Leadership as a Process in Dispersed Organizations
Abstract
The concept of leadership continues to evolve as it undergoes shifts to meet the mounting pressure of a highly competitive, global marketplace. Scholars have recognized this change, arguing that leadership is a fluid process in modern organizational life, moving away from traditional characteristics and role-based paradigms. This contention has merit as businesses embrace decentralized structures in globally distributed organizations. To compete on a global scale, leaders can no longer rely on their titles and positional power to steer followers as this approach limits their capacity to achieve organizational and business objectives. Since leaders are the minority in organizations, leadership as a process offers a pragmatic solution as the leadership function extends to include followers, thereby harnessing full resource capability. The article discusses the concept of leadership as a process arguing its efficacy in dispersed organizations. The dimensions of trust, power and communication are discussed as augmented factors for consideration.
Keywords: Leadership as a Process, Decentralized Organizations, Global Economy, Followership, Trust, Power, Communication, Resource Capability, Teamwork.
Author Biography
Louise Delaney, M.Sc., Monarch Business School Switzerland
Ms. Louise Delaney is a Doctor of Applied Leadership & Coaching Candidate. She holds a Master fo Science in Innovation & Technology Management from the Dublin Institute of Technology. She also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Studies from the Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland where she also earned a Post-graduate Diploma in Management & Technology. In addition, Louise has a Diploma in Social Studies.
Professionally, she has held various leadership positions in the technology sector in Ireland, spanning a career of over 20 years and is highly specialised in growing, developing and leading high-performance teams. Louise is curious about all aspects of leadership and is keenly interested in the emerging field of leadership as a process and its potential role in leadership development of global firms particularly in the technology field.
