Factor analysis of global trends in twenty‐first century leadership

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine whether the nature of leadership in the early years of the twenty‐first century as conceptualized in the research literature is valid among real organizational leaders across four global regions. Design/methodology/approach – A literature review of recent scholarly articles suggested that today's leadership best practices can be sorted into six categories, or zones: Reflection, Society, Diversity, Ingenuity, People, and Business. These six zones became topics for focus groups of organizational leaders that tentatively supported the six‐zone structure and provided qualitative data used to create a 42‐item measure, the AchieveGlobal Leadership Scale (AGLS). The AGLS was then employed to examine the degree to which 899 leaders in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the USA felt that each zone was important in meeting their organizational challenges. Findings – The data from the 42 items were analyzed using a confirmatory factor analysis, which suggested that the six zones all triangulated on and comprised the larger construct, Leadership in the twenty‐first century. Regional differences emerged in the importance that leaders attributed to the zones, in the degree to which leaders effectively demonstrated the zones, and in the order in which leaders ranked their organizations' top business challenges. Originality/value – The six‐zone model of leadership and its differences by geographic region hold potential to help leaders examine and improve their own leadership abilities.