"New era in Leadership, new practices and methods"

It has been known that leadership as a concept appeared quite a long time ago, of course back then it was called differently, there were – head hunters in a troop, tribe chiefs, colonels, kings, mayors and other decision makers that were actually to lead people that entrusted this post to them. It is also obvious that with the surrounding environment and the changes happening in the world, leadership also altered in its form and application.

Reingold (2008) in her article “Meet your new leaders” describes the three eras of leadership that the scientists have defined – “the first one is defined by Builders, company founders like John D. Rockefeller and Benjamin F. Godrich”, she states that this era lasted from the 1920s till the 1970s when the reign passed to a phenomenon called the Organization Man a leader described as an unanimous person “main in the gray flannel suit who sees the continuity of the company as his main goal”, next came a “focused on individual” leadership which is the practice well known to the modern society, as it has stemmed from the 1980s and has not lost its impact even up to the present moment.

However it is said that the fourth era is on the way and the people of today will be able to witness this historical shift. The difference of this era as defined by economist Milton Friedman (2008) is that instead of having twin goals (helping both the stakeholders and shareholders and building a long term business), the forth era is to have one simpler goal: “the social responsibility of business is to increase profits”.

The causes for earlier shift are clearly obvious – the rapidly changing environment, the introduction of new technologies, the focus on people rather than on the processes have all...