A new paradigm of management and leadership in the VUCA world

In the last decade, there has been an increasing number of publications discussing management and leadership in the VUCA world. The majority of them discuss threats related to the VUCA reality and offer specific solutions aimed at its individual components in the context of the 21st century business world. This paper has two objectives: firstly, to fill the gap in the systematic presentation of the VUCA world’s characteristics by using relevant examples; secondly, to present a new paradigm of management and leadership which, according to the author, is essential in such reality. To begin with, common pitfalls in the traditional representations of challenges related to the VUCA world are addressed. Then, a new paradigm of management and leadership - necessitated by the realities of today’s business world - is discussed. This paradigm could be best captured using sets of compatible expressions, where one describes a challenge of the VUCA reality of (e.g., volatility) and the other - a matching characteristic of a leader who responds to such a challenge (e.g., flexibility). Finally, throughout the article, a new perspective on the current business world is presented, framing its realities as manageable challenges rather than problems or threats.