This article aims to present results of a study designed to investigate major issues and challenges related to the theme of leadership and its development, in the contemporary world, from the perspective of senior executives of large Brazilian companies. With respect to this purpose, its specific objectives may be described as: 1. to investigate both assigned meanings and leadership styles connected to experience and practice of the interviewed executives; 2. to investigate key themes to leadership development in the current context of businesses and organizations; 3. to identify present-day tendencies, new themes and challenges surrounding leadership. As a theoretical framework, a literature review was conducted to describe the evolution of studies on the subject, especially its major theoretical, methodological and conceptual trends and approaches. In methodological terms, the research underlying the results may be characterized as qualitative in nature and descriptive in character, its primary data being derived from semi-structured, in-depth interviews carried out with thirteen senior executives of large national and international corporations operating in the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais (Brazil). Data were subsequently treated with the help of NVivo 8 software application and the major leadership-related themes and challenges identified were grouped into three key themes: Meanings, Competencies and Styles associated with Leadership in the Contemporary World, Development of Leaderships, Leadership and Enabling Context. The study has also allowed identification of the major competence and leadership style attributes required to respond to the current context of businesses and organizations, according to the interviewees' viewpoint. Concurrently, new challenges and concerns related to leadership were also disclosed, such as how to deal with new generations - especially the so-called Y-Generation -, who will soon be holding key positions in organizations, following retirement of the baby boomers. In brief, from the standpoint of players involved with leadership in business contexts, the finds enabled the emergence of questions and challenges to be included in new agendas or addressed by new research lines on the subject.
Leadership; Leadership Development; Development of Executives; Leadership Styles; Leadership Competencies
