The greatest competitive advantage global companies in the twenty-first century can have is effective global leaders. Yet this competitive challenge is not easy to meet. People tend to rise to leadership positions by proving themselves able to lead in their home-country corporate culture and meeting the generally accepted behaviors of that national culture. However, global leaders must broaden their horizons, both strategically and cross-culturally, and develop a more flexible model of leadership that can be applied anywhere - one that is adaptable to location situations around the world. From their recent research involving 125 global leaders in 50 companies, Morrison, Gregersen, and Black concluded that effective leaders must have global business and organizational savvy- They explain global business savvy as the ability to recognize global market opportunities for their company and having a vision of doing business worldwide. Global organizational savvy requires an intimate knowledge of the company's resources and capabilities in order to capture global markets; to understand each subsidiary's product lines and how the people and business operates on the local level. Morrison, Gregersen, and Black outline four personal development strategies through which companies and managers can meet these requirements of effective global leadership: travel, teamwork, training, and transfers (the four its).
Travel, of course, exposes managers to various cultures, economies, political systems and markets. Working on global teams teaches managers to operate on an interpersonal level while dealing with business decision-making processes which are embraced by differences in cultural norms and business models. While formal training seminars also play an important role, most of the global leaders interviewed said that the most influential developmental experience in their lives was the international assignment. In fact, increasingly global companies are requiring that their managers have overseas assignment experience in order to progress to top management positions. Of course, the benefits accruing to the organization depend on how effectively the assignment and repatriation is handled, as discussed in Chapter 9.
Effective global leadership involves the ability to inspire and influence the thinking, attitudes, and behavior of people anywhere in that world. The importance of the leadership role cannot be overemphasized because the leader's interactions strongly influence the motivation and behavior of employees, and ultimately, the entire climate of the organization. The cumulative effects of one or more weak managers can have a significant negative impact on the ability of the organization to meet its objectives.
Managers on international assignments try to maximize leadership effectiveness by juggling several important, and sometimes conflicting, roles as (1. a representative of the parent firm, (2. the manager of the local firm, (3. a resident of the local community, (4. a citizen of either the host country or of another country, (5. a member of a profession, and (6. a member of a family.
The leader's role comprises the interaction of two sets of variables - the content and the context of leadership. The content of leadership comprises the attributes of the leader and the decisions to be made; the context of leadership comprises all those variables related to the particular situation. The increased number of variables (political, economic, and cultural) in the context of the managerial job abroad requires astute leadership. Some of the variables in the content and context of the leader's role in foreign settings are shown in Exhibit
10-6. The multicultural leader's role thus blends leadership, communication, motivational, and other managerial skills within unique and ever-changing environments. We will examine the contingent nature of such leadership throughout this section.
The Global Leader’s Role and Environment : Resource for Business Management article from Global Human Resource Management Catagory The Global Leader’s Role and Environment
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