Leadership is one of the most studied subjects in the last decade. The World Wide Web has all the studies, ways, notions, and drills required to be a tremendous leader. A worthy debate can be conducted on the topic “leaders are made, not born” or vice versa. The global phenomenon of world leadership is glistening in the recent emerging globalized business market. This emerging attribute is changing the way in which the global context expands and how the leadership emerges in global business. The expansion of the business with company’s operations going global demands for extraordinary leadership skills. It should also be noted that sometimes companies keeps their leaders of the same nationality, even for other nations. For example, Huawei‘s CEOs, all around the world, belong to the same nationality. When a business goes global, it is prone to bigger challenges and complexities, which at the times domestic leaders lack the expertise to handle. The attributes, a leader have to acquired, range from culture, politics to geography and economy.
Nancy Adler, PhD in management describes: “Global leaders, unlike domestic leaders, address people worldwide. Global leadership theory, unlike its domestic counterpart, is concerned with the interaction of people and ideas among cultures, rather than with either the efficacy of particular leadership styles within the leader’s home country or with the comparison of leadership approaches among leaders from various countries – each of whose domain is limited to issues and people within their own cultural environment. A fundamental distinction is that global leadership is neither domestic nor multi-domestic”.
The leaders have to change their mindset towards the other cultural awareness, their capabilities, and their complications. Learning the other culture will help in understanding the basic mentality of the residing people. To communicate, the leader should also learn the required languages of a geographical area that they are going to lead. It’s not compulsory, but a slight touch of foreign language will strengthen the communication core of the leader. Further, learning customs, religions, and ethnicities will help in understanding the citizens and their mindsets because there is always a joke that turns out to be offensive in some other culture. The leader should be aware of the politics, which entails the laws, trading guidelines, ties, and currency policies. Laws and various ties have different customs duties and middleman in different geographical areas. In terms of terrestrial areas, the front-runners should know the area physically. They should know about the land borders and their rules and regulations. Further, the time zone and climate should also be learned. Economy wise, the leaders should be aware of the income level, infrastructure, natural resources and economic information.
The Global Mindset
A global mindset is mandatory to form, in order to lead in any foreign countries. Expanding the mindset will help in understanding the capabilities, cultural consciousness, and complexities. The global mindset has also been characterized on characterize the context of globalization in four conditions: multiplicity, interdependence, flux, and ambiguity (Lane, Maznevski, Mendenhall and McNett, 2004).
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