Summary
This article sought to rethink the role of the organizational leader, drawing him under the demands of the 21st century, immersed in complexity and postmodernity; where leaders are considered to be important: knowledge; the human being as the primary basis of organizations; and the environment, as a place of development and growth; In addition, they commit themselves to transcendent and significant ends such as life, guaranteed from a perspective of socio-environmental responsibility, progress, development and prosperity, without altering the possibility of existence on the planet, health and the natural balance of things.
Abstract
With this article it was looked for to subtracts you the organizational leader's paper, drawing it low the demands of the XXI century, into the complexity and post modernity; and which requiring of leaders that consider important: the knowledge; to the human being primordial like bases of the organizations; and to the environment, ace development place and growth; also that they commit with transcendent and significant ends ace they plows it the life, guaranteed from to perspective of responsibility environmental partner, progress, development and prosperity, without altering the existence in the planet, the health and the natural balance.
Introduction
To meet the challenges of the early 21st century, managers are dabbling in new trends to confront the science of current management. Among them emerges the paradigm of complexity, immersed in what is now known as postmodernity; and which has its foothold, based on various points of interest and attention, forging a type of management according to the organizational needs of tomorrow.
The scaffolding of scientific and managerial knowledge is being restructured, to explain and understand the reality of the new today; so that in the field of praxis, the uncertainty associated with decision-making can be reduced, consolidating actions aimed at the success of organizations.
The new approach tries to approach the problem of business management from a new perspective, based on a renewed managerial profile, in which leadership appears as the main edge, and whose conditions force it to be proactive and nonreactive, imaginative and creative, more than pragmatic, and above all to have a holistic view of things.
In a broader sense, postmodernity is designating the new
cultural model, which from the 1960s began to rule the world. This postmodern term aims to express, as stated by Olabuenaga, A. (1998), the way of knowing and power of this new era. Which together with the paradigm of complexity, confronts human beings once again with their real and vital essence, stripping them of the royal scientific method as a mode of knowledge and truth, and showing them a new reality, centered on the vital values of knowledge, which are know, to serve and live.
Based on all of the above, this article was developed, where the approach of the organizational leader is rethought, to draw him under the demands of the 21st century, which is requiring leaders who consider important: knowledge; the human being as the primary basis for organizations and progress; and the environment; In addition, they commit themselves to transcendent and significant ends such as life, guaranteeing from a perspective of socio-environmental responsibility, progress, development and prosperity, without altering the possibility of existence on the planet, health and the natural balance of things.
1.- The nature of paradigms: Complexity and postmodernity
A fundamental concept, in order to understand the approach used in this article, focuses on the analysis of the term paradigm; Word used daily in the managerial universe, but managers can be wrong to appreciate the power of the concept, if it is not extremely clear.
According to Morin, E. (1982), the paradigm is a principle of distinctions, relations and fundamental oppositions between some matrix notions that generate and control thought. That is why, behind each paradigm, an epistemic matrix is hidden.
This matrix is the existential and experiential background; the source that originates and governs the general way of knowing, characteristic of a certain historical-cultural period and also located within a specific geography, and, in its essence, consists of the own and peculiar way, that a human group has, of assigning meanings to things and events, in other words, is their ability and way of symbolizing reality. In accordance with the above, the notion of paradigm and paradigm shift are the keys to administrative change.
For his part, Kuhn, T. (1962), refers to the term paradigm as the universally recognized way of scientific execution, which for time provides models of problems and solutions for the professional community.
Although the author applied this concept basically to the development of science, it is also valid to apply it to organizations and administration.
For current managers, the paradigm consists of organizational realities (such as values, traditional practical beliefs, methods, instruments, among others) ‚that members of a social group build to integrate their thoughts and actions.
Kuhn, T. (1962), argued that science does not progress through the accumulation of pieces, where knowledge and techniques provide the foundations for subsequent elaborations; rather, it progresses through a constellation of observations, facts, laws, theories, and methods that may all be compatible.
Now, recent scientific "truths" are not always permanent contributions. For example, Aristotelian dynamics or logistic chemistry are incompatible with current scientific visions. Either way, the old visions are unscientific, simply because they have been discarded; nor do they reflect human idiosyncrasy, in a better way than the most recent visions; because today's minks are simply more valid or "true" observations.
These postulates are immersed in the paradigm of complexity and in the postmodern approach. As in the progress of science, the changes go from one paradigm to another; the same is true of management and organizations. Quoting Dr. James Womack in his 1990 The Machine that Changed the World, he alludes to the changes that organizations have experienced, moving from manufacturing production to mass production, and then a more recent change from mass production to light production.
Other changes also lived according to Reich, R (2005), the assembly line of Henry Ford and the studies of times and movements of Frederick Taylor and Frank Galbraith, but none of them has lost its validity and importance in time, thus forming part of the accumulation of knowledge in production for organizations.
Similarly, managers who defend mass production and those who defend the light production system like Toyota do, think and act differently, their different practices, beliefs, values and assumptions define their paradigms. But this does not lose the validity and importance of each one of them, but they contribute towards that emerging conception of conceiving the world not as parcels of knowledge, as Descartes showed, but as the sum of many approaches, points of view and opinions, to reach better solutions.
21st century organizations must work under this new approach if they need to be successful. The idea is to accept the paradigm changes and in fact seek and sponsor those changes, but without losing the essence or underestimating those knowledge that have allowed the mobilization of paradigms.
According to Martínez, M. (2001), the science model that originated after the Renaissance has served as the basis for the scientific and technological advancement of subsequent centuries. However, the same author points out that the explosion of knowledge, disciplines, specialties and approaches that has occurred in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries known as postmodernity, in addition to epistemological reflection, have found to that traditional model of science, not only insufficient, but, above all, inhibiting what could be a true progress, both particular and integrated, of the different areas of knowledge.
According to Martínez, M. (2001), over the last three decades, the necessary and sufficient conditions have been developed so that every serious and deep-thinking researcher can climb on the shoulders of dozens of eminent thinkers, and from that perspective, to discern the great coincidences of ideas and marked converging lines of a new way of thinking, of looking at things, of a new scientific rationality and, in short, of a new science; which presents notable differences with the traditional, classic, logical-positivist way of thinking.
The end of mainstream science is coming, says Prigogine, I. (1994); that is, of the deterministic, linear and homogeneous, and the emergence of an awareness of discontinuity or complex, of nonlinearity, difference and the need for dialogue is being witnessed. Not only is there a crisis of the foundations of scientific knowledge, but also a philosophical one, and, in general, a crisis of the foundations of thought.
The problem that is being experienced lies in the fact that the classical conceptual apparatus that was thought rigorous, due to its objectivity, determinism, formal logic and verification, is proving to be short, insufficient and inadequate to symbolize or model the new realities, especially the that have arisen throughout this century that begins and ends of the XX. Well, in the subatomic world of physics, as well as in the life sciences, in the social and managerial sciences, to represent them adequately, concepts different from the current ones and much more interrelated, capable of giving global explanations and unified.
Human beings are taking up the beginnings of knowledge, they are turning their faces again to art, science, philosophy, which are postulates of the postmodern approach. That segmentation that was made of knowledge, under Descartes's theory, has remained insufficient to respond to knowledge and the way of knowing; for this reason the integration of knowledge has been entered and the primary essences of things are being retaken.
Under this approach, management science and organizations have been opening paths, and a valid approach for this article is the way to visualize new leaders, evaluated from a perspective based not on old epistemic paradigms, but under a new approach where they are able to understand their responsibility with the environment, including in it, the environment; because they are taking up the origins of things and giving value to what is essential, which is life.
2.- The leader of the 21st century facing socio-environmental responsibility
It has been said that the managerial activity (Viedna, 1992; Hickman, 1992) has evolved on a path of search for principles that at the time have made the management of companies effective. In this way, different approaches have been taken, contributions have been made and various executive profiles have been outlined, of a normative, quantitative, behavioral, and systemic nature, among others; all of them with rationalist criteria.
But, the search for a new management and a new leadership, in addition to being based on complex management techniques, or in a supra-technical direction, that is, in the formation of a subject or subjects with creative, communication, interrelation skills, identified with the values of modernity, competitiveness, innovation, excellence, which also possesses or possess, a vision and, above all, its own and authentic style of leadership, also requires the development of a new human approach to management, to retake values and ethics, and being able to face adversities.
A leader within the organizations of the 21st century, and immersed in the paradigm of complexity and postmodernity, is one who sets in motion and energizes his team. In this process of revitalization, it happens that people find satisfaction in their tasks and responsibilities, and teamwork and shared vision are built.
On the other hand, since the effort is shared, secondary benefits can be found, among which it can be detailed that the team knows more, develops new skills and learns how to do things better.
Maestres, R. (2006), therefore, expresses that the main function of a leader is to ensure that the organization knows itself and at the same time knows its competition, consumers, employees and also the reasons why it is In the business.
All of the above allows us to assert that the 21st century has brought with it a new vision and structure of things. The new emerging generations since the end of the last century and who are making life in the present, have understood their new role in organizations, which does not only involve generating a good and / or service, but also assuming responsibility for the environment and the environment; known the latter as socio-environmental responsibility.
In this same order of ideas, Kotter, J. (1999) stated ¨It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, or whose success is more doubtful or more dangerous to manage, than to initiate a new order of things ¨. The emerging leaders of the 21st century have the responsibility in their hands to propose this new order, in order to safeguard a common good, which guarantees production, profitability, progress and survival: the environment.
The new leader in organizations must participate in understanding and acting for the sake of global awareness, as Siliceo, A. et al. Points out. (1999); being able to realize that organizational development and progress cannot go back or to the detriment of the destruction of rivers, jungles, seas, the ozone layer, animals, the environment, life itself, of human beings.
The price of progress cannot be the death of the planet; on the contrary, it must indicate the way to guarantee its long survival, but in favorable and stable conditions to guarantee life; quality of life. The leaders of the 21st century, in that reunion proposed by complexity and postmodernism, with values, with good, with ethics, with the essential; They must turn their faces to the basic things and guarantee the health of their organizations through not only the increase in production and sales, but also through the attention they give to their human talent sustained in guaranteeing the life, happiness and existence of largest organization or company that exists: the planet.
Final reflection
With the development of this article it was obtained that:
The demands for a new administration based on knowledge are increasing in this nascent century; Increasingly questioning the validity and timeliness of classical administration; because the new administration or rather the current one, seems to move away from the scientific-rationalist principles and from the bureaucratic-normative patterns that until recently constituted the support of successful organizations (Kliksberg, 1991; Giral, 1991).
The entry of paradigms such as complexity within postmodernity, guide changes in the model of thought, leading to a new vision that is not linear but integrative. Within it also emerges the new leader in organizations, who must then participate and act for the sake of a global conscience, as Siliceo, A. et al. Points out. (1999); being able to realize that organizational development and progress cannot go back or to the detriment of the destruction of human talent and the environment.
The emerging paradigm of complexity, which comes from the vanguard of contemporary physics, and contemplates the universe, along with the physical, biological, psychological and social systems; as a dynamic and complex framework of relationships between interdependent subsystems; From the organizations' perspective, it can be translated into the changing framework of relationships that coexist in them: relationships between managers and knowledge workers; with clients and suppliers; with the society it serves known as social responsibility; with the past and the future (changes, flexibility), with the environment known as socio-environmental responsibility.
In this framework, the leadership function reappears as a strange attractor, capable of creating the order in the chaos to which open systems tend, as outlined in the second law of thermodynamics; base where the complex paradigm is supported, since it establishes in a general and broad sense, that the differences between systems in contact tend to be equalized, guaranteeing that an isolated system becomes equal or level with the environment. This is possible in the management of organizations, because their leaders come from the chaos of complexity and have managed to survive in them, finally restoring order.
The clearest vision about the future is that uncertainty, complexity and dynamism will be permanent conditions for the management of organizations. In this new vision, administrative knowledge is also converted into an invaluable resource, due to the social and organizational demands it contains, immersed in turn, in the need for efficient management and leadership, where the human talent of the organization be seen as the main asset, not only for reasons of competitiveness or to be fashionable, but, and above all, for reasons of survival and balanced development.
This survival must necessarily go through a full identification with the environment and the commitment to preserve it, as one of the vital tasks in which to do management. The new leaders must raise the banner of caring for the environment and include this noble cause in organizational missions, in order to get out of the current chaos and return to the invitation that postmodernism makes, return to the essential, to the sublime, to the noble, to the ethical.
Bibliographic references
Giral, J. (1991). Culture of Effectiveness. Idex. Mexico.
Hickman, Ch. And Silva, M. (1992). How to Organize Companies with a Future. Granica. Buenos Aires.
Kliksberg, B. (1991). The perspectives of the Business Management in the Nineties. Iberoamerican Thought # 19.
Kotter, Jhon P. (1999). On Gat Leaders Really Do. Harvard Business School Press.
Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago nailing.
Maestre, R. (2006). The leadership of the future. In: IESA debates magazine. pp. 36-39. Vol. 1l. Nº 1. January - March 2006. IESA Editions. Caracas.
Martinez, M. (2001). Need for a new epistemic paradigm. In AA. VV. Social Sciences: End of the Century Reflections. Trópikos Publishing Fund, Commission for Postgraduate Studies, FACES, Central University of Venezuela.
Morin, E. (1982). To get out of the 20th century. Barcelona: Kairós.
Olabuenaga, A. (1998). Modernity - postmodernity. Scientific-Social Terminology Barcelona: Anthropos.
Prigogine, I. (1994). The end of science?. In: Fried Schnitman D., 1994.
Reich, R. (2005). The Reindustrialization of America.
Siliceo A., A.; Casares A., D. and González M., J. (1999). Leadership, values and organizational culture. Mc Graw Hill; Mexico.
Viedma; José M. (1992). Business Excellence. McGraw Hill. Mexico.
