Agile Business Leadership Methods for Industry 4.0

Bülent Akkaya, Bülent Akkaya

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781800433823
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Verwaltung

Firms need to adapt to changes in both their internal and external environments and create new systems that focus on new trends, identify improvements, assess their potential impact on their management and manufacturing systems. They try to learn quickly how to implement changes to their standard operating procedures. To achieve this, they adapt agile approaches.
Agile Business Leadership Methods for Industry 4.0 collates innovative research on new leadership styles that will develop agile managers and business leaders who can improve company success in the fast-paced environments created by Industry 4.0. The book will also examine current challenges and opportunities for organizations and how setting companies up for greater agility can ensure their value and longevity. It highlights topics including leaderships styles, organizational climate, and labor markets, and is ideally designed for managers, executives, business professionals, researchers, academics, and students.
Akkaya provides relevant theoretical frameworks of new leadership styles and the latest empirical research findings on challenges and opportunities for firms in industry 4.0. This book is set to aggregate original theoretical, conceptual and empirical research on challenges and opportunities in the context of industry 4.0 and how can they make it better by being agile and managed by agile leaders. It aims also to investigate the new leadership styles and a related framework for assessing a postmodern leadership style, agile leadership.

Chapter 1

A Review of Modern Leadership Styles in Perspective of Industry 4.0¹

Hasan Cinnioğlu

Abstract

The current Industry 4.0 era is considered not only as a process that dominates technological developments but also as a process that influences the leadership styles. Management 4.0 is essential for businesses to find and apply the appropriate technologies in the age of Industry 4.0. The leadership styles that business managers will adopt in order to be successful in this process and to survive in an intensely competitive environment can play an important role. At this point, a significant problem arises: identifying leadership styles that will bring success. In this context, the primary purpose of this chapter is to explain the modern leadership styles that business managers can adopt or follow in the age of Industry 4.0. In line with this purpose, the chapter first describes the historical development of leadership, leadership theories and modern leadership styles, such as transactional, transformational, technological, strategic, visionary and agile leadership, and all these concepts are discussed based on the Industry 4.0 perspective.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; transactional/transformational leadership; technological leadership; strategic leadership; visionary leadership; agile leadership

Introduction

Globalization, changes and developments in information and communication technologies, increasing competition and the fact that the human element stands out in many areas have resulted in a profound change in the environment, in which businesses operate. Such an environment has forced businesses wishing to achieve their goals to give up their classical management approach and to use modern management techniques. As a result of these developments, the effectiveness of the classical management approach has decreased, which considers businesses as mechanical organizational structures, instead gives importance to effectiveness and efficiency and ignores the working human element or evaluates them as just a cost factor. For this reason, business executives must first create a common mission and vision. Then they must be able to guide or motivate their employees that can be qualified as viewers, for these purposes. In other words, business executives should be leaders rather than managers. Today, the concept of leadership emerges as an issue that has started to become much more critical than before. Because, human resource, which constitutes one of the essential elements of the businesses that desire to achieve a competitive advantage, plays a vital role in the Industry 4.0 era. The creation and sustainability of such a human resource are directly related to leadership (Yüksel & Genç, 2018). Industry 4.0 has brought along several opportunities and threats for businesses at the same time. Leaders should take the best advantage of these opportunities and take measures against threats. In other words, in order to benefit from the advantages of the fourth industrial revolution, business leaders should put this concept at the top of their agenda (Davutoğlu, 2018, p. 4041). The new era called Industry 4.0 is not only a result of the development of new technologies but also a result of a new entrepreneurial mindset (Sterev, 2017, p. 99). Creating a digital culture and acquiring the appropriate skills are as crucial as finding or implementing appropriate technologies in the age of Industry 4.0. For this reason, a leadership culture based on Industry 4.0 needs to be developed in enterprises (Oberer & Erkollar, 2018, p. 5). This new mindset and technological developments have inevitably affected leadership theories. The main aim of this study is to examine modern leadership types within the scope of Industry 4.0. In this context, firstly, the concept of leadership, its characteristics and behavioral and contingency leadership theories are explained, and finally, modern leadership styles are discussed.

1. Concept of Leadership

Man is a social being, and people live together as a society. As a result, leadership is a concept that emerges from the need to guide the groups that make up the society (Ercan & Sığrı, 2015, p. 96; İbicioğlu, Özmen, & Taş, 2009, p. 2). The concept of leadership has become even more important with the changes occurring in information and communication technologies, the increase in competition and the human element gaining importance for businesses. Leadership is one of the most important concepts within the scope of management and behavioral sciences, and it is one of the topics that have been researched a lot in parallel with the changes and developments started in the twenty-first century (Telli, Ünsar, & Oğuzhan, 2012, p. 135). Leadership is a process related to the activities of the leader. When the literature is examined, it is possible to see that leadership is the subject of many pieces of research (Shin, Heath, & Lee, 2011, p. 169). It is also worth noting that researchers define leadership in different ways (Yukl, 2010, p. 20)

Leadership is the power to influence the actions and thoughts of others (Abraham, 1992, p. 2), the ability to motivate and influence group members to contribute to the objectives and effectiveness of the enterprise (House, 1971, pp. 323–324) and the ability to build and develop a team that can outcompete in a competitive environment (Hogan & Robert, 2005). Leadership is defined as enabling one’s followers to make emotional and physical efforts or influence and motivate followers to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization (Koçel, 2014, p. 668; Winston & Patterson, 2006, p. 7).

In general, the leader is the person who has the capacity to solve different problems in an organization or between people (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000, p. 14; Zaccaro, Mumford, Connelly, Marks, & Gilbert, 2000, p. 38), who creates, manages and sometimes changes the organizational culture (Schein, 2004, p. 223), brings people together for a purpose, and has an influence on people thanks to his/her motivation and personal characteristics (Dinçer & Bitirim, 2007, p. 61).

2. Theories of Leadership

It is seen in the literature that many leadership theories have been developed to date. When the historical development of leadership theories is examined, we encounter four main periods: trait theory, behavioral theories, contingency theories and modern theories (Acar, 2013, p. 8). In this chapter, trait, behavioral, situational and modern theories developed based on the above characteristics will be explained.

2.1. Trait Theory

According to the trait theory, the most critical factor that determines the effectiveness of the leadership process is the traits of the leader (Koçel, 2014, p. 676). Researches on the subject between 1930 and 1950 examined different leaders in terms of success and tried to determine which traits of leaders are essential on the way to success. Not only the physical properties of the leaders but also their psychological characteristics were examined (Şahin, 2012, p. 145). According to the trait theory, leadership is not an acquired feature, but an innate feature of the person. These inherent traits of leaders distinguish them from other people. Therefore, the only way to define the phenomenon of leadership is to determine the qualities of this type of person in detail (Pazarbaş, 2012, p. 23). In the trait theory, the physical characteristics of the leader, such as gender, age and height are discussed as well as his characteristics such as his sense of independence and self-confidence, and his inherent creativity and intelligence (Demir, Yılmaz, & Çevirgen, 2010, p. 132).

The most significant criticism of this theory is that sometimes individuals among group members have better characteristics than the leader, but these individuals do not appear as leaders. This is a situation that does not comply with the trait theory. This has made it necessary to focus on different variables in addition to the features mentioned above to understand the leadership phenomenon fully. Another problem with this theory was the difficulty of measuring the characteristics of the leader and the understanding of some particular features different than they are (Koçel, 2014, p. 678).

2.2. Behavioral Theories

Behavioral leadership theory is based on the approach that the main factor that makes the leader effective is the behaviors he/she exhibits in the leadership process, rather than his/her characteristics. The behaviors of the leader (such as his communication with his audience, the delegation of authority, planning and control and determining the goals) are important factors that determine the effectiveness of the leader (Bakan & Büyükbeşe, 2010, p. 74).

The behavioral approach refers to the behaviors that the leader shows while leading in certain situations. Among the studies that have contributed significantly to the development of behavioral leadership theory are the leadership studies conducted at Ohio State University. Within the scope of these studies, leadership behaviors were tried to be determined by conducting many pieces of research about leadership (Koçel, 2014, p. 679). Ohio State University leadership studies have demonstrated two basic leadership behaviors: behaviors that prioritize the individual and behaviors that focus on business. Leaders who prioritize individuals’ exhibit behaviors such as taking care of people, caring about their feelings, and taking into account their needs and wishes. On the other hand, leaders who focus on the business display behaviors toward achieving the given task or the specified goal. Performance, procedures or standards are more critical for such leaders than human relations (Yukl, 2010, p. 104).

Other studies that have contributed significantly to the development of behavioral leadership theory are leadership research at the University of Michigan. As a result of leadership studies in many industries, Michigan leadership studies have concluded that similar to studies at Ohio State University, leaders often display behavior that prioritizes individuals or businesses (Bojadjiev, Kostovskı, & Buldıoska, 2015, p. 213). According to the studies of the University of Michigan, the business-oriented leader regularly supervises the employees in the working environment, uses the punishment as a motivating element and uses its status-based authority. On the other hand, leaders who prioritize individuals do not hesitate to delegate authority and try to improve the working conditions and personal qualities of employees (Koçel, 2014, p. 681).

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