Today, it seems that many processes that are related to organizational development, management, and leadership are undergoing an insightful change for a number of great reasons. History shows us that in the past several decades, companies have continued to become more and more complex. This complexity is a function of changes in both the internal organization of companies, as well as their external environment. This greater than ever complexity has given rise to a generation of problems that were not present in the customary organization of the past.

The changes in technology, production methods, the workplace over the past several decades, and the optional space of people working within corporate organizations has grown larger and larger. Especially in technologically intensive areas, people have become highly trained experts who must use their own judgment to make technical decisions (which managers themselves are not always qualified to make). Employees can no longer be viewed as ‘laborers’ doing a specific behavioral task who need to be controlled and watched over. As a result, the skills and demands of valuable management and leadership have also become more complex and refined.

Managers and leaders can no longer be successful by mere decision making or delegating orders based on their title or rank in the corporate hierarchy, rather they must recruit the ‘co-operation ‘ and willing involvement of their collaborators in order to most proficiently and successfully accomplish jobs and tasks. In order to avoid conflicts and assure peak performance, managers must rely more on such processes as persuasion and negotiation as opposed to the processes of command or directives. In other words, as the ‘discretionary space’ of employees increases, the focus of the manager shifts from managing time, tasks and situations, to managing relationships, policy and procedure. Thus, the primary focus in effective leadership and management is moving from the content aspect to the process aspect. Additionally, the increasing globalization of business requires a whole different concept of management and organizational learning.

The world is the company arena. Differences in cultural belief, behavior patterns and values must be respected and incorporated into the daily thinking and activity of managers at all levels. How do you approach this with your team?