Chapter 11 – Global Leadership Issues and Practices
CHAPTER 11
Global Leadership Issues and Practices
Learning Objectives
LO11-1 Discuss the importance of creating a company “global mindset.”
LO11-2 Describe what distinguishes the practice of global leadership from its domestic
counterpart.
LO11-3 Identify the competencies required for effective global leadership.
LO11-4 Discuss approaches for selecting and developing effective global leaders.
LO11-5 Explain what skills a manager needs in order to effectively lead global teams.
LO11-6 Identify some of the challenges of leading global change.
NOTE:
International business statistics, data, and facts about countries, regions, governments, and
companies can change rapidly and dramatically. We recommend that you update this information
regularly to present your students with timely data reflecting current global events.
As an adopter of this text, McGraw-Hill Irwin offers you a complementary online resource each
month, the International Business Newsletter. The IB Newsletter gives you an array of timely
and relevant articles, videos, country profiles, teaching suggestions, and data resources to add
breadth, depth, and richness to the ever-changing topic of international business.
iGlobe is also a way to keep your courses current. In partnership with PBS,
iGlobe is a free video service for McGraw-Hill adopters that allows you to download
breaking news videos onto your desktop to show in class or online. Updated
monthly, these streaming videos are complete with teaching notes and discussion
questions. Key concepts for each video are identified to save you time! See
www.MHHE.com and contact your sales representative for access codes.
Overview
Rapid economic growth in the emerging markets, particularly the so-called BRIC
nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is creating large new markets for consumer and
industrial goods. The revolution in communications and computer technology, including
the Internet, social media, smart phones, and other developments, is enabling diverse and
geographically dispersed groups of employees to collaborate in their work and to learn
from and with each other. Developments in shipping and logistics are heightening
pressure on companies to reconfigure their value chains in order to maintain
competitiveness. Expanded geographic scope of operations is exposing companies to
different regulatory environments, a more diverse set of suppliers and competitors, and
exposure to a variety of unfamiliar risks.
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Chapter 11 – Global Leadership Issues and Practices
International companies require a new type of leader in order to compete
successfully in this complex and dynamic global environment. These global leaders need
to not only be proficient in terms of their business acumen, but to also evidence an array
of additional skills. They must be able to envision the nature and direction of change that
is occurring within and across markets of the world and the implications of these changes
for the company’s strategy. They must evidence cultural understanding and adaptability,
rather than being constrained by experiences only within their home country and culture.
They must be able to understand, work with, and inspire individuals from a range of
nations and cultures to create new technologies, businesses, and organizations.
Suggestions and Comments
1. Often students and others assume that global leadership is the same as regular
leadership, with some great travel added. The important message of this chapter is
that, due to the added complexities of the international context, global leadership is
exceedingly complex.
2. Guest speakers who can explain how the complex environment increases the
challenges of global leadership would add to the student appreciation of this topic.
Perhaps you have access to UN or other NGO administrators, international division
officers of major companies, etc.
Lecture Outline
I. The Global Mindset
A. intellectual intelligence, including business acumen
B. global emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, cross-cultural
understanding, cultural adjustment, and cross-cultural effectiveness
II. What is Global Leadership and why is it important?
A. Differentiation of management and leadership (Warren Bennis)
B. How Global Leadership Differs from Domestic Leadership
1. Four dimensions of complexity: multiplicity, ambiguity,
interdependence and flux/dynamism
2. Globalization increases both internal and external complexities
3. Global leadership is the same but different in kind from domestic
leadership
III. What competencies are required for effective global leadership?
A. Selecting and Developing Effective Global Leaders
1. Same skills as domestic leader needed plus additional global skills
2. more significant impact of emotional stability, ability to learn, and
decision-making and negotiating skills for global leaders than for
domestic leaders
3. Brake’s Global Leadership Triad: business acumen, relationship
management skills, and personal effectiveness skills
4. Pyramid Model of global leadership skills: 5-level progression of skills
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Chapter 11 – Global Leadership Issues and Practices
B. Assessing global leadership competencies
1. Many assessment instruments have been developed.
2. Choice of instrument depends on context
C. Models for developing global leaders
1. The GLED model: emphasis on process by which expertise developed
2. The “right stuff” model: match between leader’s skills and abilities and
the firm’s needs.
D. Tools and Techniques for developing global leadership skills
1. Non-linear process comprised of diverse experiences
2. Skills necessary to deal effectively with the complex, ambiguous, high-
level challenges
IV. Leading Global Teams
A. Leading global teams is a complex activity
1. High level of diversity
2. Geographic dispersion
3. Virtual environment
B. Central tasks of team leadership
1. Establish the team
2. Coach the team members
3. Set team norms
C. Context for global teams
1. Increased multiplicity
2. Increased ambiguity
3. Increased interdependence
D. Culture and global team leadership
1. How teams are managed
2. Communication norms
3. Conflict resolution norms
E. Virtual and geographically dispersed teams
F. Performance management in global teams
1. Difficult due to cultural issues and virtuality
2. Reward individual performance, team performance or combination,
depending on team membership and task
V. Leading Global Change
A. Change models
1. Kurt Lewin model: unfreeze, change, refreeze
2. Kotter’s eight steps
3. Change not an orderly process
B. Change and culture
1. Attitude towards change influenced by culture
2. Driving change requires ability to communicate across cultural borders
Global Debate : Are women appropriate for global leadership positions?
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Chapter 11 – Global Leadership Issues and Practices
Research suggests that women have skills more appropriate to global leadership than do
men. Yet there are significant cultural values that impede women’s participation in global
leadership.
Worldview
One Consulting Company’s Practical Take on Global Leadership
Aperian Global, a consulting company whose goal is to open the world for its clients
(aperire in Latin is to open), has researched the issues of w how the global context
changes what leadership is and what competencies are required for global leadership.
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