In This Introduction To A Book On Leadership Development: Human Resource Development, NUI, Ireland

In this introduction to a book on leadership development, we argue that leaders in the 21st century need to recognize that building their organization’s leadership capabilities is going to be a major differentiator for future success. We emphasize that organizations that do not have properly structured leadership development processes in place will be at a disadvantage. Organizations that take leadership development seriously outperform the competition. Furthermore, we also put forth that as the world is changing, leadership is no longer defined by what a single leader does (the “Great Man” trait theories) but by the ability to collaborate, motivate, and manage networks.

In this day and age of highly diverse teams, matrix structures, and global organizations, the talent in network building is key to creating collaborative teams and a boundaryless organization. We suggest that due to the changing nature of organizations—a more distributed view of leadership will be needed thus shifting the focus from the traditional single leader to an intricate and complex web of leaders who possess a range of abilities and experiences necessary to ensure that the leadership function is carried out to the benefit of the wider organization.