Abstract of my M. Phi. Thesis The dawn of information technology marks a new age in the civilization of humankind. The information technology that started in late twentieth century is flourishing in twenty-first century, naming the age itself as the internet age. The change in technology has brought changes in many fields including leadership. The conventional leadership paradigm is deterministic and transactional while the contemporary paradigm is non-deterministic, transformational and authentic or ethical in nature. The contemporary development in leadership is based on humanistic philosophy which stresses the human spirit and free-will or personal choice – the special, active and aware quality of human beings. It believes that life develops as people create worlds and give meaning to it for themselves. Existentialist “Being-in-the-world” is shifted inward in humanistic approach—“the being in human being.” The view further develops from “human being” to “human becoming”; that is, the healthy personality exhibits an active movement toward self-fulfillment. The technologies of twenty-first century have empowered people to exercise personal will to a larger extent and make progress in “human becoming.” The internet has redefined education and organization through the explosion of knowledge, and through its subtle and flexible hyperlinked structures. This research has assessed leadership in student organizations and education in this changing context. It has found, though the understanding of leadership at some individual level has been found to be aware of twenty-first century paradigm, the practice at organization level is still untouched by the changes brought by the new age. Education and student organizations both are operating through transactional mode. They are also found to be corrupted. They failed to be transformational and authentic. Both have not been able to fulfill leadership development needs of the youth generation. While today’s youth are living in the internet age with newer technologies at hand, education and student organizations are still operating from age-old machine-like structure mind-set. The solution for them is to transform themselves by becoming transformational. Or else they would soon become irrelevant in the ever-faster changing word of the twenty-first century.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 11:01:57 +0000
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