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Leadership is impossible without a guiding vision and a purpose that generates passion for accomplishment. Leaders are motivated by love for people, not by desire to be great in spite of the fact that they are targets of criticism. Twenty-first century leaders entail leadership skills that is learned, refined, cultivated, and improved to serve more effectively. In brief, they are leaders who inspire, change followers thoughts and actions in conjunction with empowering them to conform with the vision and mission statement.

Keywords: leadership skills, Facebook, CustomInk, AnswerLab

Introduction

In this paper, three Great American Businesses of the 21st century is analysed. It aims to compare, contrast and evaluate the remarks of the leaders with respect to leadership styles, skills, and business landscape of the future. Furthermore, it elaborates on the personal interviews conducted with Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Katz and Amy Buckner Chowdhry, CEO of AnswerLab to discover their views on leadership skills needed for the 21st century. It is imperative to give a brief introduction on the personal background of each leader.

Who are the 21st century business leaders?

In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook, a social networking site. In 2014, Facebook’s eestimated ravenue was thirteen bbillion dollars with twelve thousand six hundred and ninety-one employees. CustomInk Tyson’s Corner is an online leader of custom design and apparel based in America. It was launched by Marc Katz in 1999.

AnswerLab in San Fransico is a world leader that gives user access to some of the world’s leading research. Its estimated per annum revenue is eight billiion dollars with thirty-six employees.

Similarities of each leaders perspective on 21st century leadership

In their conversation of what constitutes a successful 21st century leadership skills that is tailored to today’s business, these three leaders and trend setters agree that upcoming business leaders will adopt a personal innovative lifestyle leadership by doing new things and setting agenda of personal innovation. In fact, Zuckerberg, Marc Kurt and Amy Bucker seek out personal betterment. Zuckerberg calls for a leadership style that focuses on social good and stakeholder engagement. According to Zuckerberg, “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.’’ Marc Katz the founding father of CustomInk, creating lasting connections is the company’s character and transformational changes is the brand. Leaders help people come together and make a difference. The three group companies share good management leadership style that takes care of employees. For instance, CustomInk organization culture provides free-lunch and snacks for employees. This business practice according to Marc Katz is good management that attracts and retains quality staffs. Zuckerberg’s Facebook leadership also adopts an organization culture that takes a people first approach. Because they care so much about employees, the CEO endeavour to retain high quality staffs by paying equity erruptions and high financial rewards that attract talented engineers and employees around the world. Free food is the culture at this online custom T-shirt designer, which provides two meals to the staff each week, in addition to snacks and building 21st workforce skills. The three companies share a global vision and goal to sell their products to each individual in America and rest of the world. For instance, AnswerLab provide high customer insights that help Global leaders to research products, a quantitative business

Furthermore, and according to Zuckerberg, building twenty-first century workforce skills demands zero tolerance for people’s feelings while meeting goals for their company. As an illustration, Marc Katz went against competitors to build his seventy million dollars empire with an amazing customer satisfaction which is also a practice in Facebook company. Zuckerberg believes that twenty-first century leaders must be customer centered, adjust quickly to customers’ needs and build an incredible customer satisfaction. When Facebook customers complained about violation of privacy, the leadership solved the problem by adding functions that kept users interconnected and happy. Customlink give customers a forum to connect and convince potential customers to buy T-Shirts. The organization believe and trust customers to speak for the company. CustomInk’s high growth rate is attributed to its leadership style and approach to listening and believing in the words of their customers. According to Marc Katz, “customers going through frustration have the ability to chat with the founder, with someone at the company who cares and can help them, mixergy.com.’’ So, leaders of twenty-first century are problem solvers that have personal innovation lifestyle and care for people.

As Zuckerberg emphasized, upcoming leaders should not desire for more than just money. The trio believe in creating lasting connection. In other words, a company’s character is based on the premise to help people come together and make positive difference. In a variety of ways, twenty-first century leaders should be fearless about trying new things.

Similarly, they have a culture that welcomes team support and partnering with the right people and flushing out the wrong ones. For Zuckerberg, a leader has control, a governance structure that is bullet proof with a personal shield and personal innovation lifestyle. These great American business leaders identify opportunities ahead of their competitors. Besides, they believe in their passion and brainstorm from customers and investors for information on all sides. Like Zuckerberg said in one of his interviews, investors, customers and employees are priority. Moreover, fast actions must be taken to capitalize on growth in today’s leadership environment. In addition, their leadership style require passion not for money but in building systems that bring people together. This is the core of Facebook, CustomInk and AnswerLAb. They share a common tenet that leaders in the twenty-first century do not need to fail to succeed.

Contrast

In contrast, these great business leaders share different perspective in the way business leaders will lead in the 21st century. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook emphasized that leaders should hire not only people with skills but employees with right attitude which is in contrast to CustomInk and AnswerLab who hire based on skills. Facebook’s mission is to “move fast and break things’’,( inc.com). CustomInk philosophy is a passion for printing and bringing Inky to life. AnswerLab management philosophy adopts a role of imposing limitations on its employees so they can focus on less.

Acording to CustomInk CEO building an effective workforce demand recruiting the best skilled talents in the industry. AnswerLab shares this culture where people who work there are skilled and client-focused professionals. From Zuckerberg’s perspective, upcoming bosses will be challenged with a workforce that lack skills in coding and programming which is essential for technological innovative industry like Facebook. Because the world is becoming more and more computer intensive. According to Mark Zuckerberg, “children need to learn 21st century skills and coding because future jobs will demand for skills in programming,’’inc.com.

Challenges of Business leadership in the 21st centurys

Today’s business entrepreneurs are faced with challenges such as baby boomers and limited supply of the right kind of workforce.

Conclusion

All things considered, understanding the challenges and skills needed for 21st century leadership skills was examined. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, CustomInk, Marc Katz and AnswerLAb agree that the desire for more than just money, zero tolerance for people’s feelings while meeting goals for the company,passion for innovation and purpose, learning coding, programming, fearless in trying new things, personal innovative lifestyle,building lasting connections and helping people come together to make a difference, people first leadership style are all common skills that twenty-first century business leaders must possess. However, they differ in some aspects. For instance, Facebooks CEO believe people should be hired based on their attitude while Marc Katz and AnswerLAb believe in a culture that hires the top best professionals in the industry.

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