Global Leadership in International Assignments

The global economy today is made up of many nationalities and each nationality brings with them a unique culture. Part of leadership success is learning who you are working with inside the organization. When a leader is examining what strategy will work best for the organization’s goals, it is important to remember that the terms “leadership” and “success” have numerous definitions depending upon the culture in which you are defining it (Rook). Forming working relationships is just one key in unlocking effective

Managers in today’s world are important assets to the multicultural organisations. Leadership styles of managers are highly important in terms of managing the team of followers, which has a correlation to the productivity and results that the team would achieve in the future. By having good management, it contributes to the success of the organisation. Hence, it is vital to identify the different leadership styles especially in different cultures to suit the working environment and culture of the organization. In the present multicultural global business industry, cultural differences can come in the way of the success of project completion (Anbari, Khilkhanova, Romanova, & Umpleby , 2009) . It has been claimed that rigid leadership does not promote motivation and creativity, therefore, managers should lead by flexible leadership and be culturally sensitive, adapting to different cultures, for the team to be able to move forward and reach their goals (Anabri et al. 2009). The way a manager’s leadership takes place also affect’s the experience of the employees at work and the relationship between the manager and the employee. Jariya (2012, p66) states that ‘different cultures differ in the values they endorse, people from these cultures often interpret the same managerial practices

Kreitner, R. (2009). International Management and Cross-Cultural competence. (11th ed.). Management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage

Rothman stands by the importance of effective leadership in accord with Schmitz, (2012) in “understanding cultural value dimensions in businesses” is significant for an organization. Since Dr. Rothman feels that globalization and new technology have fast, advanced in the last few years, it is also important, like Malonis statement in his article that “companies establishing a global presence devise strategies related to language cultural awareness and sensitivity.” (p. 347). Dr. Rothman understands that the process that an effective leader follows using the skills needed to build up an organization adequately is a combined effort of individuals working together. Recently he made a statement saying, “Ours is an institution that welcomes people from all countries and backgrounds.” It is important that the as a leader that the semantic ethic of any individual that other under their domain treat others that are different from themselves with respect alleviating intercultural conflicts. Knowledge and awareness of cultural values can enable leaders and managers to effectively manage and work through intercultural conflict and interactions (Schmitz,

In the article” Making it Overseas” by Mansour Javidan, Mary Teagarden, and David Bowen, states that for developing skills of global leadership, working all in various countries is one of the strategies which people can gain capabilities for cross-cultural issues. However, by gaining working experience overseas is not the only determinant to decide leaders’ success. In order to succeed overseas, leaders need a global mind-set, which includes Intellectual Capital, Psychological Capital, and Social Capital, and each of them are defined by three specific characteristics.

Being culturally intelligent: In order to work effectively in a team with global mindset, one needs to be culturally intelligent and fit. Evans et al. (2002) believes that international transfers and assignments are the strongest mechanisms for developing global mindset. International assignments not only provides the employee an exposure, it also provides understanding of global strategies, complexities and ability to work with people having different perspective.

In the current era of globalization, the new economic and political reforms has made it evident and clear that leaders of organization not only need to build trans- global competence, but there is also a need to build cross cultural competence. Cross- cultural competences is known to be enhancement of flexibility and awareness for having the capability and ability for thriving and surviving across the global era as a business organizations (Jonsen, 2010).

Global expansion, Global Leadership, Global Trends, are all important topics in this growing business world, it is crucial to be a leader who is effective in the comprehension of cultural variances between their native country and the countries they are interesting in working with. Businesses know that it is important to have a leader who has the ability to work in diverse work environments (Murmu, 2014, p67). Furthermore, adding to the need of leaders who can identify, understand and correctly address different issues that can arise when doing business globally, such as, culture, religious conviction, and society within each country they wish to conduct business in. The avoidance of making the error of operating under the assumption that all

Cultural intelligence assessment will enable the individual to have certain information about himself. It is posited that cultural difference has a greater impact on business effectiveness than we think. That our cultural backgrounds really influence the way we think and act and the way we interpret each others contributions. Our success or failure in communication will depend on the extent at which we understand the different cultural background of the employees and create a fruitful collaboration in situations where cultural differences play a role. To achieve this, we need to act in an appropriate way in multicultural situations coupled with the ability to have an open mind which admits new information and this is curious about

In order to form a leadership that keep on with the passage of time, international leaders and managers ought to demonstrate likely competences in cross-cultural cognizance and practice. It is vital they recognize the value of leadership and managerial potentials, and to grow and sustain effective leadership approaches and methods for abiding diversity management (Ulrich and Smallwood, 2012). The conjecture emerges is that successful and effective international leaders and managers holds key to solve the secret of working with diverse workforce and dealing with them for the purpose of organizational development in order to enhance competitiveness.

As organizations become increasingly global, the success of organizations is dependent on the leader’s skills in merging diverse cultures in building high performance teams across multiple countries. Global organizations are required to adapt to continuous changes in culturally diverse global business environment. Multinational leaders must become adapt to leading a culturally diverse workforce if the organization is to become transcontinental. Therefore, there must be an emphasis on diversity training and cultural sensitivity training across the organization, especially among members of executive leadership. Inclusive leadership has been presented as the most applicable global leadership style as businesses make the transition from a local to global mindset. This synopsis will discuss integrating varied perspective, negotiating strategies and cultural mindsets, and communicating methods that facilitate organizational strategy, This document will conclude with a summarization of this discussion.

Culture influences leadership in many ways, so it is helpful to first understand what culture is. According to our text culture is defined as the learned beliefs, values, rules, norms, symbols, and traditions that are common to a group of people (Northouse, 2016). Culture is the way of life, customs, and script of a group of people. Different cultures have different ideas about what they want from their leaders, but by understanding cultural differences leaders can become more empathetic and accurate in their communication with others. It is clear that different culture groups desire different leadership behaviors when they are looking for an effective leader. Surprisingly there were effective leadership attributes that was identified as universal characteristics. Positive leader attributes include being trustworthy, positive,

There are a number of specific cultural leadership skills needed for effective cross-cultural leadership, with cultural metacognition being essential. Leaders with high cultural intelligence skills are able to

The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research Program, or GLOBE, is an extensive research program devoted to understanding how culture influences leadership and different organizational processes (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, Gupta, 2004, pp. 9). This program consists of three separate phases, the first being an empirical study focused on developing research instruments (House et al., 2004, p. 9). The second phase is primarily geared toward the “assessment of the nine core attributes of societal and organization cultures” which are referred to as cultural dimensions (House et al., 2004, p. 9). And the last phase is currently underway as an investigation of the impact and effectiveness of specific leader styles

In times of rapid globalisation and economic development growth, the environment of business has become more and more complicated as a huge number of firms want to globally expand their businesses. Subsequently, the managerial implications of cross-cultural management is the challenge of this development. As Abbe (2007) states, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the global markets. Culture is the “software of mind” that can influence people’s patterns of thinking and behaving.