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The proliferation of studies on leadership competencies have not yet provided a consistent set to guide the work of researchers and practitioners. This paper aims to generate a clear, literature-based overview of the relevant leadership competencies for the twenty-first century.

The paper is an integrative literature review and identifies four strands of literature on leadership, reaching back to traditional works. It reviews each strand to establish which leadership competencies remain relevant for the twenty-first century.

This paper shows it is essential to clarify and harmonize terminology used in leadership literature. It identifies 18 groups of leadership competencies required for the twenty-first century. The research reveals that leaders of the twenty-first century must be able to combine a strong concern for people, customer experience, digitalization, financialization and the general good.

This paper is based on a non-exhaustive list of literature derived from studies published in Western journals, written in English. Future research should include papers beyond the confines of Western academia and entail fieldwork to test the comprehensive framework derived here.

This paper will help practitioners develop leadership training curricula and transform the leadership culture in their organizations. The competency list can be useful in recruitment and selection processes for leadership positions. Professionals will find it helpful as an index in self-diagnosis and personal development for their career decision choices.

The paper addresses the growing need for clarity on the required leadership competencies for the twenty-first century.

Customer relationship management, or CRM, is a new management concept ‐ a new approach ‐ to managing customers. CRM is about the management of technology, processes, information resources, and people needed to create an environment that allows a business to take a 360‐degree view of its customers. CRM environments, by nature, are complex and require organizational change and a new way of thinking about customers ‐ and about a business in general. Creating such an environment requires more than adequate management of the customer relationship or new technologies, it requires new forms of leadership as well. Customer relationship leadership, or CRL, is a new model that leaders can embrace to recreate or readjust their leadership styles in order to foster an atmosphere in their businesses to adopt and practice the principles of CRM. While CRM environments improve business performance, initiatives undertaken in this new management field require sound leadership as well. CRL is a recommended approach to bridge the gap between a CRM vision and its reality.

In an unpredictable and volatile world, more than ever before we need transformational leadership based on a paradigm of social justice, peace, and reconciliation. Instead, what we are increasingly witnessing is toxicity in the actions and behaviors of leaders and followers. Political leaders in Britain are stirring up division instead of unity and causing serious damage to the fabric of society. Immigrants are a convenient cover for politicians rather than facing up to the real causes of anger in society many of which are due to the corrosive impact of austerity imposed after the global economic crisis of 2008. The toxic political environment is inciting a war on civility.

This chapter uses Brexit, the British referendum on remaining or leaving the EU as a focal point from which to observe the failures of Britain’s political leaders in the lead up to and the execution of “the will of the people” to leave the EU. At this critical moment in the history of Britain, essential leadership characteristics including honesty, integrity, authenticity, and courage are not in evidence.

The final section of the chapter is a call to arms to everyone involved in leadership studies, conflict resolution, leadership education, scholarship, and research to address the question: How do we make an active contribution to improving the enactment of leadership and followership in fractured societies? What are our responsibilities as a multilayered community of practice? Are we really practicing what we preach in supporting diverse, inclusive leadership and followership?

This paper aims to explore virtual simulations, merging artificial intelligence with real-world simulations, supporting Canadian armed forces (CAF) junior military leaders (JMLs) leadership development. Our research questions are: (1) How do virtual simulations support CAF junior military leadership development within a globalized and complex environment in the 21st century? (2) Could virtual simulations support a leadership culture change through efficacious “soft skills” training? In this paper, we explore the efficacy of virtual simulations for enhancing or developing leadership in JMLs in the CAF through a four-day pilot project with twenty JMLs (n = 20).

To assess the efficacy of virtual simulations for leadership development, we designed and studied a four-day leadership workshop for JMLs in the CAF using several virtual artificial intelligence leadership role-play simulations developed by McGraw Hill in their smart book textbook (Manning & Curtis, 2022) and several non-virtual in-class simulations for comparison. We selected four twenty to thirty-minute virtual role-play simulations that synergized with the in-person morning leadership workshop. We facilitated the three-hour leadership workshops and virtual/in-class simulations over four consecutive days. We emulated the ELESS model (De Freitas & Routledge, 2013) to assess soft and leadership skills.

The participants (JMLs) reported beneficial learning utility associated with the virtual simulations. Participants also expressed that further utility might be leveraged through virtual simulations incorporating greater complexity with multiple potential outcomes. They also suggested that leadership simulations designed around military situations would prove highly beneficial, something that was outside of the scope of this small pilot project.

Since this phase of our research is a pilot project, we secured a small amount of funding to test our hypothesis that simulations enhance leadership development for JMLs. These funding limitations resulted in several constraints in the research, such as the availability of virtual simulations articulating leadership from a military perspective. However, we believed the assigned organizational leadership simulations in the McGraw Hill Smart Book ecosystem would approximate generic leadership situations enough to test the hypothesis with the JMLs. As a pilot project, our sample size was relatively small (n = 20 JMLs) since participation was voluntary amidst a busy spring season for the JMLs. Since this is a pilot project, we suggest that twenty JMLs are an adequate sampling to test the hypothesis that simulations enhance JML leadership development. We will expand the sample size in the next phase of our research as we work with the CAF to expand the pool of participants to at least forty JML participants (n = 40). We also plan to secure further funding to collaborate with subject matter experts to design virtual simulations based on Canadian military leadership scenarios.

The CAF host robust simulations capabilities for combat training, but have not exploited the potential training and analytical capacity of virtual leadership simulations for leadership development within the CAF. We believe that virtual simulations provide an opportunity for the CAF to effect desired culture change through leadership development that leverages the substantial pedagogical benefits of simulations.

The CAF encountered several detrimental leadership scandals that eroded the reputational capital of the CAF. In the current geo-political climate of an expanding North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and threats from several international actors, the CAF seeks to expand its capabilities by adding and enhancing its human capital. However, the CAF currently experiences a significant gap in its human capital aspirations. There is a unanimous consensus that the endemic traditional culture of the CAF, as expressed in the recent explosive leadership scandals, is a deterrent to recruitment and thus weakens the CAF’s capability. The CAF targets leadership development with new leadership paradigms as pivotal to culture change. The CAF suggests that by enhancing leadership development in the CAF the new cadre of leadership will change the culture of the CAF and thereby enhance the reputational capital of the CAF. It is believed that this rejuvenated culture will lead to greater recruitment and retention, leading to a strengthened military. A strengthened military is important to provide effective support and protection for the Canadian people in these volatile and uncertain times. This expanded capacity will enable the CAF to address external military threats more effectively and also the increasing operations other than war (OOTW), such as the military support of long-term care facilities during COVID-19 or the military’s support in fighting record wildfires and the military’s support in climate change related disasters such as flooding.

The satisfaction measures indicated by the participants are typical evaluative measures of leadership development (Noe, 2023). These satisfaction ratings do not, however, indicate whether training has produced a change in behaviour (Brown, 2022). The implications of these outcomes for leadership education are that role-player simulations are useful leadership education and development tools because they provide a theatre of practice in which mistakes are not detrimental and serve as learning moments (Moore, 2012; Piro and O’Callaghan, 2021; Riotto, 2021). Further, the importance of role-player simulations that closely approximate the sector where leadership is experienced and practiced is perceived to enhance the experience. While the CAF invest in combat related simulations, but leadership development simulations are not as evident in the training and development array. This study seeks to assess their potential value as a leadership development tool within the wider context of character development as a leadership competency.

The purpose of this paper is to refract March’s views on leadership to re-frame them within an authentic model that understands optimistic failure and mindful resilience as likely byproducts of enabling ambiguous innovation. An analysis of March’s theories of slack, and the concepts of exploration and exploitation, as well as that of foolishness, are used to support the adoption of authentic and ethical leadership as an intelligent practice and, more concretely, to portray the leader as a resilient “juggling fool.”

This paper makes use of primary data by focusing on March’s published works, as well as on interviews and other materials written about him, or those discussing his contributions. A post-hoc practice of “appreciation” facilitated a fresh refraction of the “evidence” to identify or recognize new perspectives and/or challenges to March’s conceptualization of leadership, while relying on literature and metaphor to engage in “polymorphic research.”

This paper presents March as a complex thinker, whose thoughts on leadership have received, perhaps, less attention for being thought to be more refractive and less empirical. Nonetheless, his reflections on leadership re-discover him as a solid leadership philosopher. His use of literature, his theories of slack and the concepts of exploration and exploitation, as well as that of foolishness, may help leadership scholars to understand the essence of authentic and ethical leadership as an intelligent practice.

This paper proposes to extrapolate March’s vast insights about organizational theory to further develop the framework of authentic leadership. This re-framing of the leader as a “juggling fool” constitutes an empowered view of leadership that comes closer to balancing the complementary purposes of leadership and management; an effort that rests at the core of the future of leadership.

Despite the ostensible popularity of leadership over management as a desired organizational outcome, March’s phenomenal insights remind current and developing leaders of just how much the two fields must overlap in constant tension. It is, perhaps, the conceptualization of a leader as an authentic and resilient “juggling fool” what adds depth of meaning to March’s contributions to the field of leadership beyond that of management.

The purpose of this research is to explore a possible relationship between the presence of authentic organisational leadership and the leadership development experience.

This study uses a qualitative exploratory hybrid research design which draws on data from multiple sources. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews, document analysis and non-participant observations across two case study organisations in Saudi Arabia.

The authors' findings suggest that the presence of authentic leadership (AL) within an organisation is a significant factor in the leadership development experience. This study also highlights the key importance of advancing leadership development theory that is holistic and comprehensive.

The study was conducted as case studies within a specific social context. Findings cannot be generalised but offer valuable direction for future research.

The research advances leadership development theory by highlighting the inadequacy of the person-focussed perspective and offering exploratory evidence for the role of social context, organisational leadership and organisational artefacts in the leadership development process.

The purpose of this paper is to understand emerging future orientations, women’s effective leadership and further examine its impact on government support in the context of higher education institutions.

A cross-sectional survey with 500 full-time women employees, working in Saudi Arabia Public University, was selected using a quantitative approach and analysed on the proposed hypotheses.

The initial prediction was that future orientations is significant on women’s leadership effectiveness as well as on government support, to the extent that it is associated with women’s leadership effectiveness where it tends to have a stronger relationship. Surprisingly, the indirect effect of government support on the relationship between future orientations on women’s leadership effectiveness was not significant.

Academic scholars/leaders in higher education should realize that the development of women leadership has a positive effect on future orientations. Policymakers and leaders of higher education institutions should focus on women leaders to improve their leadership effectiveness.

From the perspective of emerging nations, this paper extends the knowledge regarding the complexity leadership theory which explains the development of women’s leadership effectiveness and provides empirical evidence.

Even though nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important, particularly in the context of Saudi Arabia where moral relativism play a vital role. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

A cross-sectional survey design with 500 full-time employed women, working in Saudi Arabia Public University were selected using quantitative approach. PLS-SEM is used to analyse the predicted hypotheses.

The initial prediction was found that gender egalitarian is significant on women’s leadership effectiveness, and government support to the extent that is associated with women’s leadership effectiveness and tend to have stronger relationship. Also, the indirect effect of government support on the relationship between gender egalitarian on women leadership effectiveness was not significant.

Due to the selected survey approach, the data are correlational using quantitative method. Thus, mixed method is needed to confirm these findings.

Saudi Arabia Public Universities, policymakers and leaders of higher education institutions should focus on female leaders to improve their leadership effectiveness. Universities should formulate future strategies to empower women through the various stages of their career to become good leaders.

The present study is among the first if any that examines relationship between gender egalitarian and women leadership effectiveness with moderating role of government support in developing country of Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the leadership effectiveness of hospital managers in Iran.

Top managers (15), middle managers (10) and operational managers (5) of public, private or social security hospitals in Tehran participated in a qualitative study using semi-structured in-depth interviews. Data were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed via MAXQDA 10 software.

The findings were categorized into two main themes of internal and external factors with eight sub-themes. The most important internal factors that had an influence on the leadership of the hospital managers were intra-organizational relations, manager’s personality traits, knowledge, attitude and skills of the manager. The most important external factors included extra-organizational relations, macro-level health policies, access to special financial resources, and social, economic and political factors.

The results call for a need to understand and analyze the socioeconomic factors influencing managers’ leadership while adopting appropriate strategies.

The results of the current study can help design training programs for hospital managers, and suggest criteria for appointing hospital managers across the country and this can enhance the effectiveness of their leadership. Health sector policymakers and decision makers should reform the programs that target training and empowerment of hospital managers so that the right people with the right competencies will hold such positions.

The results of this study showed that leadership effectiveness is also influenced by social and external factors. On the other hand, the effectiveness of management leadership can play a significant role in the quality of care provided to the community, patient satisfaction and in hospital social performance through the appropriate management of all hospital resources. Such factors should also be considered in training and appointing hospital managers.

Although there are several studies on hospital managers’ leadership worldwide, this study is the first to investigate the leadership effectiveness of hospital managers in Iran.