability to identify and serve the needs and demands of customers. Adam Smith, often identified as the father of capitalism, first described the concept in his book The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Smith believed that an economy is best regulated by the “invisible hand” of competition

1:- Competition: battle among businesses for consumer acceptance.

Smith thought that competition among firms would lead to consumers’ receiving the best possible products and prices because less efficient producers would gradually be driven from the marketplace. To compete successfully, each firm must find a basis for competitive differentiation. 2:- Competitive differentiation The unique combination of organizational abilities, products, and approaches that sets a company apart from competitors in the minds of customers.

3:- Basic Rights in the Private Enterprise System For capitalism to operate effectively, the citizens of a private enterprise economy must have certain rights. i.e 1. Private property: Is the most basic freedom under the private enterprise system. Every participant has the right to own, use, buy and sell most forms of property, including land, buildings, machinery, equipment, patents on inventions, individual possessions, and intangible properties.

2. Freedom of choice: means that a private enterprise system relies on the potential for citizens to choose their own employment, purchases, and investments

3. Profit: The owners have the sole right to get and distribute profit for their efforts.

4. Fair Competitions: The private enterprise system also permits fair competition by allowing the public to set rules for competitive activity.

Six Eras in the History of Business

Business history is divided into six distinct time periods. i.e 1:- The Colonial Period :Prior to 1776 The economic focus of the nation centered on rural areas, because prosperity depended on the output of farms and plantations. The success or failure of crops influenced every aspect of the economy. 2:- The Industrial Revolution:1760–1850 The Industrial Revolution began in England around 1750. It moved business operations from an emphasis on independent, skilled workers who specialized in building products one by one to a factory system that mass-produced items by bringing together large numbers of semiskilled workers. The factories profited from the savings created by large-scale production.

3:- The Industrial Revolution:1760–1850 The Industrial Revolution began in England around 1750. It moved business operations from an emphasis on independent, skilled workers who specialized in building products one by one to a factory system that mass-produced items by bringing together large numbers of semiskilled workers. The factories profited from the savings created by large-scale production.

4:- The Age of Industrial Entrepreneurs: Late 1800s Advances in technology and increased demand for manufactured goods, leading to enormous entrepreneurial opportunities As the very name indicates, an industrial entrepreneur is one who sets up an industrial unit. Manufacturer of leather products, textiles, electronics, food items and the like are industrial entrepreneurs. 5:- The Production Era : Through the 1920s Emphasis on producing more goods faster, leading to production innovations. Work became increasingly specialized, and huge, labor-intensive factories dominated U.S. business. Little attention was paid to consumer wants or needs. Instead, businesses tended to make decisions about what the market would get If you wanted to buy a Ford Model T automobile, your color choice was black—the only color produced by the company.

6:- The Marketing Era: Since 1950s Managers began to pay more attention to the markets for their goods and services, and sales and advertising took on new importance. During this period, selling was often synonymous with marketing. At the same time, however, competition also heated up

Soon businesses began to think of marketing as more than just selling; In short, they developed a consumer orientation. consumer orientation is business philosophy that focuses first on determining unmet consumer wants and needs and then designing products to satisfy those needs. Companies also discovered the need to distinguish their goods and services from those of competitors

Branding the process of creating an identity in consumers’ minds for a good, service, or company is an important marketing tool.

A brand can be a name, term, sign, symbol, design, or some combination that identifies the products of one firm and differentiates them from competitors’ offerings.

The marketing era has had a tremendous effect on the way business is conducted today.

Even the smallest business owners recognize the importance of understanding what customers want and the reasons they buy.

7:- Relationship era: Began in 1990s As business continues in the 21st century, a significant change is taking place in the ways companies interact with customers. Since the Industrial Revolution, most businesses have concentrated on building and promoting products in the hope that enough customers will buy them to cover costs and earn acceptable profits, an approach called transaction management.

In contrast, in the relationship era, businesses are taking a different, longer-term approach to their interactions with customers. Firms now seek ways to actively nurture customer loyalty by carefully managing every interaction. A company that retains customers over the long haul reduces its advertising and sales costs. The relationship era is an age of connections—between businesses and customers, employers and employees, technology and manufacturing, and even separate companies. The world economy is increasingly interconnected, as businesses expand beyond their national boundaries. In this new environment, techniques for managing networks of people, businesses, information, and technology are critically important to contemporary business success.