رهبری موثق و اقتصاد دانش: حفظ انگیزش و اعتماد در میان کارکنان دانش

The end of the twentieth century, immensely influenced by the invention and proliferation of the Internet, defined the blueprint for a new world order in business and management. The Internet and other technological tools altered how organizations and society conduct business. The world population is entering into new dimensions, where geographical barriers are minimized and new cultural values emerge. It is a heterogeneous world, where managing individuals and companies across hemispheres has become a challenging adventure. As a consequence, special leaders are required – leaders who not only possess the skills to manage teams and comprehend the ongoing challenges posed by traditional managerial hindrances – such as motivating, rewarding, and accountability – but leaders who also have to be able to convey their messages in an efficient and trustworthy manner.

The end of the twentieth century, immensely influenced by the invention and proliferation of the Internet, defined the blueprint for a new world order in business and management. The Internet and other technological tools altered how organizations and society conduct business. The world population is entering into new dimensions, where geographical barriers are minimized and new cultural values emerge. It is a heterogeneous world, where managing individuals and companies across hemispheres has become a challenging adventure. As a consequence, special leaders are required – leaders who not only possess the skills to manage teams and comprehend the ongoing challenges posed by traditional managerial hindrances – such as motivating, rewarding, and accountability – but leaders who also have to be able to convey their messages in an efficient and trustworthy manner. As the world wirelessly connects, all world species, human and animal, become part of a quiet revolution of sorts. Today, an individual can comfortably sit in his or her living room in the United States or Australia and become an active participant in the events of the earthquake in Haiti or the slaughtering of whales off the coast of Japan. By keeping a blog, becoming a member of a social networking Web site such as Facebook or Twitter, or even monetarily helping to fund a cause anywhere in the world by using the Internet, anyone can be an activist and join forces with issues of their liking, whether the issues are close to home or far away. The development of the Internet has changed how people participate in society, from dating to shopping, from education to the workplace. Even many years after its development, the Web is still rapidly redefining how individuals, corporations, countries, and cultures operate in the world economy. Maintaining a global workforce has many benefits for companies, but it also presents challenges not encountered before. Educated workforces, which in the past were traditionally fostered in industrialized nations, are now sprouting from every corner of the world. As Thomas L. Friedman exemplified in his book The World is Flat, new competitors from India, China, and the former Soviet Empire are not just walking, but running, onto the flat world field, with an enormous hunger to get ahead by out learning the competition. Friedman suggested that we are witnessing a mad dash born of 50 years of pent-up aspirations in places like India, China, and the former Soviet Empire where, for five decades, young people were educated but not given an outlet at home in which to fulfill their potential. These well-educated young adults, also referred to as knowledge workers, often choose to stay in their home country while working for major corporations headquartered abroad. For example, companies such as automakers Renault, Volkswagen, and Harley Davidson outsource complex design engineering projects to eager workers in India. Not only do these workers have nearly equal, or better, educational experiences than American workers, but they also have access to workflow software, freeware, and shareware that makes them every bit as competitive and effective as workers in these companies’ headquarter countries. Add that to an unparalleled competitive spirit and motivation, and it is easy to see how these workers and a global organizational structure are here to stay. In fact, a recent article in The Economic Times reported that the India engineering services outsourcing industry is projected to reach 55 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. In order to take advantage of a global pool of talent and to effectively compete in the marketplace, companies have begun to utilize technological tools to form remote teams. Cisco Systems released a press announcement regarding an agreement with Bank of America to deploy the largest network of Cisco TelePresence systems to enhance and enable team collaboration across the globe. The videoconferencing technology allows people in nearly 50 locations to meet at once, and allows companies to take advantage of their existing facilities and data networks. Indeed, virtual teams are now a part of many companies where team members are often geographically dispersed and may seldom or never meet in person. Because of the inherent challenges presented by this new system of managing organizations fueled by advances in technology, a new set of leaders is required. Organizations need leaders who possess accurate self-knowledge and who are guided by internal moral standards and values, as opposed to those who base behaviors on external forces such as peers, organizations, or market pressures when contronted with difficult ethical challenges. Organizations in the knowledge economy require leaders who promote positive relationships through disclosures, including openness in terms of information sharing, accountability, and honesty, and leaders who objectively analyze relevant information and solicit views from others – including those they lead – before making decisions. This is because leaders of knowledge workers may have limited face-to-face interactions with workers, all the while needing to instill the enterprise's message and to harness their teams to accomplish common goals by transcending electronic limitations, physical locations, and cultural differences. Moreover, such leaders have to convey their views, values, creed, and objectives to their knowledge workers with the same effectiveness as they would were the employees physically present, but with the added challenge of not easily being able to transpose their individual leadership personalities, energy, psychological abilities, and charisma.

In conclusion, leading knowledge workers, whether virtually or in person, requires an authentic leader whose values are aligned with the company's mission, in order to lead with transparency and trust. When leaders interact with members with openness and truthfulness, this promotes unconditional respect and trust. Moreover, by setting a personal high moral standard, with integrity, and involving members in the decision-making process, authentic leaders are able to build a deep sense of trust in group members. This trust sustains a transparent process of dealing with difficult problems, in part because of shared values. In addition, leading knowledge workers requires input from team members; leaders must be in tune with the team's needs in order to react accurately and appropriately. Authentic leaders have an uncanny abilty of translating purpose into action, and virtual authentic leaders should have the same capabilites in order to effectively manage knowledge workers. Indeed, one of the key roles of an effective leader is the ability to give rise to high confidence among followers. If leaders believe that every follower has the ability to make a positive contribution at work, by demonstrating this belief, either consciously or unconsciously, they will positively influence their followers’ work engagement, motivation, and commitment to their organization, regardless of the physical location of employees.